Dear God,
I know what I’m supposed to be doing today: I’m supposed to be getting lesson plans ready for the winter, writing thoughtful blog entires for days ahead, studying a little Torah lishma (Torah just for its own sake), visiting an elderly lady, and unpacking my library. That was the plan.
What is it that they say, “Man plans, and God laughs?”
I have a cold. I have one of those stupid sorts of cold that gums up my brain so I can’t think and renders me into very little more than a factory for germs. I can’t go visit any shut-ins: this bug might kill them. I can’t follow my own notes for a lesson plan. And the only thing I can think to do with my blog is whine about my cold, which is very, very lame.
Here’s what I want to know: why did You make the Common Cold virus? Is is just to keep us humble? It’s a trivial illness for most of us, miserable but inconsequential. It will pass in 7 days to 3 weeks, leaving no trace. And yet:
I remember when a cold virus got loose at the nursing home where I was a student chaplain. It was as if the Angel of Death flew down the hallway; it took half the souls on the first floor alone. For the frail or the already-sick, this thing is no joke. So I must be careful with it, stay home for the worst of it, carry tissues and wash my hands like a crazed raccoon when I do go out, because every sneeze is the launch of a zillion warheads.
So here I am, whining to the internet: Poor me. Home with a cold. In my nice warm house, with nice warm soup on the stove. With my own bed. With loving friends sending me the occasional text: are you OK? Do you need anything?
Maybe the lesson of the cold is this: for at least some of us, there are always blessings to count, even when the count sounds like “One, Du, Tree.” And the universe is not all about me: it’s going right along, cold bug and all, while I hunker down with my blessings to get over it.
When I feel a bit more coherent, I should do something about the people with fewer blessings: those who lose their federal benefits this week, those who don’t have warm soup or a warm place to be. Perhaps I can take this opportunity to learn a little compassion for those whose illnesses are not so trivial, who feel just as miserable and know that they will never feel better.
But… first I have to get past the worst of this cold. Please, God, heal me, and help me learn whatever it is I can learn from this thing.
Amen.
Love,
Ruth
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