Inspiritus

Not long after Jonah died, Christian had a dream. He watched helplessly as a train hurdled toward the church where he works and where all his numerous, carefully curated theological volumes now live on ordered shelves. The train smashed into the exact spot where his books were, leaving a flaming mass of paper and ash in its wake. His categories, the wisdom of thinkers long admired, instantly reduced to cinder. A devastation of ideas. The basis and bibliography of an earnest, thoughtful life’s work, no more. 

That imaginary train may as well have run itself through the very center of our home, too.  Through the center of our vital organs. Through our brain, lungs, guts. We may as well have been on that train, our soft bodies hurling in space, smashing into metal, glass, and rail, passing through fire and smoke, coming to rest finally, stunned, broken, ears ringing with tears in our eyes. 

Crawling from the wreckage, slowly, instinct taking over, because logic and reason aren’t reasonable here. Finally looking up, finding the axis upon which we spun, the orbit of worlds, forever altered. Where in God’s name were we now? An unfamiliar country where nothing makes sense. Wandering, shuffling, confused, in an unwelcoming and unwelcome land. 

We used to know something. 

We felt safe, in a life thoughtfully constructed. We had a location. We had ideas, aspirations, dreams. We imagined an almost inevitably beautiful future. We had sown our inheritance. And now…now there was only a gaping, ugly, obscene, crater where one of our most precious treasures had been. The landscape, unrecognizable. Ash and bone and sorrow. 

We must unwillingly leave behind the life we had loved so very, very much. To stay here and try and re-stack the stones would only remind us of what can never be again. We cannot impose reason on the unreasonable; order on that which is utterly out of out of order. Our human effort will never recover what has been lost. There are no more plans of our own design. Instead, there is something new and undiscovered Yahweh has for us which we must find.

We must simply follow the flow and breathe in the Spirit.

And love.

It may be all we have strength to do anymore.

Inspiritus.

And Jonah will come with us. Maybe he is even going before us, charting the way. 

Never far. 

Never apart. 

Just not here, as we know it. 

But then again, what do we mortals know anyway? 

_________________________________________

Inspiritus - Latin. To draw air into the lungs; to breathe into; to breathe in spirit; or, simply put, to be alive.