Cycles of Newness

Shall we go on sinning that pain may increase?

Yesterday was a new day for me, a day of firsts. I had a test done on my gallbladder and an encounter with pain that made me reexamine the battle of life and death, and it unfolded faster than any dream I have dreamed.

As the nurse explained to me, in the first stage of a HIDA scan, you are administered an isotope that stimulates eating a greasy cheeseburger and fries right into the bloodstream. This is purely for masochistic reasons to gauge the patients reaction. This is how mine unfolded:

“Oh hey a needle here it comes breath slowly ok she taped it down. ”

“put your head in your hand, don’t look and keep breathing”

“oh hey the fluid feels cold but also kind of greasy”

“whoa nausea”

“whoa MORE nausea and someone kicked me in the abdomen”

“sight is gone, senses failing, she’s telling me to relax I think…”

“can’t hear anymore and there is no where I can go to get away from this feeling emanating from my gut”

Then I lost the will to think, that was fun, my internal narrative was drowned out. I was left playing the third wheel as my body and mind decided if they wanted to stay conscious without my input. They voted yes, so I slowly regained each sense, could feel my breathing again, and reclined my head to move some blood around. There was a moment in there where I thought, “Well should I give up?” but the next moment found even the will to live stripped away from me, the choice was not mine to make. I suppose that was the most powerless feeling I have ever had. Will leave it at that and not dive deeper into morbid things.

The pain was a good sign, meaning I could have my gallbladder removed and possibly be pain free… (Is life ever pain free? I am afraid to lose pain, losing my pain means embracing death in a sense. RIP my gallbladder.)

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On the subject of pain, but also moving on to the subject of forgiveness, I had a chance to write a silly response to a moral question involving the Holocaust. If you have read The Sunflower, you are familiar with the question. If I were a prisoner in a concentration camp and a Nazi confessed to me on his death-bed, would I forgive him? I do not know, I know of the grace and mercy given me, but I also know my own selfish nature. I personally don’t question the “moralness” of forgiving a Nazi though many do. To forgive is divine, and always divine. When I truly forgive, I require God to take me through the act, and God only brings goodness. Well here is my silly response:

Heaven knows how I would react. I hope I would have forgiven the man on his deathbed. I suppose it is for a selfish reason – I am tired of seeing more pain in the world. I must confess, I read a few of the responses before I wrote this, and many bothered me more than Simon’s story.

I don’t think it offends the dead if we forgive their perpetrators, on the contrary, I think we offend the dead as we drag them into our debates and justifications for our actions. Forgiveness is between me, the man in front of me and God – our Creator. The dead however, are resting. In the Old Testament, the dead are said to be asleep in Sheol, and when the spirit of Samuel is summoned before Saul, he asks, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” 1 Samuel 28:15. Let the dead rest.

Maybe I can explain my position from a personal example. Due to my health, I wake up with pain every day. I have found that pity is similar, or perhaps even a type of unforgiveness. When someone pities me, they try to feel my pain and shake their fist at the source – food, the people who make the bad food, stress, nature, evil, even God. So instead of one person in pain, there is now two, and more pain and unforgiveness has been brought into the world. Then I am tempted to feel guilty for their pain, and from my guilt more pain has entered the world. And a cycle continues as pain begets more pain. The only exit I have found to this cycle is forgiveness. By forgiving I acknowledge the pain and the offense done, but relinquish my right to strike back at my perpetrator. So I hope I would forgive the dying man for both our sakes and the World’s.