I noticed the post on a friend’s social media page earlier:

“Getting hard to breathe as CA fires blow our way.”

She’s praying for rain, while smoke makes it hard to catch her breath.  Many others are too.

I didn’t expect it, but I got a catch in my throat as I read her message.

There are no fires near me, but I had an inkling of her misery today as I mowed my lawn.  There has been very little rain for a few weeks and the soil under the grass is parched.  With more than a few mole tunnels pushed up across the width and length of the yard, I knew I was in for a dusty job when I headed out to begin the task.

I did borrow a face cowl from the Lovely Lady before venturing out.  I had no idea how much I would need it.  As it turned out, I should have found some swim goggles to go with it.

Dust billowed out from my mower—by the buckets full, it seemed to me—and yet I sped on across the yard.  I soon found that, if I rode along in a straight line, I could stay ahead of the murky haze of flying dirt.  But eventually, I had to turn, always back directly into the hazy cloud.

The face cowl helped considerably.  I could breathe, at least.  But again and again, I was overcome by the dirt in my eyes, burning and stinging.  It would go dark as I was forced to close my eyelids against the irritating dust.  Each time it happened, I released the grab bars that controlled my forward progress and, sitting atop the roaring machine in the diminishing fog, would wipe my eyes, either with my finger or with a handkerchief dampened from my water bottle.

I felt a little like Pigpen, the Peanuts character who raised dust wherever he walked in the comic strip.  I’m certain the neighbors were almost as relieved as I was when the task was finished.

But, on a couple of the occasions I had to stop the mower today, I did so in the darkness, caused not only by the dust but also by panic.  Momentarily, I would be confused as to where (and into what) the machine and its rider were headed.

Was I going to hit a tree?  A gas meter or water faucet?  Perhaps the flowerpot that held the Lovely Lady’s columbine plant was in my path!  I’m not sure a little dirt in my eyes would have sufficed as an adequate excuse for that damage!

Do you know what it feels like to lose sight of reality?  Of the straight road you’ve marked out in front of you?

It was only an inkling.  Merely the tiniest glimpse of what hopelessness could feel like.

But, while I was in the midst of it, it seemed to me that I might never breathe easily, nor see clearly again.  I knew I would, but it’s easy to be overwhelmed when in the grip of an uncomfortable turn of events.

As I contemplated later, clean and grit-free in my easy chair, my thoughts went back several decades and I finally began to understand.

I remember standing outside that hospital with tears in my eyes.  I cried again later that evening as I attempted to understand the darkness one had to feel to attempt to end their own life.

It was years ago—in the last century—if you must know.  We’ve moved more than once since then.  The names have faded into obscurity; the faces almost so.

The couple, not young, lived near us in a small rental house.  Their lives hadn’t been easy, but there had been no events that prepared me for hearing the ambulance outside our back door. And, I certainly didn’t anticipate following the paramedics to the hospital with an inebriated husband in my passenger seat.

The wife had taken a lot of pills.  More than a handful.  In her mind, it was the only alternative she had in a hopeless situation.  Her husband, incapacitated as he was, was no help.  But, eventually, he figured out she was in trouble and called 911.

Thus, the trip to the hospital.  I offered to take him since it was clear he was in no condition to drive.

The team at the hospital was able to save her life.  It didn’t fix her problems.  Nor his.  But, she lived. They moved away just weeks later, so I don’t know how their lives have gone, except that I heard their marriage ended soon after that.

I’m not sure the darkness ever lifted for them.  I pray it has.

Did I say there were tears in my eyes?  One might wonder why.  They hadn’t been great neighbors.  They argued loudly late at night.  When he had had a little too much to drink (which was not infrequent), he sang country music at the top of his lungs from the front porch of the little house.  They borrowed tools—and money—and my old bicycle, and didn’t always feel the need to return them.

And yet, I cried.  For her, and her blind despair.  And for him, and how he was treated by the doctor at the hospital.  Rudely and with no respect nor regard for his terror that his wife might die.  All the doctor saw was his drunkenness and poverty, and he had no time nor sympathy to be wasted on the man.

And so, I sat tonight and wondered anew at how we look at each other—at our neighbors and strangers on the street corners.  At friends who have lost someone and can’t get over it.  At people who look different, and act differently, than we do.  Addicts and mentally ill.  Politicians and the spectacularly wealthy (or even poverty-stricken).  The list is endless.

And yet, they are neighbors.  Every one of them.

We all get the dust in our eyes at some point.  And, it’s easy to give up hope.  For ourselves.  For others.

Still, we’re all part of the human race.  We share a common condition—that of being part of Adam’s fallen progeny.  Our shared ancestor’s blindness has come over every one of us who walks this earth.

I know the tiniest thing about the blindness and fear that can overcome us.

And yet, hopelessness is not what has been promised to us.  Not at all.  We have hope.  In Christ, our hope is certain.  And, we walk in light.

We do.  We walk in Light.

The Light that shines in every dark place.  And we have the astounding privilege to share that light, carrying it within our very souls.

The smoke will clear.  The rain will fall and settle the dust.  It will.

And, the Light will never be overcome.  Never.

That’s a promise. (John 1:5)

So for now, we get to shine.  In this house, in this neighborhood—be it hillside or valley, and in this world.

You might want to bring your goggles along, too.  There’s dust in the wind that’s blowing.

But, the Light shines still.

 

“Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:4, NLT)

“Carry your candle, run to the darkness.”
(Christopher M Rice)

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2024. All Rights Reserved.