Tag: MS

The irony is not lost on the occasion to use a spare tire donning a “Life is Good” tire cover. Meant to outfit the road with good vibes, optimism, and goodwill towards mankind, the tire cover now serves as a paradoxical billboard to the cosmic piss off the rest off the motorists have felt but couldn’t voice. I can imagine someone sitting in front of the glow of their screen, sipping a latte, listening to some pretentious hipster rage ballad ordering this tire cover on Amazon Prime – free two-day delivery – never giving a second thought to removing the damn thing once it was put in its proper place. But alas, a bump in the road – or spike – knows not of the solicited optimism, nor the repeat of the hipster rage ballad on the satellite radio! Life happens! And it isn’t always charming!

Lack of charm makes the man of Jesus, not the Savior, all the more bad ass! Jesus wasn’t just a divine storyteller of some vague far, far away land where believers would be able to escape the perils of their neighbor. No. Jesus brought the Kingdom here. He did the Kingdom here! He prayed for the Kingdom here! He showed others how to bring the Kingdom here. The Kingdom is near.

Self-pity destroys the Kingdom not because of the sorrow of misfortune, but because of the belief “I” am the only one suffering! A Kingdom isn’t made of just one, rather a multitude. Focus needs to be on the Kingdom. Recently, Kari has once again proved to be a daughter of God with her insatiable pursuit of Kingdom in the midst of her own personal struggle with the diagnosis of MS. Walking forward, not with her head held high on the One above, but rather with her hand out stretched to pick me up out of the dirt to reestablish Kingdom, she says, “I’ll help with the tire, but that cover… it has got to go!”

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
-Leonard Cohen

Juxtaposition; a commonly used empty calorie academic word meaning little more than placing one construct or object next to another to allow a conspicuously brief moment of comparison or contrast. Imagine the Louvre museum, draped in all its sixteenth century Baroque and Gothic architecture built by noble Europeans. Now imagine it with a colossal ultramodern glass pyramid doorway built by a Chinaman placed directly in front of THE picturesque location of the museum. That is juxtaposition. A disturbance of the sacred and untouchable – old standing with new – good with bad – to create an imbalance so demanding each piece is acknowledged more than it would have been in solitude. Needless to say, this imbalance, no matter the virtues, pissed more than a few people off.

Last Tuesday, Kari and I walked into Mercy’s NeuroScience Institute that boasts its own “gigantic and ruinous” glass pyramid entrée. Our juxtaposition had nothing to do with architecture and all to do with well-being and a DVD we held in our hands of Kari’s brain. Waiting for the doctor was agonizing, but it allowed for fears to be vocalized, tears to be shed, emotions to be worn, expectations to be lost, and commitments to be reaffirmed. The doctor dimmed the lights and projected axial T2-weighted images of Kari’s brain on the screen to show us what we feared – white lesions – a telltale sign of multiple sclerosis (MS).

After the words “multiple sclerosis” were uttered, only ringing and silence could be heard, despite the doctor’s continuing diagnosis. Images of our own were being projected of loss, pain, and the unknown. Treatment options were being given to Kari and the white flash of the MS bomb hadn’t even dimmed, but it had ignited a wave of fury in me. Why Kari? Of all people? Of us? The one that spreads joy, happiness, and goodwill to her fellow man gets shit on? Why not me? I am the mean one! I am the one that deserves loss and pain. Not her! Not her! I lamented a bad decision by God in that moment and let God know it. Fuck! You want my heart? Here it is! Come and get it dick! Silence.

A week has passed and my prayer hasn’t changed. Kari, of course, is continuing to light the world up with her spirit, hope, and deeds. She is such a beautiful human being made in the image of God. Juxtaposed next to her has been my greatest joy in this life.

Up where the narrow bodies lie, suffused in sundown,


The children of God are stretched out


under the mountain,


Halfway up which the holy city stands, lights darkened.


Above the city, the nimbus of nowhere nods and retracts.

How is it that everyone seems to want


either one or the other?


Down here the birds leap like little chipmunks out of the long grasses.


Wind piddles about, and “God knows” is the difficult answer.