I Can Live this Day
God in the Underground
His cruelty shocks me the most. A sad example of a man speaking about other human beings as if they’re a plague draining a once-good society of its lifeblood. As if they’re the scourge that ruins the farmland, the pest that eats at the foundations. As if they are an invasive species, suffocating the once-healthy nation, smothering the vital, ruining the landscape. As if they are malignant, a brew of ignorance, anger and filth. As if scraping them from the walls and shoveling them into tent cities, piling them onto the burn pile, is progress.
I don’t know what to do with my revulsion toward him, welling up inside me. I want to wrench and vomit, but disgust can’t be expelled. It sticks to the ribs while it churns in my gut.
So, I must look away. I can’t bear to see his face anymore, anyway. I stop my already hard-of-hearing ears. I can’t stand to hear his whiny voice, slithering lies, and bombastic threats, the “little mouth that boasts great things.” I can’t read the headlines, except for the short ones that only land a gut punch and then move on, without lingering to hammer at me. Squint, grit my teeth, and clench my abs—that’s how I get through the daily news.
Then, I turn to God.
“Worthy is the One who rules to receive glory, honor and blessing.
“Because you created all things and every being according to your own design, your own plan, and your own purposes. And you created me, a server, and set me here, among these servers.
“Give me this day the wisdom to know what to say and what not to say, to know what to do and what not to do. Give me the conviction that comes of that wisdom. And give me the courage of my convictions. So that I might serve to the best of my ability those whom you’ll bring within my sphere of influence today.
“Worthy is the One who rules to receive glory, honor and blessing, love and devotion, gratitude and thanksgiving, now and forever. Amen.”
Then I recall that God is at work, here, in the underground where the journalists do not see, feeding the hungry, serving the poor, healing the wounded, building peace between strangers…through me and the servers who, like me, see human beings as fellow creatures of the Divine, siblings of the Son of Man. Focus here, I tell myself, on the underground, where my neighbor lives, and attend to his needs.
In the refocus I sense my nausea ease, and the peace deep in my soul begins to shine again through the turbidity, and my breathing frees, and I think, yes, I can live this day.
And God will deal with the cruel when the time comes.