The older I get, the more life astonishes and humbles me. The heron standing silent in the water, biding its time for a fish. The little wren who settles himself into the corner of our back porch each evening, sleeping all night on that tiny perch. The way the eight-year-old grows, his body bigger and stronger, his character and humanity stretching. The hawk I hear calling, that almost prehistoric cry as he soars above the trees. It’s happening all the time this life. There is something about the never-ending nature of change and the constant renewal of the earth, besieged as it is by humanity and our lack of care, that takes my breath away. That the Creator set this all in motion and watches the endless cacophony of life with care and tenderness is more than my heart can hold. This passage from Job 38 is one of my favorites for that reason:
Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,
and a path for the thunderstorm,
26 to water a land where no one lives,
an uninhabited desert,
27 to satisfy a desolate wasteland
and make it sprout with grass?
28 Does the rain have a father?
Who fathers the drops of dew?
29 From whose womb comes the ice?
Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens
30 when the waters become hard as stone,
when the surface of the deep is frozen?
That he waters a land where no one lives makes me love the Creator more than I can express. That he loves this planet and its creatures, that it’s not all about humankind, makes God seem bigger and more trustworthy that Christianity often portrays him.
Two weeks ago my dad, who is ninety, was found unresponsive. He was given CPR and taken to the hospital, where they asked him what he wanted. And he said, “Shock me. I want to live.” And they did, and he did live. This expressed desire has endlessly echoed inside me ever since. I almost feel like it’s the only prayer I’ll ever need, that it’s the endless cry of not just humanity but of every living thing. It’s the echo of death and renewal that resounds through days and months and years and centuries and millennia. It brings me to my knees: Shock me. I want to live.