Interstellar Black Holes and Further Rot

My brain, as empty as one might expect it to be, does not, in fact, have the blank space set aside to allow the secondhand anxiety required in order to watch sci-fi thrillers. To my own vexing revelation, I often find myself starring as precisely the astronaut hero in one of those movies when her tether snaps, releasing her from the security of the space ship, and now she’s personifying the object of Newton’s 1st Law in a great blackness trying to keep from spinning into an ominous “anything.”

I look myself in the mirror after being sick for 2+ weeks and wish I had not done so because it does bode well for lifting the spirits. 

Such phlegm and mucous that it backed up into my eyes.  Same to almost all my boys. A few fevers, but not for everyone, and so much coughing and gagging all hours. Coughing until the eyeballs feel they’re being made to walk the plank, and the stomach contents full out abandon ship because the spasms are so forceful. It this RSV? I’ve never seen it in action before, but it appears to be the most likely diagnosis from what I’ve read, and from the experiences of those I’ve talked to.

Because otherwise, I don’t remember a basic cough lingering for so long nor draining me so thoroughly. 

It’s times like these, incited by the dark hours of the night, when I’ve laid back down after wiping the crust out of someone’s eyes that the flailing astronaut finds it the most splendid opportunity to contemplate questions like “are we doing enough?? For school? For life? What books? What topics haven’t been covered enough?  What about—? What’s high school going to be like— !! Lex will legally be an adult in 4 years. CRAP. WHERE DID THAT PRECIOUS TIME GO? Did we spend it wisely? Have we equipped these boys for this guillotine of a world? BOYS!! Oh! These sweet boys who MUST be defenders, providers, protectors and seekers of truth under this blade which slashes at every angle to emasculate and ensnare men —specifically men—into every vice imaginable and unimaginable. . .”

Your madam, the astronaut, spirals on from there in propulsion from the initial snapping of the tether, all in full knowledge that oxygen is limited, and there’s no west wind blowing to drift her back with the tumbleweed to safety. The wormholes of thought she falls into which are deeper, darker, and twistier than the above questions begin swallowing her up, especially if she’s been reading a bit of the news on her phone. Classic recipe.

“Mary kept all of these things, reflecting on them in her heart. . .” I doubt she even flailed, let alone become untethered; for to have such a Son, and be filled with such Grace, her faith silences outer space hurricanes before the physics of the matter can even pull itself together and create one. 

I feel like a child in the night, having run to my parent’s bedside, desperately begging “LORD! Strengthen these little men of mine with stout upright backs, clear heads and eyes, pure hearts and tongues, and a sharp set of ears listening always for Your voice as You call them to their vocations. Equip me with the grace to arm them!” 

I pray this every day, with urgency. I do it with such urgency because oh, do I battle to keep hold of this invisible, intangible wealth called faith and the lack of gravity to hold me down in moments when I’m definitely too ill to reason my way out of such spiralings. Worry is a black hole that thrives on the deconstruction of the human psyche, and to indulge in it is in some way being complicit with the anti-architect.  So I pray, remembering all those times that I was gifted small graces of feeling God’s pull in my life, and keeping all these things in my heart, trusting in my Father. 

I wake at home, sunlight streaming in the window, someOne having tethered me back to the safety of now, and with this wide-eyed, child like faith, I get up and go on

. . .page after page, book after book, snots after snots,
Battlestar Galactica after Battlestar Galactica.

“Pray, hope, and do not worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.” Padre Pio