It's ok to get pissed. Im learning that now. Don't get me wrong. I don't wanna live that way (thats a whole other blog). But putting on.... happy-shiny-people every time a bomb goes off... ain't healthy either.
My home base at work these days is the bathroom. (sometimes I hide there to keep from going nuts). In fact, I spend a lot of time there... and gossip abounds as to what I actually do in there.
But one thing that I began doing somewhere along the way was reading some of the old ancient Hebrew texts.... in the bible.... (among other books)...
Not in a pious.... churchy way... But more from desperation... It was either that... or start taking Prozac...... (I ended up doing both.).
What I found is that I learned a lot about some of the great blues artists of the mid to late bronze/early iron period... (2000-500 BCE).
Just like playing the blues, some of the great historical figures in the Jewish tradition have voiced doubts about their faith.
David (a central figure in Judaism) didn't mind saying exactly how he felt.... Anger... Rage... Fear...
David was one of the first (in writing) to question Gods where-abouts... in a messed up world.
(a very Jewish Jesus echoes those same fears... word for word during his own death).
Job... Begs for death. Gets sarcastic with his friends... angry with both them and God.....Makes all kinds of demands!!!
A Jewish poet, after watching his country raped and pillaged...... (very young children and old people... displaced.... or brutally discarded....)
writes the seething words to a psalm of hatred and revenge... Not only to Isreals enemies... But also to their enemies children...
Infants...
"a reward to the ones who grab YOUR babies and smash THEIR heads on the rocks".... (Msg).
Brutal. Ugly... Vengeful.... (Not the Jesus way)... But honest none the less.
Imagine that this dude was a survivor of 9/11. Imagine he made it from one of the towers only to watch people escaping the fire above... by free-falling to the pavement below. What if this dude witnessed an unspeakable brutality occurring to his own people... maybe his close friends... his own family.... His children...?
In the Jewish world.... this song makes sense... not because it's an answer to the problem... But because it's a true expression of the pain. In fact..... In the Jewish world... Not only does this song make sense..... it actually makes the Jewish hymnal. (Psalm 137).
Anger! Hate! Jealousy! Payback!! All part of the Jewish tradition... All a part of the confessions of their fear and pain and doubt...
ie...."I'm hurt... And I'm pissed.... And I want to know what the F... is going on..."
There's no inappropriate starting place in the Jewish world... It's all a part of the all too real... life (and consequent faith) that make up who they are as people in a jacked up world.
It's the human experience... in all of its ugliness.... and so it's all a part of their blues.
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That said..... it's the opposite of everything I know from my past religious experience.
In my religious world..... it seems that I always had to pretend to know things I didn't know... feel things that I didn't always feel...
*Or not feel the things that I did.... (ie... puberty... adolescence)...
I was supposed to have easy answers to difficult questions... be evangelical... conservative.... republican..
I was never to question my traditions and beliefs... I wasn't to be a truth seeker but more of a "cheerleader" for the cause...
When it came to good and bad... I was supposed to (selectively) bootstrap morality....... (they would show you what was important... and what wasn't).. and then fake the rest of it. No questions. No doubts. whatever fell outside of "appropriate"... was kept locked up inside... Locked and loaded for the inevitable meltdown to come.
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Back in the break room it was starting to get awkward. 12 seconds since Julia had asked me wether I believed in God. 12.....silent...... awkward seconds.
Watchers around us were getting up to leave. Friends of mine... "Religious" people who knew my issues and struggles. Leaving me there alone... afraid to hear the worst.
But Julia remained with me. Julia was still waiting on my response....
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A lot of crap goes down in the world.
* Some readers of this blog have reminded me that some of this stuff is depressing........ Then I remind them that it's a "Blues" blog).
I've seen a lot of crap as a nurse (literally in some cases). Some of it stays with me...... some of the things that come to mind...
-My first dying patient.
-The time a nurse flung poo onto my undershirt. (we were cleaning a patient up.... and it was accidental..................I think..).
-the time I had to tell a woman that her sister (who had down syndrome) had unexpectedly died while she was downstairs getting coffee.
But consistently when I think about nursing shockers... my mind returns to my lady in room 7616.
I was clocking in one day when I 1st heard about her and immediately I was shocked... Then I went numb.
Did you hear about what happened to your lady in 16? a friend had asked.
I just looked at her. It felt like I was listening to some celebrity "news" show on TV.
She had to go to the Unit last night. She said.
I was blank and asked her how she was doing.... and she answered... "she didn't make it".
My hands were instantly sweaty and I could feel a wave of heat growing up from behind me.... like standing on the 40th floor of a building on fire.... The no win choice.... burn??? or jump??? I bootstrapped my way through a response. "I thought she was in remission".... I said.
It wasn't the cancer.... She answered. Most likely a PE
(pulmonary embolus.... blood clot to the lungs).
That's ironic isn't it? she asked.... To find out one day you're gonna live.... and then the next.... that you're not.
I was making my way to the report room dazed... and it felt like the weight of what it feels like when you stand too close to a collapsing building. But without noticing I shifted into protection mode and made a detour to the bathroom. I took my book "Catcher in the Rye". And as I sat there on the toilet I read about how Holden Caufield was leaving everyone....
And I read about how he was talking to his kid-sister Pheobe about a dream that he had once where he was standing in a Rye field.. watching some kids play near a cliff.... And in the
dream.... he told her.... it was his job to catch these kids before they fell over the edge of the cliff.... He was a "Catcher in the Rye".... And that was the part of the book I was reading while I was sitting on the toilet in the bathroom. And I was trying to read it while my name was being called overhead.... because somebody needed their damn pillow adjusted.... or something stupid like that. And even though I couldn't fully explain why....... I felt like I wanted to scream. And I could feel the wave of emotion welling up in my chest like a heart attack. But just like the religious world I knew... everything was locked down tight.... nothing could get out..... maybe because I was broken inside... or maybe it was that evolving... thickened layer of skin that nurses have.... or maybe it was just the damn Prozac.
(Next.... Julia 5: my answer).
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