Leave the Pie Alone
We talk incessantly about loss around here. It isn’t that I’m an expert on loss. It is more that I am a student of loss. While not a class I intended on enrolling in, loss, and his partner grief, have proven themselves to be apt professors. See, I still want to see God’s beauty in this cruel world. You may say prayer is the answer. I happen to agree with you. But, how does one use prayer to the fullest in the face of the paramount tragedy, the death of a child? Professors Loss & Grief tell me it is by diving in headfirst. A shrinking wallflower does not an intentional prayer make. Now, I may have forgotten to tell you one important detail. I have flunked this class several times already. Many of my exercises remain nonsubmitted zeros in the grade book. Others have been masterfully plagiarized, nearly to the point of my expulsion. I may or may not have paraphrased a few Edna St. Vincent Millay poems into prayer assignments, but let’s have that remain between us, shall we? During my current enrollment period, I have managed to pass most of the class. I’m now in the do or die phase. Everything rides on this final grade. And, it is the direst assignment of them all. I call it prayer by practice. How do you show up for someone else when you still can’t emotionally handle your own stuff?
