wrestling with pendulums.

"...she shook her head in sorrow and tried to think what she could answer to such a question.  She had no answer to a question so enormous and imponderable."  - bodie thoene in "My Father's House"

not sure i have a question so much as a wrestling match - a wrestling match that seems, at times, enormous and imponderable...something akin to a struggle to make it all make sense (knowing that it won't...at least not really).

i've been thinking lots about how opposite things can exist at the same time and the emotions/reactions they stir up....

• the news that one has been healed!  the news that one has died.
• the joy of worship on the ward...the desperate cries of a baby in pain just a few doors down.
• tears for the news of one who is staying (such sweet relief...the tears would have certainly had a different chemical make-up entirely if she had said she was among the dozens who are leaving after this field service); tears for the utter ugliness of a reaction of a crewmate (how can one be so self-centered and selfish?)(but then i turn inward and wonder when my own reaction is utterly selfish and self-centered).
• accomplishments and successess....failures and disappointments
• the beauty, delight and joy of christmas....the beauty, harshness and pain of the cross....the beauty, joy and relief of easter morning...

kind of reminds me of the theme song for that TV show "The Facts of Life"... "you take the good, you take the bad, you take 'em both and there you have the facts of life."

...and the wrestling that's most on my mind (and that is probably often on the mind of people on this vessel...)...

the heartbreak of saying good-bye....the heart challenge of saying hello.  last night we said good-bye to some really special people (one beautiful miss catharine in particular)....30 minutes later i was welcoming new crew in their monday night orientation.

as we are coming and going from the ship, we have to scan in and out at the gangway.  when you scan in the little computer voice says "welcome"....and as you're scanning out, it says "good-bye."  (pictures courtesy of caroline via a school project she did in computer class)

this morning after running i scanned in (welcome), a day crew scanned out (good-bye), gretchen scanned in (welcome), courtney scanned out (good-bye), all within the course of about 6 seconds.  quite the "sound picture" of what my heart is doing.  the pendulum swing can be tough to handle sometimes.

i could write a million cliches here (and even an Alfred Lord Tennyson quote)...perhaps some would be Truth...but some would just be band-aids for the ache.  i don't really want cliches or band-aids....especially in light of the fact that wrestling can be a pretty good exercise.  

surely there will be more to come.