random darkness

I wrote a devotional piece for the weekly newsletter, last week (published by NECL.) It might show up on the NECL site eventually; I thought about pasting it into the blog for the sake of filing a copy (something I've done once or twice) but my mouse controls are acting up and I can't select text from within an email -- so maybe I'll do it later.

The devotional was rooted in a story I wanted to relate -- it wasn't really inspired by the text, as is often the case when I write devotionals, but the week's Biblical text had some personal relevance to the story. Truthfully, most of the devotionals I write are an excuse to talk about something already occupying my thoughts prior to the assignment.

In this case, it was an incident with a deer in a city park. I don't really want to re-write the story -- if it makes an appearance on the website I'll just add a link, but some of you get that E-Scroll newsletter yourselves and may have read it. The story is simple enough -- a wounded deer appeared in a sunlit park, dying as it crossed the sunny baseball field, while children played nearby and the rest of the world seemed carefree and oblivious.

I saw the deer because I was in the park myself, across the street from church, having a meeting with two community leaders. I was myself arrested by this scene -- after we called Animal Control and instructed the kids not harrass the deer, I couldn't turn back to the business at hand. I was just too distracted -- I ended the meeting as quickly as I could, and returned to the office, knowing it could be hours before the Animal Control people showed up. This week the memory still obscures a bit of the normal affection I have for Logan Park -- a dimming of the sunlight there. Such suffering is hard to tolerate -- this from the girl who throws gravel at her own cats to keep them from catching and tormenting the baby rabbits and squirrels who stray into the yard. I get weepy when I find dead baby birds fallen from the nest, I rage and curse at the bluejays when they raid the nests of sparrows and carry off the nestlings. Cars squashing animals day after day seems nearly as big a crime and a trial of carnage as the evening news. Not to mention all the time I spend squinting up and down the street for the source of a child's cries, making sure that the shrieks of kids playing or the cries of a tired toddler aren't something more sinister. Yes, I am that big a head-case.

It's not that this thing with the deer, with its three broken legs and its desperation, has me unable to smile at my son or live my life. I eat ice cream, I make jokes, it's not crippling. It's just that you can't really get away from suffering -- it's everywhere -- and I swear that making ourselves un-feel our empathy for other living things is not the answer. It's true there's only so much one person can do. I get that. But I need to think I'm making things better, somehow, for someone. It's the difference between hope and despair.