It only hurts when I move. Or remain stationary. Or raise my left arm. Or let it rest.
The worst part is, I have no one to blame but myself for the pinched nerve that’s been my torment for the past few days. I should have known better than to hoist a 52-pound case of copier paper onto my 68-year-old shoulder.
I should have known better. AND I should have listened to my Sweetie, who tried – persistently – to have me ask for assistance with the ungainly merchandise. But I deferred instead to the part of my brain which insists that I remain youthful and adept.
Looking on the bright side of this momentary foolishness, I did manage to encounter a fancy new diagnostic term: “cervical radiculopathy.” It came with the cold comfort of learning that my pinched nerve will likely heal itself. Eventually.
Until then, I wait. And try not to move. And, perhaps, ponder the wisdom found in this week’s scriptures. Like this little nugget from the book of Sirach:
“If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you…”
I had a chance to do that at Office Depot the other day. I could have listened to my Sweetie, paused to consider the insight she so lovingly proffered. Instead, I acted on impulse – delusionally, pridefully. And today, I’m paying the price.
God’s commandments are a little like that, aren’t they? Considered in the best possible light, they provide comforting guardrails – ways of living that work to keep us connected to community, and to avoid acting on self-centered compulsions.
That said, I have to admit I don’t tend to regard the commandments in the best possible light. In many situations, they seem more like a nag, a potential buzz-kill. Which is to say, my everyday decision-making process doesn’t seem much like the Psalmist’s:
Oh, that I might be firm in the ways of keeping your statutes!
…Open my eyes, [Lord], that I may consider the wonders of your law…
Give me discernment, that I may observe your law and keep it with all my heart.
And Jesus seems to know that about us, doesn’t he? He understands human nature. He’s seen how we tussle with God’s precepts … and do our best to cut corners in keeping the law. He sees how far our hearts can wander – and so he calls us back. He sets the bar higher, ever urging us to frame God’s law in life-giving encounters:
…go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
This is (as St. Paul says) part and parcel of “God’s wisdom, mysterious, hidden … [and] predetermined before the ages for our glory.” God gives us guardrails, not because the Holy One is trying to be a pain in the neck. Rather, God desires our hearts – as the only true path for ultimately entering into God’s glory.
Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.
IHS
With Us Still 