I've been thinking about the week I lost my breath.
SUNDAY
January 4th is a lazy Sunday morning. No church for us because Becky’s choir isn’t singing, so we sleep in until after eight, then make our way downstairs to breakfast and the Sunday papers. As soon as I’m seated, I’m short of breath. This is weird!
I inhale deeply, exhale, repeat three or four times and my breathing is back to normal. I’m fine until after lunch, when I climb the stairs to the den and settle in to watch a football game. I’m short of breath again, as if climbing the stairs is a chore for my lungs. Again, three or four deep breaths and I’m back to normal. Then a minute or more at the dinner table to stop the soft panting. By bedtime I’m lying in the dark, my pulse too quick, breathing rapidly for two minutes, trying to fall asleep.
What’s going on?
MONDAY
As I blink awake on Monday I’m breathing naturally, and I lay in the early-morning light, relieved. I’m certain yesterday’s problem was just a passing nuisance.
Until I sit up, and I’m immediately out of breath. I take deep gulps until I find a comfortable rhythm. As I walk to the bathroom, I plant my hands on the counter and gulp again and again, until I’m breathing normally. It goes on like this whenever I get up to go to a different part of our home. I don’t tell Becky any of this because I don’t want to worry her. I feel more confused than frightened, so it can’t be that serious.
Well, so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree,
Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes —
Some have got broken — and carrying them up to the attic.
The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,
And the children got ready for school. There are enough
Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week —
Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,
Stayed up so late, attempted — quite unsuccessfully —
To love all of our relatives, and in general
Grossly overestimated our powers.
Once again,
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed
To do more than entertain it as an agreeable
Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,
Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,
The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.
The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,
And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware
Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought
Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now
Be very far off.
But, for the time being, here we all are,
Back in the moderate Aristotelian city
Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid’s geometry
And Newton’s mechanics would account for our experience,
And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.
It seems to have shrunk during the holidays. The streets
Are much narrower than we remembered; we had forgotten
The office was as depressing as this.
To those who have seen
The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,
The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.
For the innocent children who whispered so excitedly
Outside the locked door where they knew the presents to be
Grew up when it opened. Now, recollecting that moment
We can repress the joy, but the guilt remains conscious;
Remembering the stable where for once in our lives
Everything became a You and nothing was an It.
And craving the sensation but ignoring the cause,
We look round for something, no matter what, to inhibit
Our self-reflection, and the obvious thing for that purpose
Would be some great suffering.
So, once we have met the Son,
We are tempted ever after to pray to the Father;
“Lead us into temptation and evil for our sake.”
They will come, all right, don’t worry; probably in a form
That we do not expect, and certainly with a force
More dreadful than we can imagine. In the meantime
There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair,
Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem
From insignificance.
The happy morning is over,
The night of agony still to come; the time is noon:
When the Spirit must practice his scales of rejoicing
Without even a hostile audience, and the Soul endure
A silence that is neither for nor against her faith
That God’s Will will be done, That, in spite of her prayers,
God will cheat no one, not even the world of its triumph.
I’m Rick Thyne and I’m grateful that you found your way to these pages. Perhaps in these conversations we’ll find our way to more of the common good that is - for me - our best hope for a future in which all of us thrive. If you've been forwarded this email and would like to become a subscriber, just click here. And as always, I hope you'll share with me what you've been thinking.