Friday, April 24, 2026
Waiting With My Left Hand
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood
has eternal life,
and I will raise him on the last day.
For my Flesh is true food,
and my Blood is true drink.
When I can only use my left hand for 48 hours, when I feel double vision coming on as the day wears down, when my lower back screams as I reach down to pick things up and screams even louder as I try to get out of bed to pee, and of course when I’m not sure at all what my heart is going to do next as it beats away inside my chest … I realize at 4 am that I really need the meal that Jesus offers.
Of course it’s gross to say out loud or imagine; nobody in my oikos is a cannibal that I know of. But I need something much more “carnal” than words; words just haven’t cut it lately. Or rather words are cutting too many directions at the same time, and my normally chaotic monkey mind flies around out of control, desperate to find some stick to grab and hold onto. I imagine Marc’s big dog bear might feel some of that sudden rest when Marc or Evie say … SIT!
Like Bear, I need some kind of foundational presence.
People provide that foundation, especially friends like Ray at Grace, who walks straight and smiles and says hello to us every single Sunday. I trust that he will let me hold on to him when I need to.
And sermons and teaching and scripture and songs – the words chase me, and then I chase them back, scribbling notes like crazy, because I am inspired. Lifted up. Able to breathe deep at least one or two more times … but then in the dark night, like, right now … afraid of the stabbing pain that I know will come when I move in bed, I am lost again in the deep woods and struggle to settle back into the Foundation. I don’t feel it, I can’t find it, where did it suddenly go? That’s when I know how much I need the Meal.
Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood
remains in me and I in him.
Saul’s journey to Damascus to finger lawbreakers and kill them in the name of Jehovah was upended by Jesus. He and his horse couldn’t help themselves. And that’s the way Jesus works. My complicated life gets simplified when there’s only the One Thing to gaze upon and walk toward, however crookedly I stammer and limp toward the street called Straight.
Physical food helps me back onto that street. Margaret made breakfast yesterday; fruit and flesh (sausage, actually) and eggy waffles with lingonberries from Ikea. She made dinner too, once I somehow got to Walmart and bought some bread … grilled cheese and fine tomato soup. All day I carried around an apple, my Security Apple, and finally a few hours ago I ate it. Every bite, while I watched the Cubs win their 9th straight game. Smiling along with Ayo as his new team the Timberwolves played beautiful NBA playoff basketball. Waiting for the Illini football sack artist Gabe Jacas’ name to be called in the NFL draft.
But not waiting … for a rebirth of wonder . The wonder is here. That poem’s author, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, lived a century and a year, and then he died. What a wonderful man he must have become over those 101 years, as he noticed “wonder” all around him more and more becoming the presence of Jesus (that’s how I would put it, anyway).
Saul noticed the wonder too, of course. After Jesus appeared in the desert (where else!) offering him a touch of blindness, directions to a street called Straight, and as much of his divine body and blood as Saul could take.
No wonder Saul changed his name.
This is the bread that came down from heaven.
Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,
whoever eats this bread will live forever.
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
#
