There's a trendy word going around when it comes to matters of faith. There are whole courses on how to do it..spend the money and learn how to deconstruct your faith.
The thing is I started this process before it was actually a named thing. As life has gotten progressively harder, especially in the last year, I have come to the conclusion that it's a good thing I started it way back then instead of deciding to do it now, because lets be clear, if I was deconstructing right now things would look a lot different.
The thing about grief, especially this kind of grief that seems to get all the more visceral at holidays, is that it's not something that can really be managed, it has to be livd and in the living of it you inevitably re-live the events leading to that grief over and over.
I don't think I've ever really talked about that night in any real, tangible terms. I could be wrong, to be honest things get muddled any more when it comes to this whole process. The thing is, it sneaks up on you, the re-living I mean, you can be doing something as mundane as taking out the trash, and suddenly things slam into you and you find yourself shutting the door curling up and crying.
One thing that deconstruction does, at least one of the thing that is has done for me when it comes to my faith, is that it lays out all the pieces so that you can then see things more clearly. The trick is in the re-construction, what blue print we use. When it comes to faith do we use the blueprint that comes for scripture or do we use the blueprint that comes from whatever flavor of faith we have decided to lean into. That matters because going back to sacred texts and getting our information from there along with prayer and quiet meditation will yield a much different foundation than the one that is embraced whole heartedly by the place we worship in.
Anyway I said all that to say that as deconstruction my faith, has lead to what I would argue is a more robust and tangible faith as I picked those pieces back up and started the rebuild process. I wonder if deconstructing this whole thing can somehow yield some good. So here we go.
When I was 16 years old I got my license. I remember the day that I took the test. It had snowed I did thew hole thing driving the roads doing he maneuverability, passed on the first go around it was great. Fast forward to that Christmas we were in Akron my mom got sick my dad didn't really sleep that night, and to be clear, when a person with epilepsy doesn't sleep and has large amounts of stress, well it's just a bad combination. I said hey what if you let me drive this time, only to be told that no I want your father in the front seat with me, 10 minutes later we were stuck in a wonderful families home waiting for someone to pick us up, the car totaled out. When they looked at the wreck they told us we were all lucky to be alive the engine should have been pushed in on my parents, the drive shaft should have been pushed up into the back seat, but here we are. That day changed me and my relationship with cars and my parents more than I realized at the time. I can count on one hand with 3 fingers the number of times I have ridden in the car with my father driving since then. It's just something I wouldn't do. I remember going to a church function when I was home during my freshmen year of college, they insisted that my dad drive I got in the car and was a basket case the whole way to the church it was held at. I refused to return in the car with them I had someone drive me. Not only did this accident change my relationship with my parents it changed my relationship with driving. If I'm driving I'm okay if others are driving it's easy to worry. I think it's because since that day I have this recurring nightmare where I lose the people I love the most in a car accident. I'm sure you can see where this is going but again this is my deconstruction so you'll have to just ride it out, that's what I'm doing.
Throughout the years there have been accidents, and for some reason they seem to happen not when I'm driving but when others are. It's hard to explain but that's just what is. I've even watched one happen and it was so difficult because there was nothing at all that I could do about it. I just had to watch it all happen in slow motion and stand in the middle of Belmont Ave trying to get a door open that there was no human way that I was going to do it.
So it's a pretty safe bet that I have a reason to have this recurring nightmare.
Another issue that is a part of my every day existence is the fact that I dream, I dream vividly and I remember my dreams. Sometimes that's a good thing. There is this whole story that I'm writing, well was writing, because of one of those very vivid dreams, they are Technicolor too which is very cool and very disconcerting all that the same time. These vivid dreams have made the last 7 plus months hellacious. I wake up and expect someone to be there that isn't and it just brings the whole world down around me again. So when I dream about losing people I love in a car accident it's made all the worse.
Now take those two things and go one more step with me dear reader. To May 16, 2021...It was a Sunday and doing all those things that I do on a Sunday. The thump of the feet and the missive..."wait don't leave me." and I didn't and I'm so glad I didn't. The day went on like usual until it was time to go, and even then things were as normal. I went down for my nap about the time that they pulled out. I was just there ya know gearing up to start playing xbox or something when Goliath went off, and I got downstairs and my uncle was on the porch and he just said that there was this accident in PA, and suddenly it just all came into focus only this time it wasn't a dream
The entire ride out every time I saw a skid mark I thought oh thats where it was. I wasn't allowing it to register, but then we got to this spot in the road that was completely shut down and we pulled off and I got out of the van and was walking to the guy that was manning the roadblock. To be told you have to go the other way because of an accident is always a sad thing, you feel for the people but it was at this point that my stomach dropped and so I asked the question. Was that accident up there one with a hay or corn truck and it was at this point that my world began to unwind. The radio was used, did they need me to come up there, no just go to the hospital. I spent the next hour trying to find them. No one would answer my questions, everyone wanted to give me water and when I did finally get the answer to the whole thing I lost it.
An ambulance ride later and things just kept getting worse. In fact that whole week and the weeks that soon followed kept going from one bad thing to the other and still I'm here and I'm so tired and it's how it is.
There, I could go deeper into the hospital, to being stuck in a room to wait to be asking the doctor to tell me what I had figured out already. Could talk about the ride to the other Hospital, or what happened when I had to tell people. But the whole point is that first night to try and take it apart and see what if any redemptive factor can come out of it, and to be honest there really is none.
And that is the problem. No matter how many times I deconstruct it, it still comes back to the fact that there is not way to assemble it to make a positive. Equally I don't see handing the pieces to God to have him do the same. In fact there really is no way he can make the night into a positive. Not that night, and I really don't think he would ever try. There are things that we read in scripture that Jesus does for so many people. The people he heals and brings back all of that is amazing, but there are also the things that he doesn't do. For every Lazarus that is raised there is a John the Baptist that's not.
So who knows where this will all end up. The pieces are there but I think they will always be there at least from that day. The reconstruction will be what comes after....If you wanna journey with me then you can if not, I wish you all the happiness.
