II. Welcome Sickness

I am not alive until I am aware of myself. True self-forgetfulness seems to be what we all long for, yet when we forget ourselves entirely we are as close to death as a terminally sick patient. Those poor, neurotic people we scorn for their continual self-awareness, ringing their nervous hands as they mull over their own brain's workings, they are more alive than you or I. We live in a great paradox where those most alive, at least alive by our rankings, are closest to death. And those who live more like what we consider dying, they are the most alive. We keep our lives tucked away, locked down, bonded and insured; we hedge our risk, and we have in our safe keeping a self-preserved corpse. It's a good thing we like to live dying better than we like to die living. Jesus was spot on, our fallen humanity is an easily predictable thing. Those keeping their lives lose it. Those losing their lives keep it. We are born easily pacified, and the better our parents get at pacifying our raging discontent, the happier we are. The happier we are, it is because the safer we are. And the happier we are because of our safety, the less we live. We are happy to be dead. Not only that, but the less the corpse is dessicated and decomposed, the more restless we get. We don't want the dead to spring alive just yet, it's far too risky to believe in life from the dead. Better to stamp out all trace of life, someone might lose something they couldn't retain, some priceless heirloom might be lost in a rubbish bin so we'd better insure it. My business might go under next year so I'd better have unemployment. It's not that we insure ourselves into a dead stupor, or that we protect ourselves from all failure (and therefore all true success), but we live between the lines so well that we've forgotten failure is something people come back from. We've lost the concept that sometimes disappointment, while smelling like dung, makes really good flowers after the winter is over. Sickness reminds us of health. Those we easily hate make us cherish those we love. And people who truly die remind us to live quickly and profoundly, because we all pass those doors for good all too soon. We leave littler trace than we're inclined to, and even our death rattle is often times a whimper. The futility spun into the fabric of the universe is not without design, creation's groaning voice, she hums of hopeful wholeness that will resurrect into all our gaping wounds. If we have no deformities, wholeness will never be hope fulfilled. If we have no poverties, true riches will never be a shining thrill.