One of the songs I sing in the preschool is about breaking the rules. We all step lightly into naughtiness as I toss out forbidden actions that we promptly ignore.
"No laughing in this
house! No laughing today. No laughing in this house, laughing isn't okay."
"No tickling in this house! No tickling today. No tickling in this house, tickling isn't okay."
All the errant behavior is limited to the twenty-eight second duration of a
verse, so it does not tax our sensibilities. One of the especially edgy ones is about whining. I love to look at their faces as they recall their own mothers giving a label to the tinny voice and floppy limbs that sometimes appear when it's time to walk back to the car after a day at the park. It is a preschooler sized dilemma, to purposely act in a way that usually shows up without the benefit of rational thought.
My not completely ironed out logic, is that giving four-year-olds a name for their feelings, and reactions, is a step toward mastering them.
The other week I felt whiney. I did not want to board the train for the city, knowing that sleep would be sparse, and the likelihood of making mistakes in record keeping was high.
As I gazed out the window, it occurred to me that probably some of the people I would visit that night had no intention of being in the hospital. This afternoon they were finishing up paperwork, or collecting children from school, and the incident that would hijack their plans was not on their minds.
I softened. I tossed a silent prayer heavenward, that I might be able
to bring comfort, or at least companionship, to some of those soon-to-be patients.
It did turn out that way. A man who had chest pains told me that he usually ignores them, but this time he called his daughter, who drove seventy miles an hour to get him. Another man with many tattoos and no clothes had escaped broken bones from a car crash. I sometimes think that if
millennials knew that the first thing that happens in the ER is that they chop off your favorite shirt and pants, and twelve fully clothed strangers get to look you over, they might be more careful.
I recited the 23rd Psalm to a woman who believes, mostly, but was still scared. She let me hold her hand, and did not let go easily.
A big man announced that he is "Blessed by the Best, and prays for the rest". All I could say was "Amen!"
I think God was okay with me whining on the train. Getting to a place of compassion can take as long as the West Trenton does to land me in Philly.