This simple 5-7-5-7-7 tanka was written to cut through my own temptations to doubt or better yet, my temptations to “test God.” Looking for only extraordinary or supernatural signs one may quickly overlook the biggest miracle of them all: one’s own life and one’s own immortal soul. Should our very life itself be taken for granted? When I start cataloguing my aches, pains, and illnesses to then present in parcel as a complaint to God, I believe that He reminds me that I just as surely live; the same aches, pains, and illnesses are proof of that! I only need to try to see them in a new way. After-all, regarding an immortal soul, I have made it: I have one! It’s now up to me, in perfect freedom, to get on with the right course of living so that I may ultimately spend eternal life with Love in heaven. Although praying for a physical healing has always been encouraged within the practice and bounds of Christianity and yes, modern day, miraculous healings still do occur, the temptations to see wonder-works and magic (perhaps as a bargaining chip for an even more serious faith life) still do creep in. Abuses and frauds to satisfy this perhaps quite human need to see a sign abound and the temptation to skepticism and doubt follow. They even accused our Lord of the same after witnessing with their own eyes the miracles of Jesus. A persistent longing for newness - a sign - who doesn’t experience it? Let our hope in eternal life prepare us for the kind of never ending newness that we will all experience eternally when our days here on earth are behind us.
This simple 5-7-5-7-7 tanka was written to cut through my own temptations to doubt or better yet, my temptations to “test God.” Looking for only extraordinary or supernatural signs one may quickly overlook the biggest miracle of them all: one’s own life and one’s own immortal soul. Should our very life itself be taken for granted? When I start cataloguing my aches, pains, and illnesses to then present in parcel as a complaint to God, I believe that He reminds me that I just as surely live; the same aches, pains, and illnesses are proof of that! I only need to try to see them in a new way. After-all, regarding an immortal soul, I have made it: I have one! It’s now up to me, in perfect freedom, to get on with the right course of living so that I may ultimately spend eternal life with Love in heaven. Although praying for a physical healing has always been encouraged within the practice and bounds of Christianity and yes, modern day, miraculous healings still do occur, the temptations to see wonder-works and magic (perhaps as a bargaining chip for an even more serious faith life) still do creep in. Abuses and frauds to satisfy this perhaps quite human need to see a sign abound and the temptation to skepticism and doubt follow. They even accused our Lord of the same after witnessing with their own eyes the miracles of Jesus. A persistent longing for newness - a sign - who doesn’t experience it? Let our hope in eternal life prepare us for the kind of never ending newness that we will all experience eternally when our days here on earth are behind us.
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