No role is so well suited to Christianity as this one

The second half of this year has been an uphill march against the Fibro. As often as not, I’ve been in pain–sometimes severe. I’ve been tired, felt ill, been brain-locked. Most days I’ve gotten to the end of the day and felt awful. My writing has suffered and I’m in horrible shape, relatively speaking.

While I understand other people have heavier burdens (and they are bad ass for going forward), it’s been bad for me. I’ve tried hemp, “herbal remedies” available in some states, acupuncture, deep tissue massage, cupping, and some other things I never thought I’d dabble in. I stayed up later in tenth grade than I do now.

Once, at my massage therapist, I was naked on the table with a blanket over me with acupuncture needles in the bottom of my feet. “This,” I thought at the time, “will be when the fire alarm goes off.” I also have a rheumatologist. That’s right–I’m old.

I’ve fought through it all. Over the past year, I’m still averaging about 9,000 steps a day. My weight has stayed more or less constant. I’ve written. I’ve read. I’ve been on a plane every month since July. I’ve excelled at work. And though I didn’t get all my baking done this year, I got a lot.

Through it all, if i’m honest, my attitude has deteriorated. Most of the time, I’ve felt overmatched. Life has to go on regardless of how I feel and it’s my role to piece together whatever’s necessary to meet expectations until I can’t any more.

Though it’s a good way to attack life, Marcus Aurelius’s charge to be tolerant with others and strict with yourself is hard when you’re struggling through a flare.

While it can darken your shadowy impulses, chronic pain or illness humbles you. It helps you to see parts of life you never noticed.

I’m a host in our digital church services. In the Christmas eve services I helped with, I made a point of acknowledging and praying for people struggling dbecause of loss of loved ones, sickness, isolation, or whatever else there was. I wouldn’t have thought of this if not for my experiences over the last couple years, and specifically over the last few months.

Fibro can humble you. Though it sucks as a way of life, a little humility isn’t a bad thing.

As I type this, I can cause a pain level of 3 or 4 by lightly pressing my thumb against my ribs. The end of my right big toe feels like it’s about to explode. My right upper arms feels a couple days out from being hit with a pipe. My knees ache and my fingers feel like they got slammed in the car door.

God either ordained this or allowed it. Either way, it’s up to me to take my circumstance and work to make more out of them. It’s up to me to find meaning in the pain. And to use it to benefit others.

I don’t epitomize the beatitudes, but this experience has helped me to align myself a little closer to their ideal.

There’s a movement among American Christians that we need to assert power, to be “joyful warriors,” taking no prisoners in the furtherance of God’s kingdom. You see it in politics and in an uncompromising approach to whatever happens to anger God’s surrogates right now.

The Christian attitude should be just the opposite. Christianity’s not a movement applied with force from above. It’s a lifestyle best applied where opportunities exist, leading with open arms and soft voices, not bully pulpits and waving fists.

I’m far from perfect at it. You won’t have to look hard through my past to find people who consider me to be an asshole. But I’m working hard not to be that guy anymore and this is a step in that direction.

When Marcus Aurelius assumed power in Rome, he said there’s no role so well suited to a philosopher as his. If that’s so, there’s no role so well suited to Christianity as that of someone struggling to keep everything together, and noticing and doing what he can to help others in the same straits.