[Fuusmchat] Fw: Fine. Not Fine.

Thu May 7 16:10:58 CDT 2020

From: Meg A. Riley, Church of the Larger Fellowship 
Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2020 3:19 PM
To: marthamcg at suddenlink.net 
Subject: Fine. Not Fine.

      Meg talks about something scary that happened to her. 

                                "Admitting the mess we are all in invites us to compassionately look around and see who else isn’t fine." 

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                                WEEKLY MESSAGE FROM MEG 

                                Hi Friends,

                                And then there was that morning when I fainted for the first time in my life.

                                It was 4:30 in the morning. I got up to let the dog out to pee and to get a drink of water. As I stood at the kitchen sink, I was suddenly aware that I felt very very strange. I felt a way I had never felt before.  I had the thought that people with COVID always say they never felt that way before and I thought, “I hope I don’t have COVID.”  And that was the last thought I had for a while.

                                A voice brought me around.  It was the voice of Jie, my 23-year-old, who had heard a thud from upstairs and come down to see what happened.  Meg.  Meg.  Meg.  I heard this voice, and I thought I was in bed, and wondered why someone would want to wake me up from a pleasant sleep.  Finally the voice became insistent enough that I said, “What?” and the voice said, “You’re lying on the kitchen floor!”  This woke me up, and I declared immediately, “I’m fine.”  

                                “I’m fine.” These are the words of a parent trying to reassert control and confidence to a child.  They are also preposterous words to utter while lying on the floor, having just been unconscious.  “You’re not as fine as you think you are!”  Jie responded.    A call to the doctor, by Jie over my protests, confirmed that we should head for the ER immediately.  Tests there concluded that I didn’t have a heart attack or a stroke, and I was sent home several hours later with a heart monitor glued to my chest.  

                                I’ve spent the last four days healing, mostly from the fall, and I’m still not 100% but I’m OK.  I would, however, no longer say that “I’m fine.”  That impulse, to assert that other people who care about me should back away and let me take care of myself and all will be well, strikes me as a voice that I should ignore steadfastly right now, as Jie ignored it then.  And maybe we should all ignore it, pretty much all the time.

                                The ER doc said of my fainting, “Sometimes this just happens and we never know why.”  My money is on dehydration. I was in the garden for a number of hours the day before; it was hot and I was sweaty and I knew I wasn’t drinking enough water but I wanted to power through some mulching.  I knew I should stop and get a drink, but I told myself, “I’m fine.”  For the past few days I’ve been guzzling water and Pedialyte and taking mass doses of Arnica.  I’m much much better, but I’m not ‘fine.’  

                                That voice that says “I’m fine” and really means “leave me alone” is occurring to me as a voice of stupidity that I should challenge at every turn.  I’m not fine.  We’re not fine.  None of us are fine right now, and pretty much we never were.  Privilege makes some of us definitely way more fine than others, but none of us are fine in a world where marginalized people’s lives are deemed less important than a robust economy for the privileged, with a government coldly calculating whose deaths are acceptable and whose lives matter enough to protect.  None of us was fine before the coronavirus and certainly none of us are fine now.  None of us are fine in a world of cruelty, violence, indifference, greed.

                                Admitting the mess we are all in, and that none of us can power through it alone, invites us to compassionately look around and see who else isn’t fine.  To recognize that we are not little atoms, separate from the rest of the world.   I’m not fine, but I’m in a lot better situation than many other people—people without food or rent, people without safety or care.  People without access to health care and time to heal.

                                Knowing that none of us are fine, but some of us are more fine than others, leads me to ask, so how do I share what I have the best I can?  How do I help us all to be as fine as we can be?  That question is better answered when my first impulse isn’t to maintain my little bubble of isolated well-being in a world where interdependence has never been more obvious.  When we’re all fine, I’m fine.  Until then…the evidence is right there, as obvious as a body lying on the kitchen floor. None of us are fine.  We’re not fine at all.

                                Warmly,

                                Meg

                                P.S. It has been so amazing to worship with all of you each week. Please consider joining us this Sunday in our Online Sanctuary for "To Nurture and To Be Nurtured." Sign up at clfuu.org/cometoworship and my team will send you a personalized link to join.  

                                Meg A. Riley
                                Senior Minister 

                                clfuu.org 

                                questformeaning.org 

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