Through the Glass

Through the car winshield I see road, for miles stretching, leading me as I swerve for miles up and down the mountain each day. I see other cars, marching together between the road lines carrying precious cargo.

Through the glass payne in Behavioral Health I see patients, some wandering, some questioning, all needing a caring face to come from behind the glass and speak as if to a beloved friend.

There is a space between the trauma bays also separated by glass through which I look, pray, worry, hope. I see brokenness from accidents and crimes, people literally 'dying' to recieve urgent medical attention. I see injustice role through the doors on a stretcher bludied, tearful and with a tube down the throat. I see life hanging in the balance, precious life which was recently winding down the roads and talking with beloved friends. I see doctors and nurses with their blessed hands responding to the body, listening to it's needs, dialoging about whether it's time has yet come.

Through the glass I see God's children helping God's children. "Why has God put my loved one through the glass?" I often hear. There's no good answer to this age old question. Just more questions.

I recently read an anology of the Bible as being like a window, glass if you will, through which we look to see the divine. Is this window perfectly clear? Does it allow us to see everything on the other side? Or is it clouded, showing us only part of the whole picture. Are the scratches, scuffs and bugs on the glass obstructing our view of certain divine thoughts? Perhaps.

Perhaps the act of dying, which I have seen through the glass, is a passing from one side of the murkey window to the other, giving us a full picture of God. And these are the saddist times when I gaze through the trauma bay glass watching another beloved soul say goodbye to loved ones with tears and sobs, finally meeting God after passing 'through the glass.'