I don’t want medication, I want the real sensation…
Man, I hate headaches. I really do. I don’t have one right now, so I’m not sure why I feel compelled to blog about them, but hey…when the urge hits, you just gotta go with the flow, am I right? I get these headaches all the time. But I absolutely HATE to take medicine for it. I hate taking medicine, period. I’m not really sure why…I’m in no way a Scientologist or a Christian Scientist…I don’t think medication is the devil…I just don’t like to take it. Not even Ibuprofen or anything like that. It’s strange. My mother would say that I get all of these headaches from being on the computer all the time. My dad would say it’s from sitting too CLOSE to the computer screen, to which I would reply, “How the heck am I supposed to sit further away, It’s a laptop, I gotta reach the keyboard.” I’m watching, or rather, listening to the Derek Webb live DVD “How To Kill and Be Killed”. It’s a live performance from his Nashville album release show for I See Things Upside Down. I just finished listening to the song “Medication,” and I think that’s what sparked this whole post…Whenever I hear that song, I think of the movie Garden State, you know, when Zach Braff’s character is at the party with all the people getting high…and he just sits in the middle of the room…completely zoned out…just wanting to feel SOMETHING. I pray to God I never get that numb. Sometimes I feel I’m getting there, though. The monotony of life makes me callused…and it’s frightening. That’s always been my problem with church. Well, not my problem WITH church….my problem when it comes TO church. I go long enough that it becomes completely routine for me…my heart grows callused and numb, and the experience totally loses its innocence and wonder. I think of the book of Malachi, where the people of God are no longer taking the worship of him seriously…they’ve grown callused, and as Eugene Peterson puts it, are offering him “hand-me-downs, broken and useless.” I pray I don’t reach this point…but it inevitably happens time to time. Forgive me, God, for not taking your worship seriously. I think of the verse in Deuteronomy 30. Verse 6, I believe. Yeah, that’s it. “GOD, your God, will cut away the thick calluses on your heart and your children’s hearts, freeing you to love GOD, your God, with your whole heart and soul and live, really live.” (MSG)
So God, do not let me grow callused. Let me feel it all…even the pain
“cause the truth is i need you just like the air i breathe
just like a freight train needs the tracks beneath
so i’d rather suffer my whole life and be this rich man’s wife
if loving you means suffering” – Derek Webb, “Medication”