Knee pains

It's Tuesday night and I am elder sitting a 98 yr. old woman named Mabel. She can't see or hear much of anything , and sometimes she gets really confused...but then there are the moments of clarity when she speaks profundities. She is wise, so wise. And her wisdom comes from experience because she's lived history. Things I've never encountered, she's thrived through and come out the other side and uses her life to tell the freaked out, that life is really going to continue on. The other day we got in a discussion about recession and depression. She told me stories about having nothing but being happy, and she told me about rations and war and her father leaving to go fight and I asked her (OK I shouted into her hearing aid), "Mabel, what's the best advice you'd give me (30 year old, single, female) on living in unstable times." She said, "Honey, make your knees tired from praying." And that's some of the best advice I've ever gotten.

Today I saw a picture of Jesus laughing and I started to think. Jesus was not a stoic monk. Jesus was a multi-dimensional, multi-faceted guy. He got mad, like the time when people were selling stuff in the church and it made it so other people could not worship. And he got mad when religious leaders shoved religion down people's throats. Jesus got sad sometimes. Like when his friend died, or when people mistreated others. Jesus laughed sometimes....not explicitly but I'd bet he laughed when Peter put his foot in his mouth AGAIN, or when he turned water into wine and everyone wondered what had been done. Jesus was scared in the garden of Gethsemane and he sweated blood and tears in the agony of fear. Jesus was fully human. He knew what it was to feel like we feel and there is comfort in that. On the days when we stories in the news of people hurting people and we just want to jump through the TV and pummel the victimizers, Jesus knew that feeling. And on the days that we are sad, and it takes every ounce of strength to get out of bed...Jesus knows that. Jesus feels our grief. On the days that we smile from the inside out and every part of us seems to burst with glee...Jesus knows that glee, he's felt it. And on the days when we are terrified and our hearts hurt from beating so fast for so long...Jesus has been there. Emotions are valid, they help us express our humanity....and Jesus after all, was fully human. Fully alive, and fully feeling.