epiphany

The Greatest of These

I am so mad that I don't know what to do with myself. I've been digging through a lot of personal crap over the past few weeks, and this morning one of my friends OD-ed.

I had stopped by church around 10:30 to see if they needed any help with video projects. Breakfast Club (food and a short challenge before volunteers start cleaning the building) was finishing up, so I sat down. An older friend of mine, J, left where he was sitting and came to join me. J's a little Tumnus of a man. He attends my community group. He's had a rough life and still struggles with addictions, though he loves Jesus very much.

Something didn't seem right about him. He kept falling asleep, but it didn't look normal. I asked if he was ok. He said he was just praying. When the challenge ended, he ran outside suddenly. I followed and found him vomiting into a garbage can. I told him I thought he should head back to the mission where he's been living. I had walked to church, so I couldn't give him a ride. As I helped him back inside, I asked him if he'd been into any "bad stuff" again, and he swore he hasn't. (He's trying to recover from addiction to pain meds.) He said he had taken two kinds of depression meds this morning, but both are supposedly prescription, and the amount he said he took doesn't seem consistent with what I would expect from a reaction. I asked one of the staff to find someone to give him a ride. We sat and waited in the foyer.

He seemed to be coming in and out of consciousness, almost falling asleep while walking. He would cling to me, hug me like a frightened child, and pray. He prayed himself in and out of consciousness, clinging to Jesus far more tightly that he was clinging to me.

Someone called 911 for me. J's eyes would roll back in his head. I tried talking to him, but he was becoming less and less coherent. Several times I thought he had died. Another girl who knew him came over to help.

He became alert just before the an emergency squad arrived, but that was to run to the bathroom and vomit again. He said he wanted to go out and have a cigarette and was angry to see the medics, saying he was fine. We got him back inside, and they checked his vitals. Nothing was horribly askew, but something was definitely wrong with him. One of the officers said his pupils looked like he was on some kind of opiate, which would indicate heroin or a morphine base. He vehemently denied taking any drugs and took off his jacket to prove his arms were clear of needle marks. They kept asking him what he had taken. Unfortunately, he couldn't say what one of the meds was, and I couldn't remember what he had told me earlier. They asked if he'd had alcohol with the medicine. He said, "No sir, I've been clean. I don't drink." He was slipping back in and out of consciousness.

When the ambulance arrived, he did not want to go and said it was unecessary, but he let me walk him there and help him inside. Just before they left, he yelled out like an abandoned child, "Jonathan, why are you doing this to me?"

***************

I am so angry and sad I don't know what to do. I work on laundry or cleaning my apartment but suddenly want to cry or break something. I don't know if J was lying about the drugs or not. I want to believe him, and the struggle deep down is that I do believe him. If he was lying, he was utterly convinced that he was telling the truth.

And yet I also do think it was a pain med overdose. I want to find who keeps selling him that poison and stop him. For now, all I can say is,

HOW DARE YOU!
HOW DARE YOU USE SOMETHING GOOD TO DESTROY GOD'S CREATION!
HOW DARE YOU HURT MY FRIEND!
HOW DARE YOU FEED ADDICTION TO LINE YOUR WALLET!
HOW DARE YOU TREAT HIM LIKE AN ANIMAL!
HE IS A HUMAN BEING--A BEAUTIFUL, WONDERFUL, BROKEN MAN!
WHY WOULD YOU DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS TO HIM?
WHAT IS SO IMPORTANT TO YOU THAT YOU'LL KILL SOMEONE YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW TO GET IT?!?
DON'T YOU SEE WHAT YOU'VE CREATED--DON'T YOU SEE WHAT YOU'VE DESTROYED!?!

HOW DARE YOU!!!

***************

What would I do if I actually found the dealer? I would probably look at him and cry. Cry for the destruction he's rending on others. Cry for the destruction he's weaving into himself. Cry for my poor friend. Cry for all the pain and all the loss I've ever known. I would cry the dealer into submission and wash his sin with my tears.

***************

I didn't know what love was until my dad died. I had worked for years to turn off my emotions, worked so hard that I lost the ability to feel anything but pain. It takes a long time to regrow emotions. The bad ones are weedy enough, but good ones--faith, hope, love--those are finicky. They take the right preparation, the right conditions, and just the right event to waken their seeds and open their blossoms.

Days like these are the ones that made me turn off my heart. But I can't go back there. I know the death of unfeeling. I know the loss, the emptiness. I know the ravenous loneliness of stripping yourself of humanity. I will not go back there.

Love is painful. Love is harsh. Love is silent yet deeply jealous. At times it is fierce and aggressive. It insists on the death of evil. It hates what is wrong and clings to what is good. It finds pain in the destruction of both the good and the wicked. It rejoices in others and finds joy in its reflection. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.

As for pain, it shall end. As for evil, it shall cease. As for death and addictions, they shall pass away. In the end, there remain but three things: faith, hope, and love.

The greatest of these is love.

I have known the death of unfeeling. I have known its loss, its emptiness. I have known the ravenous loneliness born from stripping yourself of humanity.

I will not go back there.

I will love.

Even if it kills me,

I will love.

Posted by jonhanneman at April 1, 2006 4:08 PM | TrackBack