The diction about Christ has been, and perhaps wisely, sweet and submissive. But the diction used by Christ is quite curiously gigantesque, it is full of camels leaping through needles and mountains hurled into the sea.

-G.K. Chesterton

aseptic

The cold tile floors with soft pastel colors stretch on and on in the circle that makes up the hallway of the fourth floor surgery ward. Eight people in a fifteen by twenty foot room, for up to eight hours a day, waiting. Waiting for news, waiting for doctors to talk to, waiting for the end of surgery, waiting for a baby to be healthy, waiting to go home… Our room is joyful compared to the rest. Dark figures in scrubs hover over tiny little bodies in the rooms we pass – too tiny for this suffering. The dark figures are like the last phantoms in a nightmare before the little ones awake from the dream that is life. These little bodies wear papery thin gowns and numerous plastic tubes – uniforms of a existence few can comprehend.

Life is fragile – cliche, but the veracity cuts to the core in a setting like this. These cases of flesh and bone are deceptively sturdy-looking, but like a complex math problem, one mistake can make the whole equation collapse.

Oh, that we would value what we have.