The Scratching

It is as if my body were a coffin in which the holy spirit lay.  I am six feet separated at least from all manner of people.  Yet the holy spirit within me is alive and vibrant and full of a ferocious love.  It is clawing, biting, scratching and gnawing at the insides of my coffin-body.  But it can never break out, for I alone have been given the keys to the coffin, and the walls at which the holy spirit scratches are of its own design: impenetrable by none other than myself.

I feel the holy spirit throwing itself against my lid: it is desperate to escape.  Not for its own life or breath or safety, but for the life and breath and love of those who walk six feet above.

I know this because at certain instances I have opened the lid of my coffin.  I have never felt such joy as I have on those occasions.  I have never known elation like that of allowing the holy spirit out of my coffin and into the hearts of others.  Yet I have also never known such discomfort.  The hearts of others are six feet separate, after all; held apart from me by dirt and rock and root.

Have you ever dug a six foot hole by hand?  It is gruelling.  By the time you are done, your hands are bleeding, blistered, and raw.  Your shoulders ache.  Your arms feel like weights and your back screams in protest.  All for the joy and elation of love from the holy spirit working through me?  Surely not.

Must it not be better instead to simply endure the constant sound of fingernails on wood?  I am finding it is not.  The scratching is not only endless; it increases in volume with each passing day: building on itself with the momentous force of an orchestra that has no foreseeable crescendo.

To release the relentless force of love is like releasing a wild beast.  The energy used to contain it is suddenly free to run with it.  I know this, but whenever someone treads close to my coffin I endure the frantic scratching and attempt to quiet it with reason.

"Settle down"

"I'm sure she's fine"

"If he were really in a bad way he would ask me for help"

"Someone else will do it"

"If I ask about their day I'll have to have a conversation"

"I might upset them"

"They don't look friendly"

"They will think me strange"

As I let them walk away I feel a heart crack within my coffin.  I frantically begin to dig, suddenly realizing my foolishness.  What could have been a wonderful interaction is awkward and stilted as I leap, bloodied and aching, from my grave.  I shake the hand of the person the spirit desires to love and I walk away shortly after, thinking that it might be best to simply leave the coffin open forever.

"But not today" I think as I pour a shovelful of dirt back over my coffin-heart.