Inauguration Consternation

With half of the country cheering and the other half booing on this Inauguration Day, with friends and family equally agitated on both sides of the great divide, something completely different occupies my mind today.

It’s something totally unrelated, something quite personal and, in the large scheme of things minor, almost insignificant  relative to the most controversial, most divisive elections we've had the privilege to witness in the history of the United States.

I even hesitate to bother writing about it.  But, the bur is real, and write I must, if for nothing else than to scratch where it itches me the most...

Shay and Jenny were my technicians today. I've just met them, so I can’t say much about either of them, other than that for about forty-five minutes, as a part of their normal, day-to-day job, they’ve jostled me around  on the top of the table inside the linear accelerator room like a human Raggedy Ann doll. They squeezed and bunched up my skin and arranged my bones in the most awkward, unnatural positions ensuring that everything was just so.

In response, I instinctively kept realigning my neck and my limbs, looking for a more comfortable placement.

We’ll do all the work, they try hard to be patient with me, but, you HAVE TO be still. You can’t move. You must remain still.

I don't know whether they are authorized to speak on God's behalf or not, but they use the kind of voice as if this is a matter of life and death, or at least serious injury.

I take a deep breath but keep the, Easier said than done, tucked inside the inaudible under.

My mind orders my rebellious body, STOP fidgeting. Just BE still.

My body backfires like a grumpy toddler, I can't 'just be still'! I am hurting. This is painful. It’s taking too long. I am tired and my nose is itching.

I say out loud, on behalf of my nose,

My nose is itching.

Jenny leans over and scratches my nose with the corner of the cotton blanket.

Thank you, says my nose, that feels much better.

I take another breath and find I am able to relax a bit. I close my eyes, embracing the moment of rest, unwanted as it may be. 

I lay so still I feel Earth’s rotation under my back. My body, indeed, is perfectly still, I realize, but inside, my soul is in uproar. 

This is so interesting, I observe, How’s it possible for a body to be so perfectly still but on the inside a storm is raging on…? 

...for the exterior to be as calm as a glassy surface of a lake, while the depths are churning like a magma chamber?