Getting Up to Pee

I wake up earlier than I used to. It’s not because I’ve finally become disciplined, it’s because I have to pee, one of the joyful failings of middle age. My older friends smile condescendingly and say, “just wait” like I do to whiny teenagers. But everyone has a pain they must endure that seems a heavier burden than they can bear. Mine is undesirable pressure to rise early.

I remember when I could sleep indefinitely no matter how much I drank. I tell myself that getting up early and spending a moment meditating indicates good hydration. I do drink half my weight in ounces of water every day, so it could be a contributor. But, since the walk to the bathroom also looks like a joint rusted marionette with a drunk puppeteer – popping and grinding and lurching while synovial fluid flows slowly through my stiff, aching joints – it’s probably because I’m old, not because I’m properly hydrated. I had to buy a funny looking, prostate friendly seat for my bike. Once you have prostitis, you are always susceptible to it. The seat is a dead give away to old guy status. It is not sleek or fast looking. It is barely identifiable as a bike seat. Looks more like an early prototype for an imaginative version of a comfortable torture device. I should have waited for further refinements.
This whining is not really about having to use the bathroom. I lay in bed this morning thinking of my friends whose days-old baby is laying in the hospital with a hole in her lung. I talked with a friend last night who is wrestling with enough mental conflict and emotional and spiritual battle to squash an elephant. I have friends who have died recently leaving their young children alone. I know so many people who are poor, sick, desperate in their relationships and hoping for a turn of events and a break in battle that will bring joy and peace and some increase in physical, mental and emotional comfort.
I long for things to be different. I wish for financial security and a home in a quiet neighborhood that my wife can decorate. I wish we had health insurance and a truck that did not leak. I wish the bank wasn’t selling my house for less than half what I owe and my business had ended because I wanted it to instead of auguring into the bedrock and twisting the shaft off. I wish I could sleep in without getting up to pee in the dark. For now I am healthy and handsome (yes, I must say so myself) with a better wife than I deserve and apparently genetically modified kids. But I cannot bank on “for now” because I don’t control it. Even if I could sleep in today, a day will come when I can’t. I will get unhealthy and old. Eventually I will die. A turn of events will not save me or anyone else.
I prayed for my friends and myself, hoping it was three instead of five thirty. I still hoped and I will continue to hope that things get better. But my best, most useful hope is that I will see my circumstances through the eyes of Jesus. I hope that my whole and healing heart will be made strong and that my mind will be renewed. I truly believe this renewal and strength and healing will actually change me. I will see and define and measure my circumstances differently, opposite than before because I have submitted to the interior wisdom of Jesus and his teaching about the new way.
Jesus gave himself to me, to us as the example of this new way. He challenged and invited us to participate with him in it. It is no quick solution and it is not an easier path. It is safe and good and worth hoping in. It is rooted in eternity. It is embraceable if I let go of hope in temporary solutions. I can only receive this new way to the degree that I am willing to give up on the old way. It’s a ratio. I’m in tension between the world and heaven. I can have as much as I want of either, but not both at the same time.
What I long for will not be found here in the dark. So, I look forward to heaven and its light here, now and forever. That’s a good reason to get up.