RUST ON MY SOUL (35th IN SERIES)

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RUST ON MY SOUL (A Novel) (Published by Bridge Press in 1985 & Distributed Internationally)

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INTRODUCTION (Repeated for those new to the series)

 
In an old loose leaf notebook, Thomas Kettering wrote when there was a cry from his heart. He wrote when his inner longing spilled over into the reality of his days. He did not write every day, only when he felt he must. How often he wrote or when is not important. The journey is what counts, for it is a diary about all of us, to all of us. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” and even a stumble is a step.

Morning
I tried to have a conversation with my body yesterday but found its hearing badly impaired. Today it’s speaking to me, stridently.

I’m aware of a shouting match between bone and sinew, a terrible confrontation that spells out stiffness and pain. I will not self destruct. I shall most certainly survive, but the years of my youth, no more than the turn of a few calendar pages, are now a decade and more behind.

Even a year ago my muscle memory, though failing, responded reasonably well. It stammered only slightly in its speaking. I was a shade of a second behind in reaction time. But yesterday, that one year later, at the annual office picnic and softball game, I would have done better to strike out.

Those ninety-degree angles at each base and my collision at home plate with the catcher after Tim’s bunt did more than rearrange my inner anatomy. They made a collection agency of my nerve endings and today I’m paying the bill.

Why must we grow old? Why must we move toward our latter days a tattered remnant of our former selves? There is a senility of the body that sets in before that of the mind.

The mental message to muscle is no less strong. Encoded it streaks in milliseconds as it always did. It’s just that there is a slowness in response. A rewriting of the command. And what once would have been a home run is now just a long fly out. What once would have been a close but safe play at first is no longer even close.

I was never a great athlete but I knew the joy of the wind in my face. Yesterday I spent all day long chasing my wind, but it never got closer than a gasp away.

Golfing with a golf card once every month or so has done little or nothing to help my sag and drag. My chest hurts, but then since I hurt all over I really can’t separate the pain.

Evening
I have chased a dream but what is the dream I have been chasing and is it worthy of the effort. It always comes down to this…now doesn’t it.
I think I’ll chase an answer harder and accompany the chase with a prayer and wonder why I wandered so far from this necessity of the soul.

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A new Series on PRAYER has begun.
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