Trials and Pleasant Reading

I don't know of anyone who doesn't have trials and yet I feel like the world is filled with people like that. I think this illusion originates in pleasant reading. I sat in the ER all day as Reid struggled to get air past his pneumonia into his lungs. Much of the time doctors, nurses and various technicians were coming and going and looking at him. I spent a lot of time looking at him as well and waiting. I waited for his O2 numbers to climb back up, for his gasping breaths to ease, for his groaning to stop. Between all the activity, I killed time and numbed my mind and emotions by pleasant reading.

I read about a couple sailing around the Chesapeake Bay visiting all the historic sites. I read about a man growing up on the Bay near a remote beach, swimming and boating with his family. I read about a couple visiting Londontown on the South River and wandering the beautiful gardens. None of these people ever sat in an ER, couldn't pay bills, or experienced tragedy - at least that is what it feels like reading their pleasant stories. I'm sure they all have had lives filled with heartache and trial and tragedy. From what I've seen, the number of people who have gone through life with no major trials is infinitesimally small. The chance that there would be multiple people who have not had trials all writing an article for the same issue of a magazine is also infinitesimally small.

That is why pleasant reading is so bittersweet to read in an ER. All around are the suffering and yet those in the pages of the magazine have no suffering. I don't like to read about suffering or tragedy. I hate sad, depressing books. Don't get me started on Dickens. When I read, I want to escape into a pleasant world filled with people who do pleasant things and can laugh at their trials because they are now wonderful tales and yarns. It is a world that will only exist in heaven and that is probably why I long for it. C. S. Lewis contends that our innate human longings are longings for heaven. I'm grateful for some pleasant reading at the ER for it reminds me to long for what will ultimately be fulfilled in a world where the wreckage of humanities rebellion against our creator will be wiped away and all that is good, that we long for, will be ours.