"It's a routine procedure. What we're going to do, Tom and Annie, is take this here scalpel with the size #10 blade and make a a six-to-eight inch gash in the side of your one-month-old son. Then we're going to take these here rib spreaders and ever so gently ..."
Well, you get the picture. The "routine" I'm used to is my daughter's scraped knee, and that still breaks my heart.
But as I've been thinking about the word today, I think I've come to terms with it. "Life is hard," as my Dad often says. And it really is. Pain and grief and suffering, these are characteristics of the "routine" life. If you choose to love someone, you open yourself to hurt and to being wounded. Any day without suffering is outside of the norm - abnormal.
I'm thankful for being reawakened to the "routine" life. The alternative seems to be a dead life.
