Blog
“Uselessness”
Categories: M. W. Bassford, Meditations
Of late, it seems like I've been collecting a lot of compliments about how well I have been handling the changes that ALS has brought. I deeply appreciate the love and goodwill behind these words, but I'm not sure that I deserve them yet. Though I have lost many things, I have not yet lost the ability to write.
I speak in metaphor, of course. Literally, my hands are crippled and nearly useless. I can’t write out a comprehensible sentence. However, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I can still write by dictation. Though the process is sometimes frustrating, it scratches the itch well enough.
Like most in the arts, I long have been ambivalent about my gift and what I create with it. In my younger years, I wavered between wishing that I weren't a writer at all and wishing that I had been an inspired writer. I write in part for the endorphin rush. Just imagine what it must feel like to be the instrument of the Holy Spirit in producing the greatest writing of all time!
Now that I have grown older and somewhat wiser, I no longer aspire to such heights. To write like the prophets, one must be a prophet, and all of them lived lives of great suffering. What sane person would want to trade places with Jeremiah or Paul?
I also have shed much of my ambivalence. Terminal illness is good at dispelling illusions, and with its help I can see that I have received a great blessing. Though I think I could have done more with it, I believe that it generally has been useful to God and to his people.
To me, “useful” is a word of great power. All my life, I have wanted to be useful: to my family, to my friends, to my church, and to my God. My ambivalence about compliments nearly matches my ambivalence about writing, but over time, I have learned to reply, “Thanks! I'm glad you found it useful!”
If I can write, I can be useful. If I can be useful, I can take pride in and find meaning in helping others. Thus, if I can write, things won't get too bad.
Of course, when ALS takes my ability to speak, it will take my writing too. What, then, of my usefulness?
It is a great grief for any writer to lose the ability to write. The English poet John Milton produced many great works, but one of his greatest is a sonnet entitled, “On His Blindness”. The poem is about Milton’s struggles with losing his eyesight and so becoming unable to write, written from the perspective of faith. He concludes it by observing that God is served not only by those who act but also by those who wait.
I love “On His Blindness”. When I encountered it for the first time in high school, I memorized it. However, I now think Milton missed something. Sometimes the action is not in the writing. Sometimes it is in the waiting.
Recently, I have been drawn to James’ discussion of suffering, and his words in James 5:10 are precisely on point here. He writes about the prophets, those who spoke in the name of the Lord, past tense, and are an example of suffering and patience, present tense.
The final witness that God asked from the prophets was not in their last words. It was in the mute testimony of their suffering and death. Though dead, they still speak through the triumph of faith that endured to the end.
The day will come when I will write either with great difficulty or not at all. However, my usefulness in the kingdom (indeed, anyone's usefulness) will continue for as long as I steadfastly cling to the Lord. It is not the path I would have chosen in my pride and self-reliance, but it is the opportunity that He has provided.
May I have the courage to take it.
