Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth

If hell is a place full of wailing and the gnashing of teeth, then my
friends, we are already there. Even though the sun shines and the
breeze is very soft today there is wailing. Even though work has
been fairly steady this month there is gnashing of teeth. Even
though there is great love abounding I believe we may already be in
the house of punishment.

For my part, my husband is driving to Pikeville Kentucky to the
funeral of his best friend Chuck who was killed Monday afternoon
when an excavator fell on him. Of the six boys in my husband’s
childhood posse, he is the only one still alive. He is only 48. If
God knows statistics husband should live to be very old and die
peacefully in his sleep. None of the others did. Wailing, wailing
and gnashing of teeth.

Middle sister is in the hospital hooked up to IV antibiotics with an
unknown infection. Wailing, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

And I am waiting, as are many others, to find out if someone I love
much is sick. Wailing, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

For most of us there are some childhood years unmarked by illness,
disaster and death, but after the first, our innocence is lost and
forever after we live in the shadow of the valley of death until it
claims us. By the middle years you realize that the average life span
is a joke and like Kali you walk around with the heads of the dead
hanging in your subconscious.

Today, no bluebird could make me feel that earth is almost
heaven. May God hold you close Charles Ivan Griffith.