It’s sweltering—nearly game time—we’re walking through the Angel Stadium parking lot, heat mirage rising from the pavement, and my swollen, aching arm is in a sling. My broken arm was complicated the day before by a vile, venomous, vindictive bee. A bee so stealthy and cunning that I saw the fire-breathing, ruthless golden dragon neither coming nor going. Only the stinger—the circumstantial evidence—remained. Having plucked the mini dagger from my wrist like a pro-plucker, I was rendered speechless (except for that initial one-word utterance…and we’ll leave it at that).
In my lifetime, I’ve been bee-stung maybe a half dozen times or more, but never has it hurt or last like this.
David, through the Psalms, permits us to feel what’s real and to complain about the ache. No Shame in that. Thanks for that, Dave.
And so, nearing the stadium, my arm is burning and itching, and I take Dave’s lead and complain to my partner of a thousand years. John can take it. He has before. I give full vent. I plead, raising my one good arm: “WHAT, a broken arm wasn’t enough?! Where OH WHERE are my guardian angels these days?! All standing in line at Costco?”
He smiles empathetically. He doesn’t know where they are.
And then, as we approach the entrance below the towering A, we hear it. On the loudspeaker, it’s a song on my own playlist by Train, “Calling All Angels.” A song I listen to both intentionally and the one I “randomly” hear in other low moments, and now, here it is again, as I whine about my plight.
Even more than John, The Boss of All Angels is unafraid of my honest moans and groans. He can take it, too. If it’s good enough for David, the man after The Boss’s own heart, it’s good enough for me.
My heart, repeatedly stung and thoroughly wrung out, turns its ear to the music, which cools my hot air.
I rally. I look up and say, “Let’s go, Angels!!”