Moby Dick and Other Troubles

I have a terrible cold that blew up in my immune system Sunday and felled me for two miserable days. I lay on my recliner and read Moby Dick, which in case you never heard of it, is about a whale. I think Melville spends entirely too many hundreds of pages setting the scene. I just want to cut to the chase...does Ahab get the whale or not? Don't spoil it for me. I still have about a thousand pages to go and remarkably have read every classic on earth, except Moby Dick. So I don't know for sure how it ends. I don't have a good feeling it will end well for Ahab, but that's ok. I am rooting for the whale, anyway.
I would be further along but I kept falling asleep. This is not necessarily an indictment of Melville's writing, though it might be. It was more likely due to my illness.

While I fluttered in and out of consciousness, we got a call from the Nursing Home. Mom K, having fully regained her strength, was up to her old tricks. She walked to the bathroom without calling for help, fell, and hit her head again. So Arvo raced off to the ER where Mom K had been brought...again. In my feeble condition, it was now up to me to stay upright long enough to retrieve daughter Asherel from an all day special chemistry intensive class at the end of the day. I didn't feel up to that at all, but I had no choice. I laid aside my harpoon, and grabbed a big box of tissues and went off to do what I had to do, sneezing.

This morning, I got up feeling much better, but there was a text sent in the wee morning hours from Asherel. Now she has the crud, and can't go to the expensive second day of the special class. In my head, I am singing, "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen...."

I read that Moby Dick is a symbol of God. Ahab is obsessed with finding what he considers a malevolent Being. Perhaps that is because Ahab of the Bible was a malevolent being himself, and maybe the ocean reflects not what is within, but who is looking at it. The whale is hidden from sight, in the depths of an ocean of things we cannot understand or penetrate easily. Just like God, the whale is usually incomprehensible, hidden, and powerful. His ways are not our ways. We may spend our entire life looking for Him, but not see Him till the end. I don't know if this analysis of whale as God is true or not. I will decide when I finish the book, but I could see how a case could be made for that interpretation.

After picking up Asherel, I got a two piece meal from KFC since Arvo wouldn't be home from the ER for hours, and I didn't feel well enough to make dinner. I ordered 2 chicken breasts, to go. One for Asherel and one for me. Would have been perfect, except when we got home, we discovered there was a wing and a chicken breast. So I had a wing for dinner. One tiny little wing. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself. I wanted to call KFC, or even in my illness, storm back and demand my grilled chicken breast. Or a refund. Or both!
"Nobody knows my sorrow...," I sang.

I thought of Ahab, and his picture of God (whale) as evil, bent on destroying him. Moby Dick was responsible for chewing off one of Ahab's legs, and so Ahab's mission in life was to find Moby Dick and exact retribution. Ahab is consumed by his hatred and desire for vengeance. In the end, I am pretty sure he will be destroyed. (Again, don't tell me if I am right. In a thousand pages, if I can stay awake, I will find out.) Nonetheless, it is already quite clear that Ahab is wasting what he has, losing the potential for happiness, in his quest to hold the whale accountable for the loss of his leg. The tragedy is not the loss of his leg...it is losing the rest of his life to anger, and hatred, and revenge, and despair.

I ate the small wing, which turned out to be just the right size for a slightly upset stomach, and was glad for the text from Arvo that Mom K was going to be fine. Then I snuggled back into my recliner with my box of tissues, and opened Moby Dick, anxious to see if the Great Whale or Ahab would prevail.

Psalm 40:11-13,16 (NIV)
Do not withhold your mercy from me, Lord; may your love and faithfulness always protect me. [12] For troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me. [13] Be pleased to save me, Lord; come quickly, Lord, to help me. [16] But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who long for your saving help always say, “The Lord is great!”

Troubles
Nobody knows the trouble I've seen
Nobody knows my sorrow
Nobody knows the trouble I've seen
Glory hallelujah!
Sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down
Oh, yes, Lord
Sometimes I'm almost to the ground
Oh, yes, Lord
Although you see me going 'long so
Oh, yes, Lord
I have my trials here below
Oh, yes, Lord
If you get there before I do
Oh, yes, Lord
Tell all-a my friends I'm coming to HEAVEN!
Oh, yes, Lord

-save a dog- hollowcreekfarm.org