"When he is angry, graves are dug"

I Remember Me

It is well after midnight and I am tired and I have an early morning tomorrow. Perhaps a perfect time to take a moment to write about CFS, (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). Though honestly, after watching this movie, I am reminded of how poor a conductor of actual experience a movie can be. All one can do is WATCH other people in pain. And even that involves an hour of one's life in which one is NOT in pain. At least not this kind.

As I was watching this movie, my mind went to a document that was written originally in cuneiform many thousands of years ago. In this record of one man's suffering, I find myself wondering about how we all search for some way to understand the causes of our suffering and put it in some context that allows us some sort of hope and purpose to it.

"Marduk! The skies cannot sustain the weight of his hand,His gentle palm rescues the moribund.When he is angry, graves are dug,"

This "righteous sufferer" from Babylon laments his condition in words that remind one of those describing the symptoms of CFS in the movie.

1. After the Lord changed day into night
2. And the warrior Marduk became furious with me,
3. My own god threw me over and disappeared,
4. My goddess broke rank and vanished
5. He cut off the benevolent angel who walked beside me
6. My protecting spirit was frightened off, to seek out someone else
7. My vigor was taken away, my manly appearance became gloomy,
8. My dignity flew off, my cover leaped away.
9. Terrifying signs beset me
10. My mouth once proud was muzzled like a ....
11. My lips, which used to discourse, became those of a dead man.
12. My resounding call struck dumb,
13. My proud head bent earthward,
14. My stout heart turned feeble for terror,
15. My broad breast brushed aside by a novice,
16. My far-reaching arms pinned down by flimsy matting,
17. I, who walked proudly, learned slinking,
18. I, so grand, became servile,
19. To my vast family, I became a loner,
20. By day sighing, by night lamentation,
21. Monthly, trepidation, despair the year,
22. I moaned like a dove all my days,
23. I let out groans as my song,
24. My eyes are forced to look through constant crying,
25. My eyelids are smarting through of tears.
26. My face is darkened from the apprehensions of my heart,
27. Terror and pain have jaundiced my face.
28. The.... of my heart is quaking in ceaseless apprehension.
29. ..... like a burning fire,
30. Like the bursting of a flame falshehood beset me,
31. .... lamentation, my imploring!
32. One whole year to the next! The normal time passed.
33. As I turned around, it was more and more terrible,
34. My ill luck was on the increase, I could find no good fortune.
35. I called to my god, he did not show his face,
36. I prayed to my goddess, she did not raise her head.
37. The diviner with his inspection did not get the bottom of it,
38. Nor did the dream interpreter with his incense clear up my case
39. I beseeched a dream spirit, but it did not englighten me,
40. The exorcist with his ritual did not appease divine wrath.
41. I have pondered these things; I have made no sense of them.
42. But as for me, in despair a whirlwind is driving me!
43. Debilitating disease is let loose upon me:]
44. An evil vapor has blown against me from the ends of the earth,
45. Head pain has surged upon me from the breast of hell,
46. A malignant spectre has come froth from its hidden depth,
47. A relentless ghost came out of its dwelling place.
48. A she-demon came down from the moutain,
49. Ague set forth with the flood and sea,
50. Debility broke through the ground with the plants.
51. They assembled their host, together they came upon me:
52. They struck my head, they closed around my pate,
53. My features were gloomy, my eyes ran a flood,
54. They wrenched my muscles, made my neck limp,
55. They thwacked my chest, pounded my breast,
56. They affected my flesh, threw me into convulsion,
57. They kindled a fire in my epigastrium,
58. They churned up my bowels, they twisted my entrails
59. Coughing and hacking infected my lungs,
60. They infected my limbs, made my flesh pasty,
61. My lofty stature they toppled like a wall,
62. My robust figure they flattened like a bulrush,
63. I was dropped like a dried fig, I was tossed on my face.
64. A demon has clothed himself in my body for a garment,
65. Drowsiness smothers me like a net,
66. My eyes stare, they cannot see,
67. My ears prick up, they cannot hear.
68. Numbness has spread over my whole body,
69. Paralysis has fallen upon my flesh.
70. Stiffness has seized my arms,
71. Debility has fallen lupon my loins,
72. My feet forgot how to move.
73. A stroke has overcome me, I choke like one fallen
74. Signs of death have shrouded my face!
75. If someone thinks of me, I can´t respond to the enquirer,
76. "Alas" they weep, I have lost consciousness,
77. A snare is laid on my mouth,
78. And a bolt bars my lips,
79. My way in is barred, my point of slaking blocked,
80. My hunger is chronic, my gullet constricted.
81. If it be of grain, I choke it down like stinkweed,
82. Beer, the sustenance of mankind , is sickening to me.
83. Indeed, the malady drags on!
84. For lack of food my features are unrecognizable,
85. My flesh is waste, my blood has run dry,
86. My bones are loose, covered only with skin,
87. My tissues are inflamed, afflicted with grangrene.
88. I took to bed, confined, going out was exhaustion,
89. My house turned into my prison.
90. My flesh was a shackle, my arms being useless,
91. My person was a fetter, my feet having given way.
92. My afflictions were grievous, the blow was severe!
93. A scourge full of barbs thrashed me,
94. A crop lacerated me, cruel with thorns,
95. All day long tormentor would torment me,
96. Nor a night would he let me breathe freely a moment
97. From writhing, my joints were separated,
98. My limbs were splayed and thrust apart.
99. I spent the night in my dung like an ox,
100. I wallowed in my excrement like a sheep.
101. The exorcist recoiled from my symptoms,
102. While my omens have perplexed the diviner.
103. The exorcist did not clarify the nature of my complaint,
104. While the diviner put no time limit on my illness.
105. No god came to the rescue, nor lent me a hand,
106. No goddess took pity on me, nor went at my side.
107. My grave was open, my funerary gods ready,
108. Before I had died, lamentation for me was done.
109. All my country said, "How wretched he was!"
110. When my ill-wisher heard, his face lit up,
111. When the tidings reached her, my ill-wisher, her mood became radiant,
112. The day grew dim for my whole family
113. For those who knew me, their sun grew dark.

http://www.piney.com/BabRightSuff.html

The woman who created this movie on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome states:

"I took on this project because of my own need for answers and because I was hearing about so many people who were suffering from the physicality of the illness but they were suffering almost as much from ignorance and from their treatment by society."

Professional soccer player, Michelle Aikers, states of her suffering with CFS

"I never had the thought of taking my life. I had the yearning to be taken.”

My hat is off and my bald head exposed to all those who have had to face this particular element of unasked for life-script without knowing from where it came, for what purpose it was "given" or to what end it was taking them. Wow! Thats all I can say.

Question for Comment: Would you rather be given a more difficult suffering but WITH explanation or a less difficult suffering with NO explanation? Why?