The Random Juggler

We’ve all seen jugglers with clubs, balls, hoops… The Random Juggler juggles random objects… a rubber fish, a violin, an axe…

We went to the football yesterday. We walked to the Norwich ground in the rain. It was good game, with some exciting moments. We returned to the car in the sunshine… but a 0-0 draw with Rochdale is a disappointment.

Earlier Adrian shared: ‘My daughter won’t speak to me, I have a granddaughter I’ve never seen, I haven’t seen my young son for a year, I live on my own, I was on my own through Easter…’

I randomly juggle my footballing disappointment with Adrian’s sadness.

Easter Sunday was great. Death is conquered; darkness becomes light; sorrow turns to joy; despair’s transformed to hope.

…I chatted to friends… one gent developed an alcohol addiction through the loneliness of COVID… a young woman has to use a wheel chair… another woman’s dad has developed a distressing dementia… a husband has left home…

…This morning a good friend is delivering the eulogy at the funeral of his son-in-law… leaving my friend’s daughter without a husband and his two young granddaughters without a dad…

I randomly juggle Easter joy and hope… with distressing family situations… with sadness and grief… I think my friends do too.

…On the news we saw Leo Dee, the British-Israeli rabbi, whose daughters and wife were shot by a Palestinian gunman… burying his ‘beautiful and wonderful’ daughters… their ‘family of seven is now a family of four’ after his wife died from her wounds.

…I’m reading Job… Job’s a good man who loses his health, wealth, possessions, family. He’s left with pain, friends and wife that don’t understand, and a struggling faith: ‘The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.’

I join Rabbi Dee, Job and my friends seeking to juggle the God of life and hope… with pain, grief and suffering… with my incomplete understanding.

I’m a random juggler.