SOS

Good morning.

I recently discovered a new emergency way to pray. I wish I didn’t have to.

It has been, in our family, a time of emergencies. I lost my dad not long ago, after what a well-meaning clinician called ‘our dementia adventure’. Not an adventure we’d have chosen. Now we’ve disembarked that rollercoaster, I can look back at how we coped, or at least did our best.

Cognitive medical conditions are tricky to navigate. There isn’t one simple course of treatment, and we had countless troubled meetings with clinicians and others, in what felt like crisis after crisis. So I’d send up prayer after prayer, for help in getting through each one.

Two other relevant things about me: I’m an old radio enthusiast, and I’ve been known to tap my fingers when stressed. How does that tie together? Well, that famous SOS distress call, in Morse code, is dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot.

It saved lives on the Titanic and countless other disasters, it’s known the world over, and in several meetings, when anxious and concerned, I’d discretely tap it out on my leg, under the table of a doctor’s office. Dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot. A metaphorical flare of a prayer. Asking: help me out God.

Radio operators have tapped out similar emergency messages, and I too needed help navigating, feeling lost at sea, seeing no easy route ahead.

I pray this morning for those who feel likewise. God, bring peace to times of turbulence. Thank you that we can communicate in thought, word or even Morse. In times of crisis, hear our distress call, till waters calm again.

Amen