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Jack H is tired. Tired, in mind and body, morally, feeling tired. Insufficient sleep of course, and physical demands, and something else he cannot take the trouble to identify. There is a social pressure that is wearing, but that comes with being human. Something about being drained. Jack H does not know how to relax, recharge. He does not know how to celebrate.

Jack H is having a birthday. He does not understand what this means. It seems to have meaning. He wants it known that it is his birthday, but he wants it to be ignored.

Jack H must realize now that his best days are behind him. He must count the vitality remaining to him in years, not decades. He is unmoved by this fact, because he is still strong, and healthy. He still has his vitality. This is as much as to say he still has himself. He is not alone, entirely, because he knows how to love. He does not know how to show his love. Has he forgotten how? No matter. There is an emptiness he would like to have filled.

Jack H is a kind man. He is patient, a hard lesson learned from heartbreak and anguish. He is afraid of his weakness. He has received blessings he does not deserve, and although his gratitude is insufficient, he is not ungrateful. He thinks of God as impersonal. But he weeps for the suffering of Jesus.

Jack H is cynical, skeptical, determined not to be fooled. He loves truth, he likes to think, except that he quibbles at the word "love." And "truth." He know there are such things. Hasn't he just said so? But hope is hard. He will wait and see. He will be true, as he is able, and perhaps grace will fall upon him. He is not waiting, passively. He acts. It's just that he knows how life is. Life is a succession of birthdays and other commemorative days, punctuating an expanse of time the way islands populate the sea.

There is meaning beyond and behind such a view. It's just hard to see, and to say.

J