I was in the doctor’s office a few days ago for a physical. I was past the usual 30 minutes in the waiting room, and was in the second phase of delay, linger & wait, i.e. in the examining room. My blood and urine test results had arrived, so in addition to the usual thump and jab and cough and drop your pants and grimace, the doc was going to review the numbers with me. Twenty years ago I seldom went in for check-ups. On the few occasions when I did, it was a snap. They didn’t test for all that much back then, and I knew that I was plenty healthy enough to get past anything that they did test. But now, at age 52 and carrying a set of questionable family genetics, everything is in the lurch. Sitting on the examining table, I could imagine it: “I’m a little worried about this, I think we’re going to have to . . . ”

I wish he would just come in already and get it over with. But no, the wait drags on. After my twentieth time scanning the boring little white room that I’m cooped up in, my mind starts getting rather philosophical, perhaps even a bit spiritual. I start wondering about my life. Has it been worth anything? Have the good and positive things that I’ve contributed to this world even slightly outweighed the bads? (I know that my fan club has told me a number of times that I’m clearly in the plus column, but it sure doesn’t feel that way). What’s left to live for? Why does the future seem just like a big blank? How did I wind up making a living doing things that really don’t interest me much, amidst a group of people that I have little in common with? Just when did the old days, when I looked at the future with excitement and hope, come to an end? They obviously did come to an end, but I can’t quite remember the morning when I woke up and the excitement was gone.

Still no doctor. I look at the floor. I want it to feel like it’s all part of something that’s right and true, no matter how dismal the immediate circumstances seem. I want to know that there’s some bigger meaning to it all, even if the doctor tells me that I’m going to spend the rest of my life engaged in a pitiful, ultimately unsuccessful attempt by the white hell that is the medical establishment to fight off some unfortunate condition in my body. I want to know that it will yet translate into something bigger; not just me and my little life, but all the people who died ungloriously amidst the confusion and chaos of the hurricane in Louisiana and Mississippi, or the sudden earthquake in Pakistan, or in front of a car bomb in Iraq, or from the tsunami in Indonesia, or in the World Trade Center four years ago . . .

If only there was a God. If only we could somehow know . . . . if only we knew it in our hearts, even if we can’t know it in our heads . . . . it would all definitely be better. There could still be music to existence even in the worst of circumstances, even when human life is treated like worthless trash by mother nature, or even worse, by humans themselves. I used to be quite sure about God. When did that also drift away? What catastrophe or absurdity or bit of human stupidity convinced me that there probably isn’t a conscious and caring presence behind the wheel of the universe?

But then again, something hasn’t drifted away. I still want there to be a God. I want it even if God can’t promise me or anyone else a happy ending anytime soon. Even if that God can’t send me out of this doctor’s office feeling like a new man, and not the old man that I am rapidly becoming.

They say that true religion is experienced in a battle trench, not in a church. I’ve never been in the military, so waiting alone in a doctor’s office with a sputtering middle-aged body and a doubtful, cynical mind is about as close as I can come. But after that little moment of intense reflection, I do feel, down inside, that the God question is still open. For now, that’s about as close to faith as I can get. But it’s probably better than nothing.