Kirkepiscatoid

That it may please thee to preserve all who are in danger by
reason of their labor or their travel,
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.

We just don’t even consider that every time we get behind the wheel of a car we are in “danger.” Of course, the insurance companies have entire actuarial tables on this one. If we are going to buy the farm on the road, it is most likely 25 miles from our own home—the place where we THINK we are the safest. We are deluded that “home” is safe. Most fatal falls occur in one’s home.

We don’t even consider the possibility we could be dead as a doornail five minutes from home.

Or think about “by reason of our labor.” I go to work every morning and am exposed to pathogens, carcinogens, and all sorts of toxic things. I can no longer take a tuberculosis skin test because I turned positive for exposure to TB in 1991. I had to take six months of Isoniazid and risk liver damage from the drug to remove the 4% chance that I could have it turn to active TB. I have cut in surgical specimens from people with HIV and Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C. I don’t even think about it. Not a bit. I go to work and think I’m immortal.

I have cut myself while cutting in a surgical specimen now and then. I have had the Hep B shot but that won’t protect me from Hep C and HIV. I have inhaled God-knows-what over the years.

I like to brag that I gave up a lot of “risky behaviors” like owning a motorcycle, but the truth is every day I drive to work at the risk of being smashed to bits on the highway, I work all day in a literal cesspool of chemicals and pathogens, and I go home every day to feed large hooved animals who could kick me in the head and drop me like a rock. I like to claim that now owning a disability policy has changed my attitude, but I have no attitude at all about the things I do every day that truthfully, risk my life.

We just don’t think about these things until they happen. Then they are “freak accidents,” “tragedies,” and worse yet, the “What did you expect? He/she did/was around (fill in the blank.)” But we can be just as dead from the perils of everyday living as we can the riskiest of risky behaviors.

In that respect, every day of our life is a miracle.