courage – Opiate Nation

(Short topical blogs based on Opiate Nation – translation into most languages in tab on right.)

When we hear the phrase “ghost stories” most of us think of scary and spooky stories shared around a campfire with the intended, and predicable, consequence of keeping us awake at night.

But when H Lee (aka Harris Insler) decided to call his new podcast series “These Ghosts Must Be Heard”, it wasn’t because he would be interviewing people with paranormal experiences. And although the stories his guests share aren’t scary in the ghoulish sense, they have kept their narrators awake at night for days, weeks, and months on end. John and I included. (To hear our interview with Harris, see links below for Podbean, Amazon, Spotify.)

https://theseghostsmustbeheard.podbean.com/

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/3392919b-b8bc-46b4-a486-5e34b7d8dd1d/episodes/580578a3-691f-418a-a179-8bc5f72dd138/these-ghosts-must-be-heard-episode-2-jl

These are real-life experiences and these “ghosts” are the spirits of our deceased loved ones: children, friends, partners who have succumbed to premature and preventable deaths from opioid overdoses.

“The quickest way to reach the light of day is to head east, plunging into the darkness, until one comes to the sunrise.” This thought I quoted last week from Jerry Sittser has become a perfect metaphor for what my husband and I are currently experiencing.

Because of plans made in mid-January for a return visit with our daughter & family, long before there was much information or interest in the Corona virus, we flew back to Melbourne, Australia on Wednesday. Little did we know then that we would be on the last flight to leave the USA that would allow non-citizens/residents to enter Australia for an indeterminate amount of time. But what I did feel deep in my soul for 10 days before we left was that we were going to be gone for a long time and that we needed to get prepared with our house sitter and other important arrangements.

And I had a vision of sorts – nothing eerie – more like a visual picture of our future. It was as if we were on a ship and heading into a darkness that stretched from horizon to horizon. It didn’t make me afraid, but it was a forewarning that we didn’t really know what lay ahead. We think we know what we will be doing and can picture our normal life when we are in AU, but this time will be different. This reminded me of the chapter “The Dark Island” from The Dawn Treader from C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia.