RRRAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!! - 12 Apr something

I think attempting a spiritual discipline for me always seems to default to showing my how undisciplined I am or how I'm just not good at spiritual disciplines or that I just gear my life differently than how spiritual disciplines work.

Over the course of this week I've been trying to follow through with the community house in morning & evening prayer (see previous posts of the writing exercises). Mostly it's been trying to find time to read the sections of the Bible suggested for the day & then write some & maybe 'pray' - though for me its the thoughts/conversations in my head with God or with myself that sometimes sneaks into being conversation with God, or is just me talking & maybe (hopefully, likely, of course) God is listening to me yammer on about whatever crap is running through my head. So it hasn't really felt like I'm maybe really doing 'prayer', but I guess close enough for me.

But even with this, it's been harder to fit the moments in. I'm realizing I do not gear my life well to doing this sort of thing - which is why I haven't done it for years. Waking for me is a process of groaning awake, dragging myself out of bed groggily & then pushing the clock to get to work before whenever I need to. There is no breakfast, no reading, no musing, no pause before heading out. OK, well, sometimes there is, but those are mostly on the procrastination days where I stare at my computer blankly for a while & check e-mail & random G.I. Joe message boards & other less brain capacity consuming things so that I can slowly wake up & feel human. The end of the day is the lingering in awake-ness for too long of trying to cram in all the list of things I wanted to fit into a day, but didn't, or just the empty search for that moment of significance to close the day....

And so, morning & evening prayer, that discipline, seems to not work so well....

...today was into work at 7:30 to prep for an 8AM meeting. Was all there on time & ready & not my usual disorganized self & felt kind of proud of that. Had a few moments between getting ready & the meeting start & so read Lamentations 3 while waiting for the others to join the conference call....

...this is what started my day & has helped spin the day to whatever it is now.

... Lamentations 3 is the middle of this book of mourning. It's Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, watching his beloved city destroyed, his beloved people butchered, slaughtered, raped, pillaged - he is watching the destruction of Jerusalem, the city of promise, Zion, the city of the King, the light of Israel.... and the book is where he pours out his lament....

...I remember long ago I read Lamentations over Bowness. It was back when I was working with the youth there & it tore my heart to watch good kids being chewed up by life - abuse, drugs, neglect, bad choices. This was the time where I spent so much time arguing with God, pleading with him to help these kids & it felt like nothing was happening, there is no release - no break from their pain, no release of grace or deliverance from heaven. And so one saturday I went up to this bench on Home road that overlooks bowness & read lamentations out loud - which I don't do. I'm a quieter person & so reading things out loud when no one's around is not so normal.

I remember the shift that happened in chapter 3. Reading it out loud, Chapters 1 & 2 & the first half of chapter 3 are all just hopeless, filled with grief & mourning for the destruction of a beloved people. Chapters 4&5 & the last part of 3 seem to be the same, but there is this shift that happens in chapter 3 - that I'd never seen before - where the perspective totally changes. The first half of the book is, well, like what I do, almost a passing blame onto God, or just being so overcome by grief that it's just sorrow without relent. But in the middle of three, Jeremiah becomes keenly aware of God's grace, His heart, His unfailing love & mercies that are new with each dawn... in this He realizes that God's heart is for him & his people & not against them & that this destruction is for some other, better purpose. Somewhat it is the destruction they/we had brought on themselves, but part of it is this refining process to cut out the cancer & bring (eventually) healing to his/His people.... and then the rest of the lament in chapters 4 & 5 are actually prayers of intercession, prayers of hope, realizing that God is present & wanting to rescue.....

...and so this is what I was reminded of. Reading Lamentations 3 today I was put back in that place - the place of struggle with God, the longing for deliverance, the not seeing His help for sure - pretty much what I expressed for Sunday....

And then the meeting started. Today was a day where all of the prep work with no results from days past suddenly all came together & we sort of saw almost results. It was a tad unnerving in some ways. For days, weeks, I've been trying to get to some projects, finding hurdle after hurdle, one more hoop to jump through after another. And today, things just accidentally came together - they just worked out & I was able to do a test in about 1/2 hour that I haven't been able to get to for weeks. And things seem to work. It's been this pending crisis that no one will ante up to investigate & they sort of have been waiting on me & giving me dirty looks 'cause I haven't gotten it done yet (mostly 'cause I'm swamped with other stuff). Today we sort of figured out that it's not going to be an issue & so it sort of became a non-event. People go, oh, great, that's not as broken as we thought & that's it....

So it was a bit of a let down. You put all that effort & prep-work in & the 'achievement' feels pretty dang hollow. But maybe that's all work (though the art stuff I'm doing doesn't feel like that - I like the process almost as much or more than the finished product).

Busy day. Ran from 8 til 2:30. Finally nuked some chili & ate it in the lab while listening to people try to debug a problem.

Other heartbreaks: One of the guys at work found out his wife might be leaving him. This stuff eats away at me. It's not my relationship, but it hurts when I hear of break-ups & it sits in my gut & gnaws away there. Listened to a woman at work talk to me of how her work is being hampered severely because of the cattiness & gossip of the other women in the office. And for whatever reason, management is more wanting to appease the catty women than to do anything for this woman & it's actually costing us business. It's crazy. I guess I don't understand gossip. I'm normally amazed that people talk about me & maybe I have low enough expectations of what people may or may not say about me, that I don't really worry about gossip. Maybe I just haven't been on the receiving end. Maybe it only hurts for me when the people close to me seem to misinterpret my actions/intentions... but yeah, I've somehow escaped the sting of gossip, but it's bad where I work & bad among women. It's crazy the stuff people say & the rumours & stories that get spread & it's just devastating the effects... it also makes me question again whether I should be moving companies ....

... came home after the rushed day & had a nap before heading to the community house. Woke up 'funny'... must've been tired 'cause I was out cold quickly & the nap seemed to go by quick. The negatives of all of the above thoughts had seemed to settle in & so I was struggling, wrestling with it all on the drive down to the house.

....it seems that scripture, the Bible, scares me... opening up the book again this week has left me feeling undone every time I read. Again, it just speaks of a world that is so real, too real... it just paints such desperate pictures of risk & danger & hope & deliverance & this God who is so big, but who could kill you with his love..... somehow everything He does is to save us, but He's crazy & while He's so gentle, he's sort of not, too - He's this wild man who will destroy nations to save his people, who will burn up everything you have to purify that one little nugget of gold that rests somewhere buried in your heart... He is so not safe & while He may be good, it sure scares the crap out of you in the process. He doesn't come to Abraham saying, "look, I'm going to ask you to kill your son, but really it's just a test. Follow through with this & at the last second, I'll stop you & it'll be all good".... Nope, instead He goes, "Abraham, go kill your son, your only son. You know the son I promised you. the son you ached for all your life. The son who all my promises are supposed to come through. Yeah, that son. Go off & kill him for me." And yeah, what God tells is brutal 'cause it doesn't tell you the end. Though really knowing the end wouldn't make it better. If God explained exactly what the trial was for, I'd probably go, "Uhm, great. Can we just say I've learned that lesson & skip the whole process?".... ah, yes, but where would be the art in that, eh?

Combined into these thoughts came thoughts from the 'Green Lantern: Rebirth" trade paperback. This one has caught my imagination as it contrasts fear & will. The thoughts tonight focused on the premise that the Green Lantern's rings project constructs made from the will of their wearers & that somehow the GL's are forcing their wills through the rings & each time they do this, it hurts. This got me wondering if everything good in life comes with pain. Does every act of will come with pain? Does every moment of love come with pain? Maybe everything good involves pain? & then I thought, hrm, well, so likely does everything 'bad' come with pain... and then I thought that maybe everything in life involves 'pain'. That nothing we do can escape suffering.... but then thought that maybe pain is the wrong word, maybe the word is 'cost'.... nothing comes free. Everything at a price. Someone's price anyhow... I don't like using 'cost' either. Too many snooty religious folks toss it around & ask us if we're willing to 'pay the cost' required to live the 'Christian life'... and they point to whatever their going through as this great cost & seem to minimize whatever you're facing. Maybe they're right. But I tend to think that there is maybe something wrong when you brag about how much you paid for something. Normally we cheer when we get a good deal on something. Where we get something great for little to no cost. Instead these people are bragging that they paid a whole bunch for not that much. This seems wrong & a tad vain, which sort of makes me suspect. Usually paying a cost wipes out our vanity.... and in light of the One who paid the ultimate cost, we should all recognize we're just riding his coattails & sponging off His riches....

... so this was the thoughts betwen my house & the community house.... weights from the day at work, wrestling with a God who I long for & who terrifies me, feeling like the world is a very desperate place full of risk that I'm not so sure I'm up to the challenge of & hoping for some emerald beam to let me fly some where or cut into the darkness around me or in my own soul to give some sort of release.... that & the history of mambo music which was playing on the radio at the same time - pretty interesting & a nice deviation from the madness....

... but all of the above left me choking on my self... rage, insanity, fear, isolation, hope, longing... I was not so present tonight. Hid mostly on the periphery. At the edge of the table, edges of the room, the edge of conversations, sheltered in dish washing, finding refuge locked away in the bathroom. Not a comfortable night for me. I get into these places. My friends would gladly talk with me about it, would gladly listen & a number asked how I was & stuff... but I push back. It's taken me this long to flush my thoughts on paper & still it barely makes sense in written form. Let alone when I try to talk & none of it comes out right & I ramble on about a million unrelated things to try to explain why i feel what I'm feeling, all the while feeling dumber & dumber & less & less understood (& likely more crazy) with every word spoken... I was tempted to ask for a computer to purge my thoughts so I could be normal (or as close as I get) around people... but yeah, didn't make it to that... and besides, why drag people into the vortex of my craziness... a vortex which'll likely pass once I can spill it out on paper.

...so I basically leaving the whole night. Slunk off towards the end & headed for home. Tried to escape the people so I could be alone & wrestle with the madness more.

I feel again on the verges of losing it. I don't think I'm crazy 'cause I'm always worried that I'm going crazy. Odds are good that if I was crazy I'd maybe think I was right about things & that I knew stuff & that it's all interconnected & I'm somehow in the middle of some great drama. I do think these things or question the possibilty of them, but always conclude that I'm just making this stuff up, so this is how I figure I haven't lost it.

It's so funny 'cause Saturday night I was talking with Andy & telling him how contented I felt. About how happy I am with my life & my own company & how I'm not all wrestling with stuff or trying to find/do/accomplish anything. I felt sort of guilty for saying it. Felt like I wasn't doing much as a Christian if I wasn't in some kind of turmoil or flagellating myself about something... but I didn't feel that guilty 'cause I was enjoying myself.

It's amazing then how in a day it shifts & I've been entrenched again in the feelings of insanity. Most of which I'm blaming on God. I could try to blame this on Andrea 'cause she picked the bible verses & prayer/writing exercises for the week, but I figure it's not her fault (or at least not directly). Tonight in one of the retreats to the washroom ended up reading the other passage for the day, Romans 14 and yeah. So far this week I've found so many links/similar themes running through the days passages. Romans 14 & Lamentations 3 - if there's similarities, I can't see them. Which sort of throws me. Knowing Andrea, she has either painstakingly selected each of these passages with great care & is using them to tell stories of journey & lead us down a path that likely she's walked at great personal cost. Or she just picked them all at random 'cause they looked like good passages. Her personality is such that she could've done either, or both, all depending upon how the moment strikes her or the spirit leads...

...and so Romans 14 throws me 'cause it doesn't seem to 'fit', though it fit the chaos of my head. Do or don't do. It doesn't matter. All is done to God & so we're free to do whatever. But we're to be careful not to mess up those weaker than us. So what does that mean? Who is weaker? I understand the rationale when you say you shouldn't drag an alcoholic to the bar, to put a recovering addict in the middle of the patterns that stole their lives.... but the church uses this passage as a protection of legalism. Those who set up certain 'rules' of conduct - which may or may not fall in line with the thoughts in the Bible - seem to get offended when people break these rules... and then they plead the 'weaker brother' card. "Please stop, what you're doing is offending me." And Jesus seems to come skipping through this hanging out at parties with prostitutes & hugging lepers...

... the chapter ends saying that we are damned if we doubt as we do stuff. Whatever is not of faith is sin. & being someone who questions everything I feel damned. Damned if you do. Damned in you don't. Lately I'm choosing to 'do' & let the chips fall where they may. Earlier in the passage, Paul chides us to say stop judging other people. We're the servants of Christ & He as master will make us all to stand, to thrive. The end of the chapter says happy is the one who doesn't condemn themselves in what they're choosing to do. I likely spend a chunk (mistyped there & said 'junk' which may be appropriate) of time judging myself & being not so happy.... but yeah....

... let loose a scream on the drive home. Again, something I don't do 'cause of the bands of quietness. I wanted to scream all night but figured that'd interrupt dinner & people would be sure I was crazy at that point.... or to scream while people talked about hockey, but I figured that was just bitterness & I should really learn that sports are more worshipful than I give them credit.... so yeah, the car seemed like an appropriate place. For once the scream came out as more of a roar. Which I try to do & it doesn't work out. Like the rest of my work today, the successful roar came out almost by accident... or maybe just honesty of the moment....

...felt a lot better after that & better after writing this.

Apologies to friends. Not that it maybe really matters. But yeah....