Marking Time
Jessica tells me that the fast-food building going up on Glenstone is going to be a Popeye's, not a Bueno. Damn.
I have been working on my spiritual autobiography this morning, because I am slated to give it at the next Chapter meeting in my Community. They all appear to be excited to hear it, as they've all heard each others' bios, but nobody has heard mine yet. No pressure, right? But I know that the worst critic in the audience is going to be myself, anyway.
I was going through my old journal, the one I kept through college and graduate school, and as usual it was a depressing read. I hate even looking at the purple cover of that notebook sometimes, because I know what's in it: a grovelling litany -- I'm a bad person: Good Lord, deliver me. I've failed at living: Good Lord, deliver me. I think You're cruel and I don't understand why I can't love You: Good Lord, deliver me.
Good Lord, deliver us.
Looking at myself this morning, I had been thinking that I've just wasted a year and have accomplished nothing; but immediately after I thought this I realized it wasn't true. I've actually accomplished quite a lot, not the least of which is the recognition (patchy though it be) that just because things are difficult and not as I'd like them to be, it just doesn't follow that I'm therefore a waste of space. I still do the things I lamented in that journal -- that is, I have the same failings I ever did, and they get me down as much as they ever did. Depending on the state of my hormones, I take that in stride or I curl up and writhe like a poisoned wasp. But a few things are different now.
For one thing, stuff I used to think was sooo bloody sinful I now think is natural, expected, and (when undesirable) something God doesn't even have to break a sweat to have patience with. Even my maunderings on what I see as my colossal failure as a human being, which drive my friends and family to distraction -- I have a sense that they don't tax God's entire store of patience, or even very much of it. I mean, he gets that a lot, doesn't he? And even when Jesus explodes with things like, "How much longer do I have to put up with this?" I get the feeling that it's not really us he's angry with, but the obscurity that hides the land of the living from our eyes.
Because for another thing, I have a clue that there is something outer, something outside the storm and stress of being a person like me. I don't get any sense of that from my old notebook, and I don't remember ever feeling it; though I must have had times now and then. I think being in a liturgical church has helped that. Before, in worship, I was constantly fretting about whether I felt enough, or believed enough, to sing the worship songs and listen to the sermon. Now, I can participate in the liturgy and know that it will still be true whether I feel it or not, whether I believe it or not -- when I walk into and out of church I'm not like Atlas, carrying the world. All I have to hold is a Book of Common Prayer.
And I have started thinking things. I mean, not borrowing others' thoughts and dressing them up to look like mine, but thinking some things of my own. About myself, and about what I want to do. Not running around desperately seeking out positive opinions to shore up a rickety old bridge -- having my own damn positive opinion, and going from there.
None of which is easy for me -- none of which I do consistently -- but I know it's there. I've known who I am for a long time, but it has taken me so long to be able to say that that is a good thing, even for a moment.
And now, my soul says, can I leave this homework and go play outside?
Oh, thank God.
Jessica tells me that the fast-food building going up on Glenstone is going to be a Popeye's, not a Bueno. Damn.
I have been working on my spiritual autobiography this morning, because I am slated to give it at the next Chapter meeting in my Community. They all appear to be excited to hear it, as they've all heard each others' bios, but nobody has heard mine yet. No pressure, right? But I know that the worst critic in the audience is going to be myself, anyway.
I was going through my old journal, the one I kept through college and graduate school, and as usual it was a depressing read. I hate even looking at the purple cover of that notebook sometimes, because I know what's in it: a grovelling litany -- I'm a bad person: Good Lord, deliver me. I've failed at living: Good Lord, deliver me. I think You're cruel and I don't understand why I can't love You: Good Lord, deliver me.
Good Lord, deliver us.
Looking at myself this morning, I had been thinking that I've just wasted a year and have accomplished nothing; but immediately after I thought this I realized it wasn't true. I've actually accomplished quite a lot, not the least of which is the recognition (patchy though it be) that just because things are difficult and not as I'd like them to be, it just doesn't follow that I'm therefore a waste of space. I still do the things I lamented in that journal -- that is, I have the same failings I ever did, and they get me down as much as they ever did. Depending on the state of my hormones, I take that in stride or I curl up and writhe like a poisoned wasp. But a few things are different now.
For one thing, stuff I used to think was sooo bloody sinful I now think is natural, expected, and (when undesirable) something God doesn't even have to break a sweat to have patience with. Even my maunderings on what I see as my colossal failure as a human being, which drive my friends and family to distraction -- I have a sense that they don't tax God's entire store of patience, or even very much of it. I mean, he gets that a lot, doesn't he? And even when Jesus explodes with things like, "How much longer do I have to put up with this?" I get the feeling that it's not really us he's angry with, but the obscurity that hides the land of the living from our eyes.
Because for another thing, I have a clue that there is something outer, something outside the storm and stress of being a person like me. I don't get any sense of that from my old notebook, and I don't remember ever feeling it; though I must have had times now and then. I think being in a liturgical church has helped that. Before, in worship, I was constantly fretting about whether I felt enough, or believed enough, to sing the worship songs and listen to the sermon. Now, I can participate in the liturgy and know that it will still be true whether I feel it or not, whether I believe it or not -- when I walk into and out of church I'm not like Atlas, carrying the world. All I have to hold is a Book of Common Prayer.
And I have started thinking things. I mean, not borrowing others' thoughts and dressing them up to look like mine, but thinking some things of my own. About myself, and about what I want to do. Not running around desperately seeking out positive opinions to shore up a rickety old bridge -- having my own damn positive opinion, and going from there.
None of which is easy for me -- none of which I do consistently -- but I know it's there. I've known who I am for a long time, but it has taken me so long to be able to say that that is a good thing, even for a moment.
And now, my soul says, can I leave this homework and go play outside?
Oh, thank God.
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