I've been wanting to blog about -- oh, well, just about anything really, but I've been in one of those periods where only occasionally I can think something hard and bright and sharp like a needle; the rest of the time everything has had too much give, like wood that's been made spongy by the tide. You can't make a sampler for your blog with that.

I had dreams about drowning this morning, and woke up gasping. In the indeterminate moment between sleep and wakefulness, I mused on what a horrible death drowning must be, and felt really awful for the people who've had to do that death. It also made me wonder if there was any kind of death that wasn't merely a horrifying suffocation of life and consciousness. "Utter helplessness turned out to utter risk" doesn't begin to cover it.

I wish I didn't wake up thinking things like this.

I'd much rather wake up the way I went to sleep last night. I was lying in bed (the lamp on as it always is), letting my gaze rest on my night-table and the pile of books and CD covers, and it occurred to me: Right now, this instant, I'm not doing anything wrong. You'd think this would be a no-brainer, but it isn't. Occasionally I sort of give this little start and wake up, and realize I'm okay, but for the most part, as I go about my business in this world, I seem to live in this vague sense that whatever I'm choosing to do, whether it's buying a pack of Cheetos from a vending machine or modifying the way I say Morning Prayer (which is supposed to be modified) -- whatever I'm choosing to do is somehow not the right thing, that it doesn't balance, that I missed the mark. And usually when I'm reminded that I think that way, I feel ashamed of thinking that way, because that's just another example of my missing the mark. Occasionally, however, I wake up from all that with a silent snap: in a moment like that, I am not sinning, and I am not Sin. Who knew?

This morning's reading, from the letter to the Hebrews (10:21-23 REB):

We have a great priest set over the household of God; so let us make our approach in sincerity of heart and the full assurance of faith, inwardly cleansed from a guilty conscience, and outwardly washed with pure water. Let us be firm and unswerving in the confession of our hope, for the giver of the promise is to be trusted.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love the Revised English Bible?

It is precisely this reasoning that I have always used to comfort myself about both death and sin. No matter what horrors death shows me, the question I have learned to ask is always, "Who am I trusting?" All convolutions of philosophy aside, that is the question -- not, To Be or Not to Be. And as for sin, the same thing applies: the giver of the promise is to be trusted. Heck, I didn't know that was in the Bible. Cool. So I really can fall asleep not doing anything wrong.

I hope I'm not boring the lot of you with my religious ravings this summer -- but it all just seems to coalesce for me at these points, and I have to talk about it. But to switch briefly to less exalted topics:

I'm actually working on Chapter 21, yes indeed -- Elisabeth and Giles are eating pizza at the moment and have their mouths too full to give me a report. In other fic news, I have a whole post-series story arc that I want to write, which centers on Buffy and Giles's relationship and the hardship they have to be okay again. It's a little bit Folly, a little bit Parent Trap, a little bit Queer Eye and a little bit of a whole lot of other things too. I think I will actually write it.

L'chaim!