Danger: Neuroses Ahead

Hmm. Judy writes about needing a theology of beauty. Jan writes on the necessity of deep change. Both of these things smack me upside the head. The change has to move toward beauty and thus toward God, otherwise it's no more than a different pair of jeans. But that deep change has to be motivated and inspired by deep beauty -- the call beyond myself toward the greater.

The problem is I'm tired. Maybe it's just what feels like a month of consecutive rainy days, maybe it's that I don't feel able to rest, but at the moment, I read "change" as "work" and "beauty" just kind of sits there in the middle of my head on a heap of tangled and contradictory associations. I hang out with my friends and just feel like being alone, but being alone seems empty and futile. I start to wonder why the phone's not ringing -- and why it never really has. I think John of the Cross might call this a kind of desolation. Not really sure of who I am or what's happening or where the crap God went in the middle of this mess.

Of course, He's right here, underlying and holding it all together, but that's hard to feel when your spiritual skin feels cracked, chapped, and fragile. I want to find some nice mineral hot springs, rent a scuba tank, and just float for a week or so. Let the scales fall off. Breathe a little. Maybe sit in some artificial sunshine since the real stuff went AWOL.

Anyhow, that's me at the moment -- tired, dry, wasted, unable to recognize beauty if it walked up and bit me in the ass. So, yeah -- get to know me! But don't say you weren't warned.