Just Thinking

When things get dark.

One of my favorite books, you know, one of those ones you keep reading again and again, is “God Was In This Place & I Did Not Know It” by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner. It’s a collection of various rabbis understandings and thoughts on the passage in Genesis 28:16 where Jacob wakes up from a dream and exclaims … well, he yells the title to Rabbi Lawrence’s book.  It has been a constant reminder to me to be aware of God’s presence with me at all times.  It always amazes me how blind we are to the miraculous that hides just behind the ordinary, and just beneath the mundane minutiae of our daily lives.  It’s one of the things about my character that I am most frustrated with.  This past week was another reminder for me. Read more…

What's hiding in your soul?

So I thought I’d slap up a few random, unfinished poems I’ve been working on.  I figured that some of you might enjoy them, and who knows, maybe some of you might have a few suggestions for which direction to go with them.

This ones a little bit hopeless so far.

When life feels grey.

Today is a dreary day.  The sky is that oppressively gray color that only the sky can really attain, and it is very damp.  Usually I’m happy for the warmer days in the winter time, but today I would trade the warmth for a little sun.  Why is it that the dreary days outside always seem to coincide with the dreary days in my heart?  It’s not that today is a bad day, or a horrible day, it’s just … dreary.

I suppose it didn’t help that when I opened my bible to read today, I ended up reading Psalm 69 which opens with these wondrously cheery words: “Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.  I sink in the miry depths where there is no foothold.  I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me.  I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched.”

I think that God put the Psalms like this in the bible just for days like this.  As a Christian, I’ve always felt that to be “down” at all was not the Jesus way to be: that feeling a little blue, or dreary, is to somehow betray all that God has done for us, but when I read these Psalms of David, I hear the pain, the loneliness, the frustration in his soul, and I am strangely comforted.  I mean, the guy was called “a man after God’s own heart” for crying out loud!  If David gets dreary sometimes, why shouldn’t we be allowed a few dreary days.

I guess the real issue is what we do with the dreariness.  Do we fight it?  Do we give in to it?  Do we spread it around a little?  Today I decided to visit Starbucks and spend a little time here listening to some good music, watching people interact (which is one of my favorite pass-times), and journalling through the dreariness.  I’m also getting my haircut this afternoon, which always cheers me up.  I’m also going to partake in a little revolutionary couch sitting this afternoon.  You see I think a big part of my dreariness is that I’ve been working a little too hard the past few weeks.  I had a trip up to Thunder Bay to speak at Redwood Park Church, and I was asked to speak at a youth retreat the weekend after that.  Now, while I absolutely love teaching, it still takes a lot out of me, so I think I need a little Sabbath time to recuperate.