Sept. 21, 2006

[tjaman]

Has a television show made you really miss G-d, sometimes?

I was watching "Dead Like Me" Tuesday night and they aired the episode "The Shallow End."

Now, "Dead Like Me" has made me cry before. After Betty died, when Rube said she'd mentioned Millie had a big brother, George said "No. Millie had a big sister." That was just one of those quietly incredibly sad moments and I lost it a little.

This week, Daisy reaped the soul of a man who'd wanted to be a woman. He was Catholic (discussing the power of prayer and his mother's belief, he said something like "All the Hail Marys in the world couldn't give her a daughter") He was internally conflicted and angry at G-d and was shouting at the heavens in a church for some explanation when in the midst of abject despair the image of Christ came forth with arms outstretched.

I lost it.

I've got some allergies going just recounting it here. I don't know why that's getting me where I live so badly. I know I've been feeling really distant and isolated lately, soulwise, and I'm not completely sure why that is. Prayerlife is fine, services are occasionally moving and even comforting, nothing is significantly different.

Meanwhile, I'm losing a certain sense that I had that someone's looking out for us, that when I pray I'm connecting to some higher power. And I know I've had moments of spiritual drought in the past. I get so rational, preoccupied in the physical and ... I'm having trouble even explaining it here.

I've been troubled by my less charitable impressions of Islam lately, with the destruction that zealotry has visited on our lives, how it's hardly all on one side, but deeply aware of how some person someplace else can decide I need death because I worship elsewise, and how insane that is and how far removed from spiritual truths. And the pope deciding to make some offhand comments that have once again endangered us all. Honestly, Benedict, it's not like this is a group of a billion-plus people who've demonstrated that their religion is something trivial in their lives. For your next trick, why not drink some nitroglycerin and ride around on a Tilt-a-Whirl?

And the loss of my uncle a few weeks ago, and how my other uncle who's been moved back to his home for his final days and the effect that's having on my mom and my family. And how alone I sometimes feel.

And I don't think I'm chemically stable. This has been a hard, hard quit. But that episode Tuesday, "The Shallow End," that moved me. That moved me so much I couldn't even articulate it for two days.

This could be all there is. Or our best instincts may be right and there's something beyond the veil of experienced reality we can't access yet. It doesn't make a lot of sense either way, but I really long for that direct connection sometimes.

Wow ... what a downer I've been in here lately.

Um ... this week is generally going well ... ? No one's blown up my workplace today, so I'm happy ... ? People are ... writing these incredibly moving stories and I'm alive at the right time to experience them?

It's probably just me.

* wanders off to get a cup of perspective *

[quantumcat]

I wish I could say or do something to make these bad feelings go away.

I've had no easy answers when they've hit me and none for you now.

The best I can do is remind you that they are false and temporary.

God still loves you,the world still contains beauty and there are pockets of
reality that are not only good and sane but are more positive than we can comprehend.

In the meantime,we can try to use the grace we don't feel the way Beetthoven did the music he couldn't hear.

We may not be able to experience it fully ourselves but we might serve as such a conduit for it that the whole world forver reaps the benefits.

All we can do is take life one day at a time and leave the door open for Love to enter as well as exit from our hearts.

It wouldn't hurt to cosset the body a bit,either.

(Sometimes,part of what feels like a spiritual crisis is a lack of B-12 or magnesium or sleep.)

In any case,nourishing the soul and the body is a good strategy whatever shape we're in.

Even when we can't reach God,He can touch us.

As corny as 'Footprints' has become,it's still true.

The days we see only one set of prints in the sand are the days He carries us.

Maybe,the days we get spiritually numb or restless are the days we're having 'growing pains.'

We're ready to move on to a new level and our soul gets achy and itchy from the transformation.

I don't know.....

But as long as you can WANT intimacy with God and your soul still rejoices in the good things and spite and unreason still make you rage....

Your ties to God have not atrophied.

God's blood still flows through you,making your heart beat and God's spirit within you still gives you life and gives you your voice.

This anomie is a damned inconvenient and annoying illusion.

Treat it as you would your foot going to sleep.

The 'waking up' may prove as uncomfortable as the numbness but you'll
be certain that part of you is still alive.

[tjaman]

I rewatched that scene a couple of times tonight and it just completely wrecked me.

Which is weird, because "Grey's" I didn't connect with a lot at all.

I just wanted to thank you for your encouragement, q.

It's good to have a q in one's corner when life goes a little sepia-toned.

[quantumcat]

anytime,tj...



You're there for us even when you aren't aware of it.

Just by being you.