Monday, October 24, 2005
Desert Deep
Ah, what a tangled mess. God tries to do something nice for me and I turn around and bite him. He teaches me things and I tear it apart, throw it on the floor, then sit on the hot dry sand and wonder why life stinks.
Amid riches, how do I feel rich? Why do I always feel hollow? What does it take to fill a big dry hole? I guess God had to get my attention first, so that I'll take down the umbrella.
Really, the idea that I prevent my own filling, that there is no gauge that reads full, is revolutionary. It makes so much sense. It even squares with what I see around me: people whose hands are full of gadgets, yet eagerly reaching for the next one. Is anyone ever full? Can anyone ever feel it? Am I the only one to ask this question?
Maybe other parts of the world do better. Maybe there people grow up with the emotional skills to understand what they're getting, and what to do with it. I used to handle this intellectually, but there are problems with that approach. It's very easy, for one thing, to so clamp down on freedom that life is just walk between straight walls. Or, I guess, one could justify almost anything intellectually, but probably through God's hand on my life even then I couldn't make such a lie stick. I usually went the other way: living the life of a pauper. A homeless man in a good home.
What does it take to feel as if I have a home anywhere? I don't know. I'll have to learn. God has a home for everyone, he says. I just can't feel it, and it seems that the feeling of it is important to him. For my part, I'm just scared. Don't look down. Nothing there but desert. All the way down.
Amid riches, how do I feel rich? Why do I always feel hollow? What does it take to fill a big dry hole? I guess God had to get my attention first, so that I'll take down the umbrella.
Really, the idea that I prevent my own filling, that there is no gauge that reads full, is revolutionary. It makes so much sense. It even squares with what I see around me: people whose hands are full of gadgets, yet eagerly reaching for the next one. Is anyone ever full? Can anyone ever feel it? Am I the only one to ask this question?
Maybe other parts of the world do better. Maybe there people grow up with the emotional skills to understand what they're getting, and what to do with it. I used to handle this intellectually, but there are problems with that approach. It's very easy, for one thing, to so clamp down on freedom that life is just walk between straight walls. Or, I guess, one could justify almost anything intellectually, but probably through God's hand on my life even then I couldn't make such a lie stick. I usually went the other way: living the life of a pauper. A homeless man in a good home.
What does it take to feel as if I have a home anywhere? I don't know. I'll have to learn. God has a home for everyone, he says. I just can't feel it, and it seems that the feeling of it is important to him. For my part, I'm just scared. Don't look down. Nothing there but desert. All the way down.
# posted by Larry @ 17:08 
