Sunday Sermons

 It's Sunday morning, and it's 9:07 or in the new way of telling time 0907. It's funny what the mind will do if forced too in some instances, for instance I have set most of the clocks that I see, laptop, phone etc, to 24 hour time and at first it was a bit confusing but now I look at 1300 and my brain just does the conversion automatically.  It took a while but once it lodged itself in there then it was all good, no more wondering what time it was it just was 1 PM or 1330 or whatever.  

I've talked before about milestone moments.  I'm pretty sure I've talked about them around the blog, and I know I've talked about them on Sunday mornings when I stand in front of people and attempt to break down to them what something in scripture is all about, how it matters in context but also how it matters for today.  There have been a lot of milestone moments in life, some of them are good ones, things that set you on a trajectory for what's next with excitement, anticipation, happiness, you know the ones I'm talking about, birthdays or graduations, first jobs, promotions, the list goes on.  For some a milestone is marriage and family for others it's discovery and creation of something new.  The good milestones are fun.  We like them and while some may bring tears, they are tears of joy. There are also bad milestones in life.  The bad milestones are just as important as the good ones, in fact in some ways they are more so because they have a way of putting life in perspective in ways that the good ones don't.  Aging parents, loss of grandparents, illness the attacks out of no where, loss of a child or sister or friend. 

To be clear in all of this dear reader, there have been good milestones.  Things that have happened that have been spring boards for what's next. The last year has been a really bad milestone year for so many, the milestones of graduation, prom, homecoming all were turned on their head, weddings had to be moved or postponed or just canceled, funerals went from a place that people could gather for comfort to having to be streamed online and only 10 people could attend.  

Sunday sermons have always been mini milestones for me.  Here's what I mean.  I actually enjoy the process of studying for, writing, and delivering them.  I like taking what I have read and studied and what God has laid on my heart and realizing that I had it wrong, or I had it right, or I needed to look at it from a different angle.  It's part of me the whole Sunday Sermon thing, which makes this latest milestone that we have had to endure, a bit harder to deal with, because when I step back onto that platform, and pull that stool over and sit down on it, picking up the fidget cube I'll have to look at the front row, there really is no way to not look at the front row, or any of the rows for that matter, and that dear reader is the moment I dread the most.  Not the preparation part, not the planning part, those will be fine, at least I think so anyway, the hard part as going to be looking at that front row because that front row is supposed to have her in it.  Is in fact supposed to have two people in it and for a while it won't have anyone.  For that matter a few rows back, sitting with her uncle is supposed to be Amberly or marble one, marble two should be sitting with  friends from youth group, and marble three should be sitting with her mom right there on that front row, except marble one is learning how to jump out of airplanes.  Marble two is still there and that's such a blessing but even that is not a guarantee past the next three years or so, Z's a sophomore now that age when you start to really pull away and realize what it is you want to do, what it is you plan on doing and the speed with which time goes means that in a couple of days that marble will roll away as well. Which brings us back to marble three and her mom, not being in that front seat.  

And so dear reader you may understand my dilemma.  We have had good milestones but lately they have been bad, all bad and the bad milestones are really hard to deal with, at lest these ones are and if I'm going to be totally and completely transparent in all this, if I'm going to process things the way I need to I'm just so very very tired. 

Talking to Sam the other day, I told him I have to try, and so I'm going to be trying July 11, I'm going to step up onto the platform, I'm going to pull the stool over towards the table, and I'm going to pick up that fidget cube and I'm going to look out on a group of people, a group of people that for some reason that I have yet to understand God placed in my care, and I'm going to look out at those rows I talked about and the other ones, and I'm going to try because it's what we do.  We take milestones and we move forward, we look at the milestone, we remember it good or bad and we cary it and all that it taught us forward.  '

What I am realizing now more than ever though is that the milestones we live do one of two things.  They make this verse possible.

Gal. 6:2 Carry one another’s burdens; in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ 

The thing is the positive good milestones in life can be great spring boards, they can give us the ability to see things and help a person when they need it.  The good milestones give us reserves to help with someone else's burdens or issues.  Some milestones are foundations to move forward, and some milestones are burdens to carry.  Things that will always be a part of who we are, that will be hard to deal with, heavy to cary and sometimes, just sometimes so hard to have to move on from that part of us will never do so.  That doesn't mean that we don't move forward, it doesn't mean that we can't help carry someone else's burdens in other areas, it doesn't even mean that the millstone we are carrying with us that is bad and ugly and big doesn't eventually help us with others that are dealing with the same one.  Remember what Solomon said, "There is nothing new under the sun."  meaning that all these milestones that we tend to think are new and different are really only new and different and daunting to us, and while each experience is unique, and each person feeling it and dealing with it, is going to deal with it in different ways the situations themselves are nothing new.  They are just variations on a theme.  

So what's the point.  Well July 11 promises to be another one of those milestone moments, honestly it remains to be seen which one it will be.  I have an idea that it will be a bit of both, a beginning of something new and different at the same time a really hard day to have to live.  It will be a milestone that ends up being a foundation to move forward from and a stone to pick up and put in may pocket to carry with me and have to look at from time to time as the tears that flow on a regular basis continue to do so.

And so dear reader I pray that if you are carrying around a milestone, you find someone to help and if you're living in the afterglow of a good one you'll notice another, struggling under the weight of their own and help lift it. 

The lies we tell ourselves...

Well, Dear Reader, here we sit looking at each other, figuratively I mean.  Me behind the keys and screen, you...well looking at the screen except when you're reading this I won't so much be behind the keys anymore but you get the idea. 

It's been a week since a din of activity descended on the house.  So many people, so supportive, so empathetic.  I truly don't know what it would have been like had all those that were here not been.  So many people to thank as we shuffle through daily life, the task is daunting and there is absolutely no real way to ever say thank you enough, no way to repay the kindness and generosity that has been given, which makes today's post so hard because I feel like, because of all the support we have had and still have that I should be further ahead, but the truth is there is really no way to be further ahead in this.  I am coming, no that's not right, I have come to the sickening realization that there really is not going to be a further ahead in many aspects.  I was talking to my neighbor Mike yesterday and he even said that he still is shuffling through life two years later.  We talked about the first time things seem different that first time you laugh because it's a natural response and it comes when you don't expect it to and don't want it to and the guilt and shame that you feel because how can you laugh.  We talked about being angry at people for no reason, something that I had already been warned about (thanks Judie). All the things that are happening and all the things that will never happen come screaming into my mind and heart and soul in real time and I just want to stop it for a bit.  I want to hit this place where I don't have to feel anymore.  Where I can just not be if that makes sense, and the really screwy thing about all that is it's getting harder instead of easier.  

I'm told, and it makes sense, that this happens because the shock of it all is setting in now, and I get that, I even can agree with it, it makes complete sense, and yet I don't want that, which is why, when I have six things on my list for the day, I leave a few things on it so that the next day the list can be bigger and I can fill my mind and heart and spirit with all that stuff that just has to be done and when I do that then I can not deal with what is real, I can just do and in doing, I can get myself through the day with all that has to be.  

The worst thing a person can ask is how are you doing, or how's it going because the answer is not what anyone really wants.  It's easy to ask how are you doing and it's easy to pretend that the answer matters to us when we ask the question but I mean lets be real, we use how's it going or how are you doing to fill space, not really expecting the real answer, because real answers are messy and hard and have to be dealt with and so we all adhere to this unwritten code, that when we ask questions like: "Hey, how's it going?" or "How are you doing?"  or "How are you feeling?"  or the ever present three word question, "How are you?"  I know that these questions are pretty much interchangeable, and we all ask a variation of them, and we all know what the proper answer is..."Fine."  that's what we are supposed to say right?  fine, and for the most part we do and life goes on.  

I think one of the hardest ones is wrestling God into the situation that we are in.  People do it all the time.  If you are sitting where I'm sitting, then you wrestle God into the being you are most angry at, the one that just doesn't get it, that has robbed you, thrown justice out the window along with compassion, and care, and love, and grace.  If you're on the other side of the table sipping your coffee trying to figure out what to say then you wrestle God into the his will, ultimate plan, there is a purpose spot.  Both sides like to do what they are doing because it makes things easier, blame God or make it mystical, either way it's easier than dealing with what's really going on.  

These are just a few of the lies we tell ourselves, and lets be clear Dear Reader, everyone tells these lies to themselves and to each other in circumstances that are painful and don't make sense.  Pastors tell ourselves these lies just like our Parishoners do and no one wants to admit that but, I'm kinda raw right now and have been for over a month and likely will be for the foreseeable future, realizing that I'm doing it that we are doing it is a first step of sorts.  If we...strike that...If I can admit that I'm lying to myself about what I have to be and how I am supposed to deal with this, then I can begin to see a way to get past all that to a place where I can begin to see a way to shuffle forward a bit more.  

For the record I'm not further ahead.  So that gets rid of that lie I tell myself, it's a good bet that I'm going to have to get rid of that one a lot more.  I need to be able to say that I'm not further ahead and I need to figure out a way to be okay with it.  

None of this is God's fault, but I also don't for a moment believe it was part of some grand plan that God had.  I will likely blame God and be mad at him off and on for the rest of my earthy life, but that's because I'm human, and humans are irrational broken creatures that are made in the image of God. It then follows if I'm made in the image of God, and I'm feeling this sense of loss and pain and hurt and sorrow and grief and all of it, God has felt it and is feeling it along with me.  God didn't cause this,  this was an accident, it happened because accidents happen, we always want to figure out why as humans to figure out how it happened, as if doing so will somehow make the outcome different or okay, or livable, but the thing about accidents is you can't predict them, and they are not anyones fault, they just are.  So no it's not God's fault but neither is it Gods will.  It just is.  All of us have to stop telling ourselves and each other that set of lies because they turn God into some distant far of malevolent being and, well according to Psalm..Here just read it...

In fact if you read this verse it tells us we need to stop lying to ourselves about ourselves and God.  If I'm coming to God to deal with this big ugly not okay thing that has happened, I need to stop trying to come to him as if I'm some big strong pastor, called to shepherd God's people.  I need to come to him as the broken Daddy that lost one of the most precious things in the world and can't ever find it again no matter how hard he tries,  I need to come to him as the one that wants to take all the hurt and pain and all the mess and angst from my family so they don't have to feel it and realize that they have to be able to feel it just like I do.  I need to come to him as the angry friend who wants more than is ever expected and that never should be expected because its not realistic but still that's how I need to come to him.  I need to come to him with all of these things and all of the desires to shoulder the whole thing and admit that I am trying to do that and start to just lean into the fact that it's okay to be a broken mess, and it's okay to not have it together, and it's okay to just sit with J instead of trying to figure out how to fix it or take her place or make it all better.  

I think that's the thing about life, that's the thing about the Thou Shalt Not Lie commandment.  We tend to think of it in terms of lying to others and how bad that is, and don't get me wrong that is bad, but lying to ourselves can be even more detrimental to our relationship with God and others because when we lie to ourselves we are building a false narrative not just about who we are but who they are to us and who God is.  

The truth in all this is a harsh one. 

If you've never lost a Son or Daughter you can't know how this feels.  It's a special kinda of ugly club that you end up in, but there is more to this truth.

If you have never lost a child, you can't know how this feels.  I'm sorry but you just can't, you can feel bad, and sad, you can try and compare it to something that you have lost, but you can't know what it's like to lose a little person on the door to double digits if you've never lost a 7 or 8 or 9 or 5 or 6 or 7 year old.

Pastors get mad at God all the time.  We have times we don't really like Him just like you do.  Even though we are supposed to know things you don't, even though we are held to a different standard we still get mad at Him and we still have to deal with that mad.

You may not like the response you get to any given question that you ask on any given day when it comes to me, and the truth is, while I have no desire to hurt anyone, or to make anyone feel bad, there is a part of me that is 100% okay with you not understanding or feeling the connection that you want to with me.  I'm sure there will come a point when I'll be more into answering people, to being what they need me to be, it's just not something that is going to happen right now.

I am NOT OKAY...We are NOT OKAY...and that's just fact.  It don'ts mean we don't care about others, or love others, or want to minister to others, but right now it's not really at the top of the to do list.

So that's it really.  Some of the lies we tell ourselves, some harsh truths, and now for a not so harsh one dear reader.

I appreciate you and love you for being here for reading and for praying or reaching or wanting to know how to help.  If I had answers to any of those questions believe me I would give them to you, right now I just don't but that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate all the hands reaching.  If I grip your hand thank you for holding firm, and if I don't please don't be offended, it just means that I can't reach you right now, who knows maybe there will come a day when I can.

 

See you again...

Moon Child

 There was a point, back in the day and when I say back in the day I mean WAY BACK in the day that everyone wanted a luck dragon.  If you don't know what a luck dragon is the rest of this post will make zero sense well most of it will but as I have said before, Google is your friend as is the ability to stream movies.  Anyway the point is in the movie that I'm talking about there were a few things going on.  There was this kid who had to save this world and there was this other kid on a horse, and the kid that had to save the world thought he was reading a book but in reality he was kinda in the book through he boy with the horse but they both ended up there to save this world and the princess, you get the idea.  The idea of the Luck Dragon was cool though it was this really neat looking white dog looking thing that flew and could make things better because well he was a warm fuzzy flying dog looking thing that was really chill.  

I would love to have a luck dragon right now but we all know dear reader that no matter how much I want one it just won't ever happen.  The world keeps moving on and life is what it is there is no changing int no matter how hard you try.  No this post isn't going to be about how amazing it would be to have a luck dragon, it's not going to be about the boy that saved the princess and the world even, well maybe a little bit but not so much.  It's not even about the kid with the horse.

The antagonist in the movie is called The Nothing.  It barrels through the world assimilating everything in its path.  The nothing has not real desire to know what it is eating for lack of a better word.  It just rolls on and on and in it's wake there's this wolf thing that's also a bad guy and yeah you get the picture the wolf thing serves the nothing and the nothing destroys things.  The thing that always got me was the fact that the wolf thing or Gmork, don't judge me dear reader for knowing that, would really have no place to do his bad guy wolf things once the place was destroyed and yet he kept going fulfilling his purpose to the nothing and to the story.  He chased the kid on the horse around and the other kid that was in the story but didn't know he was in the story cheers and yeah all that stuff.

The thing about Gmork and The Nothing is that they serve a purpose to drive the story forward. Every protagonist needs an antagonist to make a story worth while.  So we watch this world being torn apart, we watch Gmork chase the hero, we watch the kid in the story that doesn't know he's in the story, and yes I know his name and the kid on the horses but that's just too much geekiness for one page or post, and we know that there is going to be a positive end somehow because it's Hollywood, it's a movie and it's a kids movie at that and usually, not always (Old Yeller) kids movies have positive happy endings. 

What I've learned though is that The Nothing is real, we find it when we don't even realize it's there, we see it in our lives when all seems hopeless, the nothing doesn't care about what is fair, or what should be, the nothing just eats away at you a piece at a time or sometimes all at once swallowing all the things that mean the most that bring meaning and purpose.

It's in these times when the wolf is beating at your heels and the nothing is consuming all that is in front of you that choices start to matter.  The problem is when you are in the middle of the two big bad things your choices seem severely limited.  Which brings me to the entire point of this post, well at least the point of the name of this post. 

At the end of the movie the princess or empress or whatever we are calling her (again I know what she really is but you've already seen the silly geeky part and you're going to find out how much more geeky I can be in a moment so lets just leave it at that.) tells the kid that's reading the story, that thinks he's just an observer that he's so much more.  The only way for him to save the world and the boy with the horse and the girl and all the other things he's met along the way is to acknowledge not just the girl but is to call out her name, a name that no one can know but him.  He has this power to sidestep the nothing and dodge the wolf and make the world that the boy and the horse and the girl and all the other things not be so bleak.  All he has to do is call out her name.  Which in the movie he does...yells it actually in this windy stormy unable to be heard or made out or understood voice, which was on purpose I suppose because then we can all name her whatever we want and be the hero...except that's not how it really was, there was an actual name that the person who wrote the story had come up with and being the geek that I am I had to know what that name was so of course I did the research and I found it.  It's Moon Child.  Go back and watch the movie or skip to the end and you'll hear it clearly now that you know.  

So what's this have to do with life today and all that's going on.  We are in a very difficult place right now. With the monsters that I talked about on one side and this impossible nothing chewing up so much of what's in front of us.  What's in front of me.  I have heard from several people and they are all worried, all well meaning, all want to be encouraging.  Some are more so than others.  It's interesting to me that we feel like we have to say things when really sometimes we just need to listen and let the person that is going through the dark places, that's being chased by the monsters and facing the nothing that's eating away at all that they know and understand and feel makes the world work.  Because here's the thing, there will come a point and believe me I'm not there yet, but there will come a point when we will have to stand up in the face of the nothing sidestep the monsters and speak all the words of hurt and angst and sadness and let it all go, washing out of us allowing for something different to be put back.  

I'm not going to tell you that it's easy to contemplate calling out this name that can make things move forward. Right now I'm doing good to walk a step at a time, but I do know that the name that we are calling on, the name that I'm calling on late at night, even if it's in anger and frustration and hurt, is the name that is above all those names.  The name of the carpenters son from some backwoods town in the Middle East.   The name of the one that hung out with sinners, that talked about feeding the poor and visiting the prisoner and all those things.  The one that had compassion, the one that cared and that restored, and while it's hard for e to see all those things now it don'ts make them any less true. That's the thing about what I am, who I am and who we are.  We know the things that are true and even though they are not a comfort now, we also know that there will come a time when they will be.  I know that there will come a time when they will be.  

Having said all of that please know this.  Right now I am not ready to accept or hold onto or grasp some of the things that we have all said and say when tragedy strikes.  Just because it's true don'ts mean it's something that make sense, or is even right at this point.  So I would ask that you pray for us, I would also ask that you understand that we may or may not be able to really agree with some of what we know is true because right now to us it rings hollow.  It doesn't mean we, or to be more pointed I don't love God, it doesn't mean that I'm going to renounce my faith, run off to the woods, become some hermit that writes a manifesto and leaves what and who he is.  It does mean that we need time, and we need you.  It's hard to go from the person that is supposed to meet the need to the person that has the need but we...I am trying. 

And so dear reader until I can scream out that name in the storm of the nothing with the monsters at my heels I'm asking you to do it for me and know that I appreciate it and that there will come a moment that I can and will scream that name.

Rage against

 You've heard some day's are better than others right?  I mean come on we have all heard that statement.  It's an interesting one and for the majority of life this is a true statement for most people.  I would go so far as to say that there are times for everyone that this is true. There are good days, and there are bad days.  Some day's things are all good and some day's you kinda want to just act like the day never happened. 

The question is what happens when no day's are better than others.  When each day brings with it a new or added frustration or anxiety, or sadness.  When all your reservers are spent, when that Jenga block tower is teetering precariously and one of those monsters I was talking about in the last post looks at you with a sly grin and a wink and slowly drops another block in place, the tower teetering teetering teetering, only to settle down and with a smile the monster looks and whispers in that sickly sweet creepy singsong voice..."Your turn..." It's in that moment when you're faced with the next move that you take the block from the tower and you really do want it to fall, to tumble down and be reduced to nothing, because at least then you don't have the anxiety and pressure and worry and all the things that go with not wanting to make the tower fall but also wishing it would so that you didn't have to be anymore, didn't have to pretend that things were going to eventually get better, didn't have to try and keep building the tower when the foundation of that tower is so compromised because one more block has been removed from the foundation and all is not where it should be. 

If the tower falls the game is over yes but there is also a sigh of relief disappointment sure, but  also release.  The problem is in this game of Jenga that we are engaged in there really is no feasible way for the tower to fall so that there can be a bit of breathing room.  It just seems to get increasingly taller, infeasibly so, it's like it defies the very laws of how things should work and still the blocks are removed and stacked up higher and higher, swaying and moving and I feel like I'm staggering and trying to keep it all balanced and keep things in perspective and keep as strong as is possible in this time and it's exhausting and I'm tried and I'm sad and I'm full of this anger and rage that just is waiting to crash to the surface and overwhelm everyone that gets in my way. 

The hard part about this is I know that it's not really an acceptable way to deal with what's going on.  Losing my cool on someone I know or someone I don't know because of what is just is not even remotely okay and yet I find myself ready to.  It's like I want someone to say something, anything that I can then poke at and come down on and freak out about.  Letting the poor unsuspecting person have both barrels of anger and rage and in doing so somehow it will be okay.  Like the tension will be released and if I can just do that then I'll wake up and it will be a different day, a different time, a different universe where this is all just some horrid messed up nightmare. 

The problem with that scenario is that no matter how many times I find myself drifting off to sleep I never wake up to a different universe than the one we are in so I pick up another block and set it down on the pile and wait for whatever monster has been chosen to play after me. 

I'm tired so very tired, so very frustrated, so very sad and full of this rage, I'm not even sure I would need gamma radiation to turn green at this point, just drop one more block of some messed up thing on top of the tower and agro won't begin to cover what would happen, and yet even as I say that I fully understand that it's simply not an option to allow that type of response, so I'll relegate my rage against all that is in life right now to these pages and a select few that can handle me raw and unfiltered.  

I don't like this Aaron I can tell you that much, and even though I know it's okay to be this Aaron right now, even though I know that it's justified and no one is judging me for it I'm judging myself. I always do but in this instance there is so much that I keep seeing and feeling and thinking when it comes to me is it any wonder that I'm so close to crumbling that everyone that takes a moment to see or read realizes that I'm not okay. 

I don't even mind not being okay.  What I mind is not really being able to see the path to a semblance of okay, and yes I do know that's to be expected I can accept that things look like this for the foreseeable future but I also know that something has to give.  There has to be a pressure valve somewhere that I can open and when I get it opened things at least become less tight.

And so dear reader I guess I ask that if you see me and my eyes look sad or I seem to be stumbling about in a fog you know it's okay to touch my shoulder and bring me back to myself.  I may not like being in this time and place but sometimes we have to face the peril.

I don't want to today

 Perhaps one of the most frustrating things right now is that so much has to still be done and it's all things that no one ever wants to have to do.  Each day brings with it a whole set of tasks, questions, and feelings that I would just as soon pretend didn't exist, and that's really not an option.  I can't pretend they are not there, I can't just put them off, there is no just shutting the door and pulling the covers up, and yet sometimes that's all I want to do shut the door and pull up the covers and pretend that all the monsters are just not there, but they are and these ones aren't even bothering to hide under the bed or in the closet.  They're right there, teeth and claws and creepy smiles constantly watching and waiting for the moment when a lull in the day shows up and they can just watch and intimidate and taunt.  

You all know the monsters that I'm talking about by now, if you don't well I guess it's possible to give a run down for you if need be.  There's the one with the red eyes,  he's the angry one and he seems to always be around watching these days.  Lets not forget the green eyed monster he and the red eyed one seem to be best friends and they laugh and taunt me all the time, when I see people going about their day as if the world is allowed to move on, or like today coming out of Walmart watching a guy walk in with his daughter hand in hand and that green eyed one just smiled his big fang filled grin and laughed.  Then theirs the pale skinned black eyed one that sits there and seems to know just the right time to run it's fingers along the base of my skull and then around under my eyelids pulling and tugging at the tears that are all to ready to come. 

All these monsters are just there refusing to do what good monsters do, refusing to hide, refusing to wait till I'm asleep to start their work of invading my dreams.  Living nightmares that tend to enjoy their craft way too much. 

One of the things that I know, as a person who pretty much talks for a living in one form or another among the other things I do is that we are way to uncomfortable with silence.  For some reason we think that we need to fill every ounce of it, especially when we are trying to or want to comfort someone.  I've done it, mainly because people tend to want answers and I mean lets face it people with my vocation are expected to have them, except when there are really no answers that seem right.  Which is where I am and where we are now.  Living in this space where the monsters don't hide, and the people around us tiptoe around because they need to, and the ones that don't tend to not realize that words don't really work.  

When Job is arguing with God about how bad his life was, and how much he had lost, and about how it wasn't fair, which I mean lets be clear it wasn't, God sat Job down and asked him some questions and when Job was given a chance to respond he just said "I put my hand on my mouth I have said too much."  Job's using that in the face of God who is reminding Job that well he's God not Job. The thing is there is wisdom in Job's statement that all of us could really learn from. It's okay to not have words to speak, it's okay to not have the answers, it's okay to admit when things don't make sense.  We always want answers and yet there are so many things that we will never really have answers too and we have to be okay with that, but sometimes, just sometimes I think one of the reasons we don't and won't get answers is because there are times when the answers would serve no purpose whatsoever in the grand scheme of things. We want to know why and sometimes why isn't really an issue, or at least shouldn't be.  The problem is we always push on trying to dig deeper, to find out more to know it, all of it, especially when all of it is a big ball of mess like now.  We struggle for meaning and in that struggle we press on to find out all the details and well.  Sometimes I think God knows that details in the worse of spaces only serve to make the pain, sadness, all that big ball of mess I'm talking about, worse and so there is this thing of trust in him.  I don't know and I will never know and why am I trying to know.  Why try and make sense of something so senseless.  Why try and fill the space with words of understanding when there really is no way to possibly understand things like this. I know people want to help make sense of this whole mess, I know they want to say some words that will make an impact, that will serve to push us forward and bring back the things that God is to our lives...to my life.  But that's just it I don't think God is pushing for me to understand or to know the why. I think he is sitting up there looking down with tears in his eyes as he sees us suffering and sad and upset and I think he's perfectly okay with the fact that right now I'm mad at him, and I think he understands why it's so hard to pray right now.  I don't think he's mad about any of that at all.  I think he's just as upset as we are, just as heart broken, just as angry even.   Maybe that's something I'm telling myself because the alternative is so anti what I have come to know and believe about God.  

Which brings me back to the title I guess of this particular post.  

I don't want to today...I told Joyce that when I was with her earlier.  I just don't want to, I want to pull the covers up over my head and tell the world to go away.  To forget I exist while I spend a whole day forgetting it exists.  The problem is Today always seems to creep in, it always wins, it always has it's to do list for me and that to do list gets longer and longer, and I work at it chipping away at what has to be done to make it to the end of the day when, in theory anyway, I can close my eyes and let the blankness of sleep brain craft a different reality that is not this one.  Where there's no such thing as corn trucks, and rural roads, and seat belts and air bags and cars and..and...and.  

So dear reader, if you are reading this and wondering, if you are a friend that doesn't know what to say, if you just feel like yo should call or text or write on Facebook or whatever and you keep stopping yourself it's okay.  I am not as responsive as I should be and you don't have the words and sometimes, admitting that you don't have the words is more than enough when dealing with someone that's creeping around trying to hide from the monsters and is finding that they always know exactly where I am and they are always waiting with those sickening grins that know it all look in their eyes as they smack their lips and wait for the feast that comes from the ones that are lost and angry and tired and scared.

See you around the blog.

A