Talked to a depressed friend yesterday, and asked him where he thought individual human worth came from. He said

"Do you want to know the "right" answer?"

Me: "I want to hear what you think the right answer is, but I want to hear your answer."

Friend: "Well, the "right" answer, 'Jesus died for our sins & we're redeemed' - but me? I have no idea."

This followed with a little more conversation in which I mentioned that I think scripture says our worth is based on us being created in God's image-not necessarily the redemption.

I also shared that when I was in a similar spiral I prayed for God to help me to feel what I knew. I also probably kept him longer than was good for either of us.

All during that conversation, I was trying to remember when I felt the same way.

Once I did. It's been such a long time though, I don't feel that way any longer and haven't for quite a while. I don't want to forget though.

It's one thing to repeat the "right" answers, or to correct someone's "right" answers, but until you've gotten inside someone's anguish and tried to really understand the problem, I've found that people (others have done this to me and I've done it-God forgive me-to others) tend to shoot over the heads of the people they're trying to help, and after blowing the smoke from their barrels with a satisfied smile, they get irritated that their patient can't see that their problem has been neatly solved. Maybe they'll reload and try again. Maybe they'll blame the patient's obstinacy. Maybe they'll blame the patient for something else.

But maybe, just maybe, there is a God in heaven,

A God who hears prayer and does, really does, something about these things.

I have a regimen of praying - or trying to pray.

Oh God, help me to stop just talking to the ceiling & beg you with something like reality for the things only you can do.

Reading an article or two about the extermination of Christians in Japan in the 1600s. Sad stuff, especially since there has never been any significant number of christians in Japan since that time.

Dropped sudden in these seething earths

bubbles dimmed in twists of foam

side to side or single sway

drink water from the passing waves

til the skin is torn

the air escapes

and look,

new bubbles

swell to fill the gape

the churning of

a living grave.

I thought you were an unshakable one
like the heavenly spheres above the flame
In my thoughts you were like Venus, pure
as a circle carved in the aether's air
yet rotting visions made me fear
and waking from those troubled dreams
I saw that you were stained and smeared
like me.
so finally I know for sure
and see
that only one
is truly clean

Aristotelian explanations failed
ill-placed faith played me like a fool and you
have suffered for my careless watch
while serpents vended flick'ring food.

Take my hand and the duty of the dead
It's a familiar road and task for me
to the water where we open sores
and pray for the peace we had before
And the only one
who is truly clean
will stir Himself
in you and me

Master, put a skill into my hands
to twist the necks of smiling dragons
and before they steal my eye's light
cast them dead, out of the garden

And watch the thorns
be slow replaced
by wildflowers.

Screwed up in a big way. I missed about six hours of meetings at work because I thought they were tomorrow and because I'd left my cell on "silent". I'm gonna get chewed out either way, but pray for me that nothing worse than that comes of it, and that my name won't top the shame list at work for the next six months.

I wake up in the Mourning and realise she's not there

What can I do when half of me is gone?
when my heart has flown away on steely wings
with all the warmth that used to clothe my peace
then what is left for me?
When I close my eyes I can see her skin
when I am alone I hear her breathe
I am on pause, I am in a rage
and all the sweet breeze of order
the other half of our metaphor
all the auric beauty that is painted with her name
is vanished like a morning mist
in the deathly light of another day
and I am left sitting in a cage
my T-shirts are my sackcloth
and my showers are all dust
while I say that I am not thinking of her hair
and the smooth curve of her neck
as it slopes like an alder tree to meet her shoulder
when I say I am not reaching for her in my sleep
my blood is beating too hard
for those lies to be believed.
I am an unwilling abstinence
from her face and from her lips
and I am at war with distance.
If I could mail her a kiss
wrap it in satin to keep it soft
could I send her a blank piece of paper
to let her know all the things that need to be spoken
with my cheek touching hers
If i could catch a bird
and teach it to sing
and tell it why I miss her,
how she is like a sunrise
that hasn't come for too many days
than I would convince it to migrate to your side of earth
and tell you the gospel of my love.
And then, maybe then
It would give her its wings
so she could fly back to me.