Things that perturb me

Losing my lip-balm. I hate losing things. I just hope it's not in my (nearly always) pristine car. My poor carpet.

When I got to work Monday morning my application's database wasn't connecting. So I emailed the database administrator asking what was up. "Well, our server crashed and we lost all the databases. But we'll recover it from backup by the afternoon." Shew, ok. A while later I get email saying that, for some unknown reason, my database wasn't on the backup schedule. So I've spent all week rebuilding what took me six weeks to create in the first place.

Monday night I got home planning to be all productive and mow my grass. I ran out of gas halfway through (and of course had none in my can in the garage).

My photo lab closed their local branch. And I'm still boycotting Target since they stopped provided matte prints. Middletown loses one more transaction of mine to a store down in West Chester or Cincinnati.


Things that please me

Finally relenting and hiring someone to cut my grass. It's just not my gig. No letters from Middletown this year!

Getting dismissed from class before 9pm two nights in a row.

Driving into a cerulean horizon with the sun in my rearview mirror on a perfect Sunday afternoon.

Spring sweaters at Banana Republic on clearance for $10.


(Based upon their respective lengths, I complain much better than I rejoice.)

Diversions

As I collected my winnings today, I'd just like to publicly thank the University of Kansas for missing all of those free-throws in the championship game last week. Going into the Final Four weekend the only way I could lose my company pool was if Kansas won. Boy did they make me nervous.

That keeps me on quite a roll. In December I won my fantasy football league, there is the aforementioned tournament pool, and I'm currently leading my fantasy baseball league.

I think I need to get a life.

<de-lurking/>

or blogging as spiritual discipline...

In the closing chapters of Disappointment With God Philip Yancey often touches on his notion of the "fog", this paralyzing silence that seems to shroud even the greatest of biblical characters. Despite their great faith, in spite of it in fact, is the deafening silence of God. Job. Abraham. Jesus. All cry out for God to to pierce the silence, to stop forsaking His creation, to intervene.

In fact Yancey even suggests that the greatest sin may not be contending with God--screaming for his presence--but in the apparent absence of God's presence the great sin may be choosing to ignore Him.

Yet that is what I do.

My life has been numb of late. I am much like the tree in my front yard, only more self-conscious.

The tree out front is in full, glorious, white bloom. The thunderstorm that passed through last Friday night shook the petals across the lawn in a way that almost looks like a hint of snow. This tree embodies spring.

It's 40 degrees out, wet and cold and dark. We have weather far more suited to deep November than bright and airy April.

And yet the tree blooms.

If it were me I would choose to go hide and wait 'til the weather shows itself first--and for good.

Right now I have nothing to say. Oh, there is plenty to talk about. I spend two nights a week in school. There too is a war going on, after all. There are so many topics ripe for conversation, or questioning, or at least reflecting upon.

But I get lulled into these doldrums where I am simply tired and quiet. In the absence of God's voice, or creativity, or inspiration (or whatever I choose to call it today) I find it easier to live as if that voice were never there. I stop begging for its presence.

I become painfully aware that men much smarter and wiser than I remain confused about the violent realities of our world. I leave three hours of lecture realizing more of what I do not know than what I do. I recognize that my own shortcomings, my bleatings of prayer, my daily complaints are so trivial that they should be laughable.

Among other things, this placid, flaccid apathy becomes my sin. I begin approaching life already from behind, feeling overworked on Monday, sensing that I've missed my chance for rest or recreation by midday Saturday.

There are much more visceral clues as well. I usually realize how noisy I let my life become. I turn on the TV the moment I get home. I suddenly recognize the stacks of books and magazines that have gone unread for weeks. But recognizing the symptoms and taking the cure usually takes a week or so while I work up the gumption. I wait for anything to spur me on, some outside impetus--pleasant weather, the right mood, a conversation with a friend, a weekend away from home. But eventually, mercifully, desperation kicks in.

Like a kid overdosed on sugar I got home tonight and finally admitted to myself that I didn't want any more cotton candy.

The TV stayed dark.

I didn't busy myself with laundry, or tracking my 401(k) losses, or fantasy baseball.

I read. And I sat in prayer and meditation and simple relaxation.

No, I haven't heard trumpets this evening. I am still weary of a job that has long-turned mundane. I still hear, in the back of my head, my pervasive doubts (is this it? This is what my life is? When, God, are you going to redeem this?).

But for the first time in weeks I've at least wanted to write.

I wanted desperately to make a joke. Look! My blog's been hacked! Six weeks of witty and profound thoughts are missing--why didn't someone let me know?

But April 1st is long gone and this is more honest.

My silence is my sin.

And every morning I ponder how my tree bursting with white blooms in the middle of the wintery weather is a perfect metaphor of Easter.