Wednesday, February 07, 2007

A Cobalt Season

I feel like I'm continually caught in a sort of permanent cobalt season, sandwiched between the dark of night and the bright light of morning. My eyes are still trying to adjust to see my surroundings.

I wrote those words in Belgium last Spring. I feel that I am in a constant transition period. And the longer this goes on, I notice that there are a great many others in this same state.

I have friends all over the US that are leaving their careers to start down a different path. I know so many who have risked to do good, forged new ground, re-imagined their world for themselves and others, given of themselves selflessly. And so many of these experiments in truth have left them tired, sometimes feeling abandoned...and it leaves me wondering how the Universe can have goodness at it's core.

I have often heard that cynics are failed idealists. I can understand this because I tend towards cynicism these days. I am not critical of the church because I hate it; I am critical of it because I attempted to help ideals be realized within it and it collapsed on me. In fact, most things I am cynical about are things I have tried to "help" as I saw fit.

Still, I know others who have played it safe and are making bank...economically, emotionally, etc. What gives?!?

I read recently that as we risk and seek to do good, God parts ways for us and in fact teems with us. I don't know. Then yesterday I read in Matthew where Jesus said that you're blessed when others persecute you because you follow me. I feel like this is a much truer statement.

Sorry if this seems a bit downer, but I am carrying a heavy load of many people's burdens...not because they have asked me to, but because I feel people's struggle very deeply.

It seems that there is so much hardship that I am aware of these days. I wonder if this is going anywhere sometimes. I wonder if we will all just try to survive until we die and others come along and try the same. Or if there is some light ahead.

It might sound over-the-top to say, but I have often wondered what good God is when things get like this.

1 comment:

digibrill said...

I often wonder what God is doing anyway. Isn't he supposed to talk to people today and not just in recorded history or in super-spiritual people's lives? All I see day after day is a steady procession of stupid people in the news and entertainment. Something has got to give in my own life as I strike out to have some positive effect somewhere here on this little planet and not be drawn down by own screwed-up personal circumstances.