He never expected Anthony to return…
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Hi guys,
Well, look at that, I posted a blog three weeks after my last one! Been a while, huh? Don’t worry, it’s me, not you.
So, low motivation to post blogs is just one thing of mine. So’s motivation to write. Or making my coffee the night before so I can chug it cold in the morning, before going for a walk, before praying, before going to work. Um… yeah, it’s a mood thing, and something I have to fight.
But, well, waking at 6 in a cold winter? Bed be warm. Working? Yeah, gotta pay the bills, but takes it out of me. Home in the evening? Can’t be bothered with writing… Actually I snuck down to Macca’s last Wednesday for a coffee and got into a fight scene, then closed off three quarters the way through at 7:20. And that was it, I crawled into bed, crashed around 8:30. Early bed for the next few days, too. And no, it does nothing for making mornings easy.
That’s giver upper for you. It’s ingrained in the brain, makes its workings quite, well, meh. Now, throw in the bipolar and possible schizoaffective (been psychotic, so yeah), and blend with ice. Quite a recipe for whatevs – or feeling peaked because I forgot to take my night meds and finding lights in the car park, keys very entrancing. Sounds like fun but, after my very public manic episode, something acutely dangerous.
It all comes with a wish, that I was normal. That I could live without needing three different meds to function. To wake after eight hours of sleep feeling fresh, downing that coffee, going for that walk, and not feeling exhausted and needing to lie down after it. To write when I get home (okay with a coffee pick-me-up). To go visit the GF and three days a week and feel drained (yes, it happens, and no, I haven’t quite brought it up yet). To go out to stuff like Hamilton mid-week without it impacting my sleep or my mood for the rest of the week, and triggering unhealthy coping mechanisms. Without grogginess and sleeping in to twelve on my dedicated writing day.
Quite a wish, huh? Let’s not forget everything else that went wrong in my life (Sometimes I’m surprised I’m still kicking). And that, coupled with that tweeter person I dealt with telling me what good is a God that couldn’t save me, the tiny thoughts I’ve had about that on my own time, leaves a feeling that kinda hurts. Where’s God, or especially that wondrous, healing, demon-casting-outer Jesus guy?
Faith wasn’t my thing. In fact the very mention of spirituality conjured thoughts of angry God. Reading Revelation, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers didn’t help there. Then there was dealing with the no outsiders allowed to marry in, the “go back and kill all the men, boys, women who’ve given birth, and take the virgins as your wives.” That messy OT… It still gets to me. But fast forward to the Gospels and, nice God, loving God, healy God.
Where does it put me, just about two thousand years later, scatterbrained, on meds, slammed by memories, in bed early and not sleeping all that well to begin with (let alone when I forget my meds), low motivation, bouncing along in my stuff and needing to pop by ye olde confessional again? Let’s not forget getting locked down for the next two weeks thanks to the Golden Crowned Lurgy – that’s gonna be fun!
Though its lesson was great on Boston Tea Party day, when I wrote my prompt for this blog, what hit me got lost on me. Good thing at least for coming back to the prompt and putting this back fresh in mind. I know, I’ve round-abouted, so here’s what I got from Corinthians 2 – The Lettering, courtesy of Paul, Patron Saint of Talking Underwater:
“To stop me from getting too proud I was given a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to beat me and stop me from getting too proud. I have pleaded with the Lord three times for it to leave me, but he has said, ‘My grace is enough for you, my power is best in weakness.’
“So I shall be very happy to make my weaknesses my special boast so that the power of Christ may stay over me, and that is why I am quite content with my weaknesses…”
What was it Paul had? From the homily, it was intimated the guy was beset by migraines. And no, he didn’t have codeine to do much about it. And as he says, he turns to say hi to the guy in the sky, but doesn’t actually get relief from his ailment. As Jesus said to the horse thief in The Chosen, there will always be broken bones in this world.
So, where does it leave me? Where is God in this S. H. I. T. in my head? At the time of the reading, in wonder; three weeks later, well, you’ve read this post up to this point. It’s ultimately in the giving up – and the forgetting (thanks, turbulent not-working-properly brain). Am I doing something wrong? Is the faith I found failing already? Am I not taking Paul as an example? I felt better, smarter, than the faithful, then, one kawham of a conversion later, I’m religious. Am I failing the zeal test? Are years of atheism putting up barriers for me?
Time to stop that tangent, least of all for the unhealthiness. It might not be time for the answer. There’s also the matter of not praying, not going to that team of saints, and yes, that’s on me. And there’s the thinking that no matter what faith, there’s no healing of this brain of mine. Perhaps I’m waiting on magic, or that miracle when I was eighteen was what I needed and I’m not reflecting on that.
Ho hum. This has been a long and deep one. But, I'm in lockdown so another week off at least, I've gotten to walking in the morning. I've been grinding ground coffee to knock up heart starters. I’ve gotten some writing done, I'm play Oblivion some more, I took a lamb roast over to the GF's (I promised her lamb,) and I'm getting into my wines from last year. And I’ve got church services to watch from around the grounds courtesy of ye olde internette.
Maybe that’s where God actually is for me. And for my next blog, more on how I wound up Catholic.
So from Golden Crowned Lurgy Lockdown, have a good one, and put your thoughts and prayers towards those of us with Covid, those of us in hospital, and those lost.
T.M.
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