I, Too

I didn’t intend on staying away from this blog for so long. And I can’t really give words to why I have been silent. Oh, there are things I could say, reasons I could offer. But even while turning these things over in my hands, letting the honest sun glance across them, I see that they are inadequate. Deeply personal things are never expressed adequately, not ever, not to anyone.

Laura Wood is a powerful, perceptive writer. I read her blog because she writes of beauty, of sanctity, of things lost, of hearts betrayed. I read her most of all because she understands suffering. Laura Wood carries suffering with her the way a farmer’s son carries an innate knowledge of land and climate. The workings of pain and passion and loss are personal to Laura Wood, and she so often inclines her head and sighs out her subtle joys and her immense sorrows on the pages of her blog.

As I was kicking my way towards the surface of the somber lake beneath which I’ve been recently submerged, I read Laura’s most recent post. Before we proceed, I want you to read it, too. Here is is.

Now, then.

I, too, have been affected by the drone-note of the world. The lies, the propaganda, the foolishness, the comprehensive and deliberate evil of it all….it takes a toll. For me, I have not been so much depressed as driven deeper into my own solitude. This does not mean that I have become a recluse, a hermit, ignoring and neglecting my family and my obligations. It does mean that I have been compelled to fully savor my time alone, and that I have found in those solitary hours a strength and, yes, a joy that I neither recognized nor comprehended prior to this time. I am not depressed. Rather, I have a light heart that makes me wonder what’s wrong with me, when so many around me are raking at the skies with their clawed fingers, moaning in despair and wasting away on their diet of fear and anger and uncertainty.

I have pulled back into this cool and comforting cave, content to watch the light shift outside while remaining still and silent inside. Never in my life have I been more aware of how finite and weak and powerless I am in most ways, and never have I been more convinced of how unimportant so many things are to me. I can feel with a raw and inexpressible intuition the speed with which things are progressing, and the abyss towards which they are rushing. I offer my sincerest apologies to Mr. Dickens when I observe that these days are truly the best of times, and they are the worst of times.

I’ve had my say, and I will try to return to blogging in a semi-regular fashion. Those of you who read here regularly cannot know how much I appreciate your taking the time to read my words. What I write here is of no ultimate importance, but the thoughts that drive the words are important to me; if they weren’t, I would not write at all.

I hope that each of you are calm and content. I hope you know and believe that I pray for each of you every day. I hope you are making a concerted effort to slow down, to savor what’s in front of you, to push out the what-ifs and the if-onlys, to let the wonder wash over you, to squat down and pick up from off the ground the small, interesting things you pass by, to lift your faces to the summer sky and inhale its uncut goodness.

We are the children of God. We are the Christ-bearers. There are none like us anywhere else in all of creation. We are not meant to feed on fear.

We are here to live and to learn.

Bless you all. Bless you all as July disappears forever and ever.

~ S.K. Orr