Sinkhole
"You don't need to bother
I don't need to be
I'll keep slipping farther
Once I hold on I won't let go till it bleeds"
-Stone Sour, "Bother"
Not its alliterative brother [poop]hole; that'd be different.
I was actually almost on time to church this morning, walking into first service only 3-5 minutes late. I prefer to be there early enough to get my coffee and bagel first, but my alternate plan includes partaking of said breakfast after first service during the gap. Today was no exception; I double-dipped worship, ate breakfast, and put off going to work all in one fell swoop.
Sitting in the church lobby, the music felt distant and muffled. The sounds of people milling about and the general hard acoustics of the room muddled the music, lessening the impact into just over a dull roar. It felt like my life - distant, muffled, covered by a dull roar.
My life feels like a sinkhole today. It's like a deep hole crumbling away to nothing has opened up in the middle of my heart. You can build over it (with some engineering) or near it (with less engineering), but eventually all crumbles and falls in. Block after block of buildings, all doomed as the unstable terrain underneath deteriorates. I keep thinking that God is building stuff into my life, but then the days come when it all crumbles into the blackness. Sinkholes open up over a known type of geography, but the exact location, severity, and timing are all random. So is my life - sometimes I know the areas that are weak/unstable, but the collapses still catch me unaware.
The hole I observe isn't even "post-Mary". Yeah, there's a crater there that's mostly stopped smoking. I think, though, that the results of that particular implosion are merely annexes to a deeper, more central hole. Caused by what, I have no idea.
Last year when a sinkhole opened up in Guatemala City, I was struck by how dark and bottomless the picture looked. Judge for yourself:
Eventually they measured the depth somewhere around 30 stories, but I don't remember what mad science it took to figure that out. For the hole in my life, nobody knoweth the depth thereof. And I'll tell you right now that I'm not interested in being the one to take "a big step" and find out. Instead the blackness just continues on down.
I know some people who have walked away from the craters of their past. I know at least one who has taken a running leap back to theirs. I desperately want to be one of the former rather than the latter, but I feel stuck in the middle and unable to move. Donald Miller talks about this in the book I'm reading right now. He analogizes it to paddling across a large body of water:
"At some point the shore behind you stops getting smaller, and you paddle and wonder why the same strokes that used to move you now only rock the boat.
[...]
The shore you left is just as distant, and there is no going back; there is only the decision to paddle in place or stop, slide out of the hatch, and sink into the sea. Maybe there's another story at the bottom of the sea. Maybe you don't have to be in this story anymore."
(A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, page 178)
(Emily, I still hate your book, but now it's for times like this where I read something, then turn around to see it in my life. I declare, that book is going into the wall one of these days. SHOOM! Straight through the drywall...)
I'm preparing to think about how to make "amends" to those I have hurt in my life. (Step 8 of the "12 Steps" - I'm currently on Step 4, so I'm thinking ahead) One of the small group discussion questions inquired as to "...my biggest fear about facing the harm that I have done." Simply put, I don't want to rappel into the sinkhole. I want to walk away from it, not go back to living in the darkness.
I feel as if I'm wandering through life as a ghost, with the empty hole either covered over or fenced off. When people I'm acquainted with ask me how I am today, I answer "Good!", which is mostly true. It's a nice day, I have next to nothing to do, and God takes care of me. And yet answering something more negative would also be true - the profound emptiness inside slowly but steadily grows. It's like the Shadow from Inkheart. There's not good or bad, just _nothing_.
Supposedly God fills all needs in your heart. If so, why isn't He? He owns my Sundays for church, some Sundays for children's ministry, my Friday nights, my Tuesday nights, my free time for writing or small group homework, my here-and-there time as I try to walk with Him through my day, but yet my life is empty.
God fills your heart except for the part meant for people, so I'm working that one too. I've spent 3 evenings this week with friends and spent parts of most days with long ongoing text conversations. Yet, that doesn't fill the void either.
Maybe all the "your life is complete if you have X, Y, and Z" teaching is voodoo and make-believe.
I hate having to go to work today. I was short on work hours this week, so I had to go in this afternoon to make it up. The bother isn't exactly that I have to go to work, (which I don't mind) or the tasks I have to do (as tasks go, today's weren't bad). It's that I can use work to run from or hide from my "real life", and this is a particularly unfortunate time to have to work when I'd rather purposefully not run. Today seems like a reasonably good day to sit and ponder (or glower, as you prefer).
"Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God."
-Psalm 42:11
Apparently, though, as the quote from "Gladiator", he will save me, "but not yet"...
I have a pretty good idea why (which involves another helping of Miller), but just because I know the why (material for another post) doesn't mean I understand or accept it.
Darkness.
Hole. Cavern.
Yet, praise.
??
I don't need to be
I'll keep slipping farther
Once I hold on I won't let go till it bleeds"
-Stone Sour, "Bother"
Not its alliterative brother [poop]hole; that'd be different.
I was actually almost on time to church this morning, walking into first service only 3-5 minutes late. I prefer to be there early enough to get my coffee and bagel first, but my alternate plan includes partaking of said breakfast after first service during the gap. Today was no exception; I double-dipped worship, ate breakfast, and put off going to work all in one fell swoop.
Sitting in the church lobby, the music felt distant and muffled. The sounds of people milling about and the general hard acoustics of the room muddled the music, lessening the impact into just over a dull roar. It felt like my life - distant, muffled, covered by a dull roar.
My life feels like a sinkhole today. It's like a deep hole crumbling away to nothing has opened up in the middle of my heart. You can build over it (with some engineering) or near it (with less engineering), but eventually all crumbles and falls in. Block after block of buildings, all doomed as the unstable terrain underneath deteriorates. I keep thinking that God is building stuff into my life, but then the days come when it all crumbles into the blackness. Sinkholes open up over a known type of geography, but the exact location, severity, and timing are all random. So is my life - sometimes I know the areas that are weak/unstable, but the collapses still catch me unaware.
The hole I observe isn't even "post-Mary". Yeah, there's a crater there that's mostly stopped smoking. I think, though, that the results of that particular implosion are merely annexes to a deeper, more central hole. Caused by what, I have no idea.
Last year when a sinkhole opened up in Guatemala City, I was struck by how dark and bottomless the picture looked. Judge for yourself:
Eventually they measured the depth somewhere around 30 stories, but I don't remember what mad science it took to figure that out. For the hole in my life, nobody knoweth the depth thereof. And I'll tell you right now that I'm not interested in being the one to take "a big step" and find out. Instead the blackness just continues on down.
I know some people who have walked away from the craters of their past. I know at least one who has taken a running leap back to theirs. I desperately want to be one of the former rather than the latter, but I feel stuck in the middle and unable to move. Donald Miller talks about this in the book I'm reading right now. He analogizes it to paddling across a large body of water:
"At some point the shore behind you stops getting smaller, and you paddle and wonder why the same strokes that used to move you now only rock the boat.
[...]
The shore you left is just as distant, and there is no going back; there is only the decision to paddle in place or stop, slide out of the hatch, and sink into the sea. Maybe there's another story at the bottom of the sea. Maybe you don't have to be in this story anymore."
(A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, page 178)
(Emily, I still hate your book, but now it's for times like this where I read something, then turn around to see it in my life. I declare, that book is going into the wall one of these days. SHOOM! Straight through the drywall...)
I'm preparing to think about how to make "amends" to those I have hurt in my life. (Step 8 of the "12 Steps" - I'm currently on Step 4, so I'm thinking ahead) One of the small group discussion questions inquired as to "...my biggest fear about facing the harm that I have done." Simply put, I don't want to rappel into the sinkhole. I want to walk away from it, not go back to living in the darkness.
I feel as if I'm wandering through life as a ghost, with the empty hole either covered over or fenced off. When people I'm acquainted with ask me how I am today, I answer "Good!", which is mostly true. It's a nice day, I have next to nothing to do, and God takes care of me. And yet answering something more negative would also be true - the profound emptiness inside slowly but steadily grows. It's like the Shadow from Inkheart. There's not good or bad, just _nothing_.
Supposedly God fills all needs in your heart. If so, why isn't He? He owns my Sundays for church, some Sundays for children's ministry, my Friday nights, my Tuesday nights, my free time for writing or small group homework, my here-and-there time as I try to walk with Him through my day, but yet my life is empty.
God fills your heart except for the part meant for people, so I'm working that one too. I've spent 3 evenings this week with friends and spent parts of most days with long ongoing text conversations. Yet, that doesn't fill the void either.
Maybe all the "your life is complete if you have X, Y, and Z" teaching is voodoo and make-believe.
I hate having to go to work today. I was short on work hours this week, so I had to go in this afternoon to make it up. The bother isn't exactly that I have to go to work, (which I don't mind) or the tasks I have to do (as tasks go, today's weren't bad). It's that I can use work to run from or hide from my "real life", and this is a particularly unfortunate time to have to work when I'd rather purposefully not run. Today seems like a reasonably good day to sit and ponder (or glower, as you prefer).
"Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God."
-Psalm 42:11
Apparently, though, as the quote from "Gladiator", he will save me, "but not yet"...
I have a pretty good idea why (which involves another helping of Miller), but just because I know the why (material for another post) doesn't mean I understand or accept it.
Darkness.
Hole. Cavern.
Yet, praise.
??
Labels: life
posted by The student of life at 5:30 PM
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