Frustration, Desperation, and Hope

I put a new roof on a house of cards. Or triple axle on thin ice. Or clean the teeth of a ravenous leopard. That is how life feels on some days.

Or maybe it is like the dream. You see someone you love in the distance, and when you try to walk towards them, then run towards them, they remain far away. No. They are outdistancing you. Straining forward with all your might, whipping through the wind with every step, but they grow smaller and smaller, unil finally they disappear behind the horizon.

Or it is like climbing that venerable magnolia. At first there are so many branches, easy footholds, handholds... The fat leaves brush across your face and your arms, but you don't notice. You're going upward. You're going as high as you can before your mom sees you and tells you to "Get down from that tree before you kill yourself." You are climbing like Jack and the Beanstock, expecting the uppermost vistas to show you something new. What new perspective will we gain from that height? Will it terrify us, finally, to know how far we can fall?

The entire thing is a gamble. Life. Atoms are mostly empty space. What is to stop me from falling through the floor, the earth, or the sky on the other side of the globe? Physics has an answer (strong force, or weak force, I'm not sure), as to why things are bound so that we do not plummet ceaselessly.

But somedays I feel like I am falling through space. The starfield around me shifts and spins. I can find no north because there is no north. No constellation can guide me home like the old time sailors. I am traveling with strange stars.

And then sometimes I feel as if I am encoffined. I can't press my way above ground again. I can't breathe fresh air. The strength of my will, even at its most brutish, falls short of moving one grain of dirt.

O Reader... I know there is serenity to be found. The absence of desire. Silence and stillness in the peace of God. I know that I live, move, and have my being in the One who both created and sustains the universe. Oh... I know... I know...

But knowing is different than feeling. And somedays, there is only the house of cards and my shakey hands. I take a deep breath and hold the card in between my fingers... praying for stillness. Hoping that this will make a home.