Back at It

If you can't tell (whoever reads this?), I took quite a break from blogging.  I was thinking through a lot of things for quite a long time. 

I'm still thinking through those things. I'm still not settled in any sense of the word.  However, I am ready to get back at it.  I am ready to try writing again.  

Part of what rang through my head for a long time was a lone lyric and melody line from a Deathcab for Cutie song.  The song was "The Sound of Settling." I am only vaguely aware of what the song is actually about.  The reason this song kept coming back to me is that I felt like a failure; the song reminded me of my perceived failings.  I still feel like a failure.  There are days when I just don't want to move. 

Today happens to be one of those days.  I got up anyway.  I get up each day anyway.   In the past, there would be days when my body got up, but my soul didn't. It was down for the count.  

And that's where I return to that song.  The lyric goes, "this is the sound of settling, 'bum, bum'." It's a nice, cute, little catchy thing which absolutely fills up the void in my head sometimes.   This earworm of a song represents so much to me about the allure of failure.  Failure feels good to me sometimes.  Yeah, it does.  Sometimes I enjoy feeling like a failure because it's somewhere I have been before. It is easy.  



I'm not talking about anyone else here, just me.

Failure is easy because it is comfortable. It doesn't stretch me to become more.  It definitely does not motivate me.  It just makes me want to sleep. That song just makes me want to sing along- to go to sleep- and forget what I really want. It is like living towards death. I can understand why some of the poets talk about death like it is a calm, steady friend always inviting us forward.  Death, in this sense, is easier than life. 

So, what is the difference between the different types of days? Those days when my soul was still sleeping and wasn't? Hope. Yeah, really, it is hope.

I'm still depressed much of the time. I still feel worthless a lot. I still want more friends.  I still want to be successful. I still want to know my place in the crazy, messed up world.

More importantly than all of those things, I know I have hope.  The experience of hope in the midst of those things can't be explained well, at least not by me.  But I am confident that I have it. Maybe someday this hope will completely lead me out of death and into life.  I know it will happen, I'm just not sure if it will be in this body. 

I have hope and I know what I want. I want to live.  John 1:4 says, "In him was life, and life was the light of men."  



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Listening

Dinomania - A Short Review

Brainless Sameness - A Brief Review