You still breathing?

Everything has been said a thousand times already.

By this point, you’re probably either taking a break from the news for the sake of your own sanity, or you’re getting this notification in the midst of your twenty-ninth hour of doom scrolling.

(Stretch your neck, by the way. Stretch those shoulders back, too. Feels good, right?)

I’m sort of swinging between all the feelings. All the responses. Well, not all the responses. I haven’t painted myself red-white-and-blue, donned a hairy, horned hat, and charged any f3deral buildings. Not really my style.

Instead, I talked to someone about knitting today. Reheated a pot of mediocre chili. Wrote another chapter for my middle grade series. Played a vintage Japanese video game. Reread the Declaration of Independence.

I need to return that Bible. Lovely design, but I could see straight through the pages. Trying another one that should be here tomorrow.

I’ve been missing hymns. Missing a place to sing them. Thinking about going back to church somewhere, if I could find a place that’s not drunk on one of the poisons du juor. I get the bruises and the scars. I know why people are done-done. Especially now.

But I will never get over my love for the church. I miss the sense of troubled lateral minds reaching for and being reached by something higher and better. And I miss sitting in a room of people and agreeing on the most basic of things like goodness. Truth. Kindness. Honesty.

You know that old saying about, “Don’t join a perfect church, you’ll ruin it?”

Well, okay. Fine. Totally agree. But there’s a difference between being a normal messed up human and…

I don’t have to explain any of that, do I?

There’s a lot I don’t understand about the book of Revelation, but I’ve been thinking about the chapters in which those churches are assessed. A few decades ago, I could be satisfied with a clinical reading all that. “Here’s what this means. Technically. Teeehchnikaaaally.”

But lately, when I think about the praise and censure of those early bodies, I get a little weepy.

Don’t break hearts. Don’t hurt people by getting this wrong. We need it too badly.

The world is all shadows. We need the light.

Ecclesiastical performance was never a gauntlet, was it? The what was always a result of the why. If something were not gravely wrong, this wouldn’t be happening. That’s it. A diagnosis.

DH managed to say best thing he’s ever told me yesterday. That’s good news.

He said, “Even though things are dark and sad, you are Violet Baudelaire deep down. Soon, you’ll get that determined look in your eyes, tie your hair up in a black ribbon, and do the next thing needed to claim hope.”

I’m not as sure as he is about this. Still, I kissed him, choked back a sob, and felt a little tingle in my veins.

When the unfortunate events fall in a series…
when they don’t seem like they will ever relent…
when things just get bleaker and sadder and more overwhelming…

You know what’s crazy? We have all the music at our fingertips. We can just click a few buttons and hear anything.

And I had a pear today. It was perfectly ripe. I can never decide if ripe pears or fresh parsnips smell better.

Oh, and on the coldest day of the year, I heard a spring bird singing out the window. Just would not relent.

Twenty something degrees out there, and he was ignoring the pain, saluting the sun.