Piles of food

Today has been a long one. At work at 7am and haven't stopped since. Worked a full day; went to my BIL's birthday party; cooked chicken pot pie, 15 Bean soup, and a cheesecake, put some ribs in the crockpot and made a batch of spiced pecans. After I get through with this post, I'm going to go back and clean up the kitchen again. For right now, I am enjoying sitting down.

I had a fun phone call with my sister tonight. She was in a good mood, feeling better, and she wanted to make a quiche. She asked me to talk her through it, so we cooked together over the phone. It was so nice to hear her laughing and carrying on, especially when I think about how sick she has been. I'm trying to treasure the good times so I can remember them during the bad times, because I know that her illness is cyclical and bad times will come again. I just want to help her enjoy the good times as much as possible.

This whole book of Job thing is the pointy end of the stick. It sticks straight into the heart of why God and I parted ways 20 years ago. Why would a loving God hang someone out to dry like that? Even if the torment is the devil's idea and not God's, God still went along with it. Did it break God's heart? Did God feel sadness that Job was suffering? If I can find it anywhere where there's a whisper of pity on God's part, then that will pretty much put an end to my questioning. I kind of wish that this had come at some later date, when I'd have had the chance to grow more comfortable with the idea of believing. As it is, it just shows me how much anger I still have at God. This is a big stumbling block right now. I could just ignore it and go with the flow on Tuesday, not saying much and floating along as the others discuss it. That would give me the social contact that I crave and I could just put the whole thing on the shelf, disengaging until the next week and the next book. But that's dishonest, isn't it? The questions aren't going to go away. My little bit of trust in God is now shaken because I have to confront what happened to a good man who trusted God completely.

I was so much happier before this came up. All these cool green sprouting feelings of possibility, that there could be some sort of order in the universe. If you are able to posit the possibility of God, the boundless field of benefaction that permeates all things, then it becomes possible to accept that there is a universal law of right and wrong. Christ is not hard to come by, if you can make the first step of faith that there is something larger than yourself. I would dispute many of the details, but none of the details were more important than the overall idea that God became Man somehow and this somehow gave us a way to join with God. I was happy at the feeling that one could join with God, who loved us tremendously and wanted only that we join him.

Such a tiny little bit of faith. I'm struggling to keep it alive. I want to live with a brain as well as a heart, though. It can't all be about feelings. It has to be about beliefs and principles that I would be willing to go to the wall for. If I can't carry my faith all the way to the wall, then all I am doing is pretending. Maybe I was just so lonely that I would be willing to do anything, even absorbing the religion of the people around me as I sought social contact. Maybe I have lost my sense of perspective. I don't want to go back to the way things were before. I want to be a part of the church community. There are very good people at Ascension and I want to be part of what the church does. I want to be welcomed, I want to belong.

I want it so badly that I would be willing to just let the point go, to put Job in the Leviticus box and just drive on. It's rather humbling to realize that. I would still have choir, still take part in Food Basket, still celebrate being in community with people I admire and like. I just wouldn't take communion any more. That makes me feel kind of lost and lonely, though. It obviously is important to me, it means something, it is deeper than just going through a ritual because everyone else is doing it. I just have to figure out how to reconcile the idea of the loving God with the God who would let a godly man suffer just to make a point.

Now I am sounding like a broken record. But this is important. I can either just let it go or I can find a resolution. I have to find my way.