Trying to maintain the habit

I'm trying to build the habit of blogging every day. It's important for reflection on the day, as a record of what I was thinking at doing at a given time, a way to chart progress, and a commitment to something. I've missed Tuesday and Wednesday, so I'm definitely not going to miss today.

Today I got my new glasses and the world looks like a much different place! I like the frames, they are light and a little vintage-y looking. I also went to the dentist today and got a checkup and cleaning. So in the past 2 months I have had a yearly physical, a mammogram, a gyno visit, a vision visit, and a dental visit. All of my various pieces and parts have been examined and I've been found relatively healthy. I am extremely overweight, like a hundred pounds, but I'm maintaining the 50 pounds I lost over the past year. I know that I need to lose the rest of it, but it is slow going. I've started taking care of myself now, though, so there is hope that I can reach a more normal and healthy weight. It will just not be fast or easy.

My skin is very dry and my scalp is itchy. My face is cracking a little at the corners of my mouth and eyes, and around my nostrils. It is uncomfortable, to say the least. I am going to buy some handmade soap, to see if that is better than the various commercial soaps and shampoos I have been trying. If it doesn't help, then I guess I will have to go back to the doctor and ask for some kind of medicated shampoo and cream for my skin. It's not expensive, but I thought it would be, which is why I haven't tried this avenue yet. But I can risk $7 to try something new.

I made sugar-free fudge from a recipe I found online and it sucks swampwater. All the recipes I found were basically the same. Seriously. It's not fudge, it's vaguely chocolate cream-cheese stuff. It doesn't taste very good at all. I guess we will just do without fudge, it's not a huge trial. We've been doing without it for the past year, we can continue to do so.

I've got my new cast iron skillet seasoning in the oven again. I want to use it to make some spiced pecans from an Alton Brown recipe. I'm planning on taking them, chicken pot pie, and 15 bean soup to the game on Saturday. Everybody is going to eat well this week!

I am still struggling with suddenly feeling bad. I'll be motorboating along, when out of the blue I get hit with this bolt of weird helplessness or loneliness or alienation. It's so hard to describe. When I am lucky or I'm doing well, I manage to twist myself loose by engaging in something. The gnawing feelings are growing less severe, though. I'm glad about that, really grateful, because they are poisonous feelings and I hate feeling that way. I'm mainly trying to stay busy. I have work, church, and social circle; sewing; and reading. Those are the things I have that I can use to try to deal with my feelings.

One thing I realized last night, as I watched Constance slowly make her way down the aisle of the church with her walker. I felt pity for her, for sure. Then I realized that I didn't like to deal with any kind of discomfort. That kind of surprised me, because I've always thought of myself as someone who could outlast anything. But that self-image isn't correct. I fear pain and suffering. I fear it for myself and I fear it for the people around me. I pray that no one will have pain, and it hurt to see Constance deal with the betrayals of her body in her age. But pain is an important and unavoidable part of life. Bad things happen to good people all the time. In "The Problem of Pain" C.S. Lewis wrote something more or less like good people suffer because there is evil in the world. If I would have a life of least suffering, then I have to avoid evil and anyone who could do evil or create circumstances through evil, or... you get the point. There is no way to avoid evil and suffering. I really wish I could. My sufferings are so small compared to so many, and I know that. The sufferings of my family and people I care about cut me deeply. But there is no way out of it. And I have to acknowledge that Constance would prefer life with her bad knees and her walker and being elderly to the alternative, which is not having life. I can't borrow the pain of others, and I can't avoid all pain of my own.

All this talk about bad things happening to people is rather ironic, because on Tuesday night at Adult Forum we are going to be discussing Job. That's my least favorite book of the Bible, even less loved than Leviticus. God seems to be such a dick in that story. A basically good and devout man gets tortured for the sake of making a point to the devil. And it's pointless, because the devil wouldn't change as a result anyway. It's all about God winning the point. Job loses his family, loses everything, goes through physical torment for some ultimately pointless exercise between God and the devil. Then God says, "Here you go, Job, have a new family and some new stuff" and it's supposed to be all better. I am going to read the story solemnly, study it well, and try to find some lesson in it other than "God will let horrible things happen to you because he wants to show how powerful he is."

One thing that gives me pause is that my sister Maverick, who suffers so greatly, really likes the book of Job. She told me this last night over the phone. She finds meaning and hope where I find cruelty. That's what makes me willing to give it another try. I'm willing to be wrong. But the God in the book of Job is a hard one to defend believing in. God might need no defense, but we fallible humans have the habit of questioning our beliefs and the beliefs of others. I want to be able to say that my God is a good God, full of love and mercy and strength. I don't see those qualities in the book of Job. Yet it is part of the Bible, which is the book my church uses as the basis for its existence. It's even categorized as being one of the books of "Wisdom Literature." So there has to be some reconciliation here. I either find it for myself, or am led to it through discussion with people wiser than myself, or else there is a real problem. I can't declare that it doesn't count, because it's right there as part of the Bible. I could stick it in the same category as Leviticus, which is labeled "You have got to be kidding" in my head. But I have to be able to defend my faith, even if it's only defending it to myself. I may never ever have a religious discussion with anyone else, because it's not particularly my thing. But I have to examine it, and I have to demand answers. Otherwise I will have to stop taking communion, because that's something for someone who believes. I could still go to the church and use it for opportunities for social growth and support, still sing in the choir, still be there with people. But I won't be a hypocrite. That's something I said back when I started this whole thing.

So that's enough for one night, I guess.