I don’t know what to think.
I don’t know how to think.
I don’t know how to feel.
Life just seems jumbled-up, shaken around in its puzzle-box, disconnected, senseless and out-of-place.
Very little in that life feels known, dependable, familiar, friendly, solid, in-focus, or colorful.
Blogs are supposed to be the place where you tell everyone what you think, even if you haven’t had a thought worth sharing with your own dog for years.
And I can’t. I feel a need to write. There’s an urgency behind it. There’s a frustration with the way the world is. There’s a sense that I used to have an idea what it was all about, but I’ve either forgotten or never really knew.
Or that I was just plain wrong.
Right now, life is a Piet Mondrian painting rendered by Rene Magritte, an Apple device designed by Salvador Dali, an Alberto Giacometti sculpture done by Fernando Botero, a play by Samuel Beckett enacted by Jonathan Winters, a “Matrix” movie directed by Terry Gilliam.
I can’t even begin to describe what it feels like, and the temptation to just not feel at all. Wall it off. Shut it down. Go Vulcan.
It does not compute.
So I don’t know what to think.
And I don’t know what to feel.
There it is, folks: your messed-up friend Keith, in a nutshell, trying not to become a nut.
What do you do with that?
If you’re me, you write.
Sometimes it helps.
Blog In My Own Eye 
I think Brazil is basically a Matrix movie directed by Terry Gilliam. Perhaps we can get together and watch it and eat dessicated food chunks together.
Keith. Even when you even express this sort of frustration, it helps remind the rest of us that we’re all working through all of this together.
God, bless you my friend.
Deep grief is like that. Everything overwhelms.
That’s what I hear you say.
Pray as you grieve, Keith, or if you cannot, let God speak to you as you read his word and assemble to worship with his people, letting their love surround you as their prayers and songs console you.
Grief is certainly the overwhelming and major causal factor in this funk. But it’s not the only one. The world is just a severely messed-up place right now. It values all the wrong stuff. It thrives on war and politics and conflict and drama and glamour and wealth and judging others and never being mistaken about anything and self self self and acting like there’s nothing wrong with any of that.
I’m not adjusting well to the world being so totally upside-down inside-out screwed-tight-counterclockwise, either.
Especially when I see it in me.
Please don’t adjust. You’re seeing things the way they are. It is painful.
“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” — C. S. Lewis
Yeah… I hear you loud and clear. It’s been almost two years and so much is still turned around and upside down.
Keith, for me, writing has been the best therapy through my time of grief. To know I am able to help people in ways and to an extent I would never have been able to do otherwise means so much to me.
You have so much to offer through your writing ability and your insight into the word of God. Use that for God’s glory and for the good of others. Stay involved with people. There are so many good, loving, caring people out there. I know that may be harder for you to do since you are still new in the area where you live. For me, it is such a blessing to see and greet and give and receive hugs from friends.
My thoughts and prayers are with you. Remember that even if your life has been turned upside down, you are not alone.
Anyone that considers the world in our time a mess should attempt to understand what it was like during the first century. We are so blessed to be living in an era where we are not persecuted unto death as many of our brothers and sisters were even at the at the hands of Saul. Actually, as I read the scriptures about how they met even in secrecy for fear of the persecution, I tried to imagine if I would have the guts to continue as they did. Then I encountered information that told stories about Christians actually boldly proclaiming to be Christians while knowing for certain that they would be immediately put to death. To create some will power for your self read some of the stories in the Book Foxes book of martyrs, read about the capture and death of Polycarp, about total families that were completely wiped out for their belief. Then, reevaluate our circumstances that we live in. If by chance you still cannot be comforted in our environment, maybe you should read more of the Old Testament history of the Israelite Nation, wars, slavery, or attempt to visualize being one of God’s Prophets, or even just one of God’s servants living under the rule some of the Kings or Jezebel? I have not encountered anything in this time frame that has a resemblance to what Christians have proudly endured for their obedience to God. If members of a family have lived a life of serving the Lord and one goes on to meet the Lord sooner than expected, I would believe that the departed has run the race and is happy with the finish line. I would also believe if the surviving allowed themselves to be overwhelmed because of their (selfish) earthly desires of companionship with the departed, then the individual living begins to live in the past and not in the present time. My advice, let the past be the past and begin living in the present to secure the future for yourself.
Larry, I lost my wife in May. I’m not ready to let go of the past 23 years with her. They meant something, something deep and solid and permanent. They always will.
I know you mean well, but people grieve at their own pace. Let me grieve at my own pace.
It’s only been four months.
You’re not being selfish. Anyone who says you are needs to be knocked on their butt. That isn’t “meaning well”. One doesn’t “get over it”, which is, in essence, what was said.
I read this thought once and have never forgotten it: “I carry my grief like an eggshell in my pocket.” (I’ve forgotten the source, my apologies.) It is like that, something always with you, even if unseen, fragile, protected. 23 years from now you will have found a way to live forward, and a safer place for your eggshell, no longer needing to keep it with you.
Be blessed with comfort & peace.
I, for one, am glad you’re still writing. The condition of this severely messed up world you describe was likewise lamented by Karl Menninger, in the first two chapters of his book “Whatever Became of Sin” back in the 70s. There is nothing new under the sun. And this is why we must continue to pray that God’s kingdom will come as we are catalysts for change bringing about God’s will on earth as it is in heaven. The kingdom is our only hope–not wars or politicians, as you well know.
Keith, thank you for telling us what you think these days.
It’s taken me awhile to comment on here because I didn’t know what I wanted to say.
I still don’t.
So I’ll just keep telling you what I’ve been telling you, all I know to think these days: that I love you; and I hurt for you; and I’m praying for you.