What a week. Last Tuesday, when I wrote that first post about dark wonder, I felt remarkably energized. I felt a “standing-up” inside of me–a thrill at the thought of thinking creatively with others about how to stay more awake in this world. And doing it.

Then something happened on Thursday.

I think it was a combination of things, pushed further off the edge by that second threat to AJS, but by the time I sat down to work on my book, I felt like my bones had turned to jello. I put my head down and instantly got this picture in my mind of a beautiful tree in the middle of a vast field. It was full of fruit, and a low wooden fence ran along one side of it, off into the distance both ways. It was wonderful. I wanted to sit there gazing at all that quiet glory.

Then a dragon came in, stage left, and torched the whole thing. Torched all the fruit, and then turned its back to the tree, waiting for anyone to try to do anything about it.

Needless to say I was a bit shaken. I sat straight up and shook my head.

I don’t know how best to interpret that scene, but I do know that’s exactly how I was feeling–like the powers of yuck in our world had come to remind me that any fruit I have to bear just can’t be given away. Sorry honey. That’s just the way it’s gonna be.

I don’t consider myself a quitter, and I have my own “sorry honey” to say to all that yuck–like yeah, you can knock the wind out of me, but my Lights? You can’t knock those out ever. Tenacious is what those things are, as is my spirit.

I will admit, though, that this has been a week, for me, of remarkably little wind.

While I continue to recover, maybe I’ll consider these days a mirror of what Christians around the globe are doing: waiting in darkness to see a Great Light. Honoring this human experience of yearning, of wanting hope to get kindled again. Of watching to see with our own eyes that we aren’t, in fact, in utter darkness, and those powers of yuck won’t have the last say.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 15th, 2006 at 11:57 am and is filed under Psychology, Mindfulness, Religion/Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.