and my head

Maybe I have one of these or one of these or have this or maybe even this. What's clear is at the very least I have this. The long and the short of it is that I feel miserable.

In the garden, under intense suffering and knowing what was about to come, He still took the time to heal the soldier's ear. When I'm miserable, I take it out on everyone else. I gotta tell ya, I don't know what is wrong with me -- but hopefully it's more curable than all the above.

the branch cannot bear

I dreamt it was snowing. At the same time I feel this branching in my overstuffed head. Something's covering something but I don't know what.

i lost not one

So I missed a post yesterday. I thought it would be a bigger deal. Being OCD and all, I thought maybe I'd wake up with an urge to stop doing this whole thing since I missed a day. Refreshingly enough, I don't care. This is for me, not you, me. And me? Me doesn't care.

Alright, me cares a little but me cares more for a day alone. Me cares more for me.

comes to the light, so

i think it's clear that whoever's bringing the sleepiness isn't for me that there's a somebody behind the sleepiness is clear beginning to notice that whenever i'm getting sleepy i'm also getting turned away from the light and tonight night feeling the lullaby a lullaby not in the least melodious to me i turned away turned back clear then that this isn't a sleepiness maybe at all worried about another sleepiness when maybe this is just a long lullaby designed for against me maybe i'm close to something bright opening my eyes in the middle of it i saw that it was just a lullaby light the light still up ahead and as Saul says will soon crush crush under your feet

I stand at the door and

By later I guess I meant a few hours. This whole knocking thing has been knocking around my noggin for a bit and still not gone -- like a persistent Jehovah's witness, except this one's not hysterically crazy and wrong.

Besides the whole Rhoda thing, the NT has a few other listings of knocking incidents. M and L have what was quoted earlier (scroll down, lazy; I'm not requoting -- if you can't keep up knock elsewhere). L has another mention of a much more negative degree: Jesus saying He's not answering the late or pretend doorknockers. Then we have Him revving with a promise of dinner for an answer. I'm thinking OT has similar references of a knocking nature -- to wit, I think of Samuel and Eli with knocking replaced by whispering through a window.

In any case, that's the thing of it all. He's not simply an answerer, but also the Knocker. It's one thing to be up so high you only have a one-way upward relationship. It's another thing entirely to be the one the One initiating the conversation and saying knocking's my thing. Two-way, all the way, and that's worth something.

who enters by the door

I think I'm at my creative best when I'm not intent on being my creative best -- when I write rather than try to write. The lesson here is that the fount of inspiration is more and better filled by unkempt and unkept emotion and thought than by planned, plotted intentional manipulation. It's why these things might be random or incomprehensible or misspelled or simply wrong. I don't care to find out what happens otherwise, however. I'll take quality over suspect artsiness any day.

The rambling intro here is to mention that I like perusing these things for the first time. I suppose I should do it prior to the whole sending off but reminder: the whole unkempt and unkept thing.

I noticed a similarity between two recent ones of these things: knocking (Rhoda and nameless readyman for those with amnesia or just joining). I think there's something here which I should explore some time, so this is one long mental note. He calls Himself the gate. He says knock and it will be opened. I feel like I'm always knocking and some time there's no answer and other times I'm supposed to answer the knocking but don't get off my hay pallet.

Again, something in all this for later.

was wrapped around

A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

I don't know who first used that line, but maybe they were talking about Saul in Rom 7-9. It's not so much the mental linguistic acrobatics as it is the spiritual gymnastics required to grasp even a tenth of what he's saying here. He lost me at hello. I gathered something about elect and sin and law and may it never be but beyond that it was like playing "Who's on First?"

I don't think it was so much that he was incoherent or that he was simply babbling. I think his whole life after Damascus Road was a leaky faucet. Tweren't his mind leaking, no. It was his opening the Holy Ghost like a tap, a drip alone containing more wisdom than he could contain. Hence the gushing forth of Rom 7-9.

Not babbling, bubbling.

all things had already been

It might be that terrible ABC theme in my head being Monday night and all but the idea of readiness is in my noggin. Good segue and topic sentence for our next minor. Up to bat is that guy, another nameless. The best minors usually are -- otherwise they're practically major. Frankly, Rhoda might be the last named minor we have seeing as how if you have a name maybe you're not so minor and you can stay unpicked with the rest of the kickballers.

The theme of identity and names is big in the Bible, a topic we'll cover at another juncture. But a few quick thoughts on it while the ditty plays on:

* It's important enough that Jesus changes a few people's names (Cephas, for one)
* It's important enough even to those bringing the sleepiness -- cast out by name
* I AM, need I say more?
* weptover ain't for nothing

Back to nameless in this instance -- by instance I refer to Mark 14. Da vinci makes famous the Last Supper (though really the Holy Roman Catholic Church might want to claim this fame first). But someone set this all up -- answer, our hero. He has a furnished room, all ready for a big meal, this being Holy Week and all. And two strangers come to him and tell him The Teacher (their attribution not mine) needs the guest room. And without hesitation it is given up.

I suspect another back story here. Someone who has been preparing this room every year, not knowing why, just knowing he needs to be ready just in case. This guy is the patron saint of OCD sufferers like me. And every year, maybe he's a little disappointed to only have friends and family over. And maybe last year like Linus in a pumpkin patch he really, really felt that it was his year and he hears that knock at his door and the servant comes up and it's just the servant reporting the water's ready and he half-smiles and knows it's only for family. And the next year comes along and here's this other knock, and he hears half-whispers of strange men at the door and he comes down the stairs and they look like they could be disciples, dirty and ragged duo that they are and before they can even ask, it's yes yes the room is all ready yes its ready ready when is He coming is He coming is He coming?

Are you ready?

going there again

Just finished (re)watching Return of the King again -- by my count 32 times all the way through. No depression this time, just finishing it with my beloved. All my favorite parts remain intact. That's half the fun of (re)watching it these days -- figuring out which part will move me most that time through (for those of you tracking this, "For Frodo").

Sometimes I fear that watching the movie while not sleepy would bring about sleepiness, an adverse Pavlovian effect since I have used it to mask the screaming so often. There's always this fear that I'll trigger some chemical imbalance. Fortunately, that has yet to ever bear out. Perhaps these have all been pre-emptive strikes.

also does in like manner

one of those days where I feel off and on days or weeks rather still hard to decipher whether the light or the dark is the winner tried playing 18 today and if the result was any indication of the state of things it isn't the light which brings up a strange similarity where last week or days rather the 18 was as fine as fine could be as was i and what if this is the pattern 18 as metaphor for life shall i be swinging more simply to gauge the state of my soul or swinging less because really i don't want to know