The Novel Facade

Hey little lady

A lady bug lighted on my laptop Saturday afternoon, a welcome pest compared to the worms I had been unearthing in my pumpkin patch! Patrick and I spent the afternoon battling a few slugs, white grubs, centipedes, worms, rolly polly bugs, bees, gnats, a salamander that played dead and later escaped, and some white mold on the squash leaves. Finally things appear to be in order for October.

After that confrontation we rode to the bike store to get my old Schwinn some new breaks so that I don't screech and squeal around town (a great decision, since I hate to draw attention). We made a pot of soup, attended Saturday evening mass at the Catholic chapel down the street. Ahh, I love the peaceful reverence of Catholic mass. And ended the evening with French dip sandwiches and a gourmet salad at a friend's house.

I have a hard time reconciling the real, and felt, versus the overlying story. I recounted the overlying story. It was a perfect, misty, overcast afternoon complete with homemade soup, a pumpkin patch, bike ride, lady bug, church, and friends. I could write a story that would make a reader swoon in comparison to her own life. But the lived experience was felt and perceived so differently: cold, loneliness, exhaustion, illness, emotional weight, mild depression --what are those when they are, circumstantially, uncalled for? Given the situation, I should not have felt that way.

What weight does the internal life, feelings, and perception carry; do we proceed from within more than from without? The weight of spirit, of thoughts and ideas, questions, and concerns is greater than the empirical, experiential -some would say. Those are likely the introverts, the melancholys, and philosophers. While the rest believe in external matters, to save them from themselves, essentially.

I continue to run into unhappy people. I think that our world is simply not the stable cushion of financial, political, and social security that it has been for a few decades (in America, at least). More people are anxious for employment, money, homes, contentment, ease, family, love, and hope. Their focus is on ladybug-filled afternoons with bike rides and homemade meals with friends. Essentially, on the romantic notion of external security, peace, and calm. If only money, if only God were/would, if only my husband/wife, if only my job, etc. Isn't the optimist more of the brazen anomaly, whose words of hope touch a nerve? Pessimists are our friends, spouses, parents, coworkers, employers, pastors, and our internal voices.

In such a time as this, as history has shown over and over and over -the material world is merely a facade, in place for structure, order, systemization, while underlying is a spiritual kingdom HERE, now.

Perhaps the weight inside is not made light in dreamy fall afternoons, but in prostrate silence before God, and submission. Our hearts and spirits are burdened to find identity, value, worth, and security in the true source of life. Although this does not promise to eclipse the feelings or circumstances, it does remind us of the one hope in our world.

I'm hesitant to go here. It's a cheap default for any true philosopher, bringing the answer back to Jesus. But it is only intellectual arrogance that makes Jesus a "Sunday school answer." In truth, His wisdom and knowledge, and simply the knowledge of Him surpasses ALL of our understanding:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 1:1-5