Hope

Of course I've said it, innumerably, before.  Honesty, about things I'm honest about, is easy.  My relationship with God is extremely bad.  I am ... immobilized with resentment.   He is waiting patiently for submission.  I say: can't I just be given mercy, and he says: you had it for many years.  I say: patience is not mercy, and he is silent, enigmatically.  I say: how about relenting and see how grateful, thankful I can be.  He says: no, now.  I curse him, and refuse, yet, to die.  He offers a bit more pain, and I have no choice but to accept.  Thank you, God, for this pain.

What do you do when God does not believe your promises?

The irony is not lost upon me.  My own immune system, which I have tended so carefully for a lifetime, is turned against me, broken, piercing me, riven, rent, wracked, ruined.  We are allowed no other refuge.  And I curse in my anger.  My strength is my weakness.  And I curse again.  Because I have been, always really, so utterly imbalanced, then imbalance shall be my undoing.  Oh, no, I appreciate the craft of it all. Thank you, God, for such artful lessons.

My God is the God of implacability.  My God is the no-win God.  No-win, I mean, for me.  No win for him either, of course, since he's not playing a game.  My god is, of course, not the real God -- part of my imbalance again.  This One is modeled after my father, a hard and untender man, to me, very little more than a judge, commandment giver, punisher.  The mantra of my childhood was, "who did this?" -- barked as an angry imperative. Likewise, my brothers: to me, brother is a word synonymous with betrayer.  No matter ... everyone suffers.  Somewhere into this imbalanced idol I have to wedge Jesus.  You know, so God is not a monster, or Satan.  My theogeny is incomplete.  

I have friends, but we do not speak in any meaningful way.  So I remain isolated and deeply discouraged.  I choose this.  It is the outworking of free will.  

I am undertaking heroic interventions, re regaining my health.  I haven't had a bad carb since March.  I'm juicing greens and sprouts everyday.  I haven't cooked anything to speak of in a month.   I eat -- well, drink -- clay.  It's a detox thing.  And so on.  We shall see.  It had been digging into me for a year and a half, so I can't expect a few weeks or months to undo the problem.  Call it a test of the natural-healing beliefs that I've been open to all my adult life.  At least it's not cancer -- not a fatal thing, so if it's all lies, this natural healing thing, the only harm would be in the futility of it.  But perhaps it will work.  I'm using this test as a test.  Chemotherapy has to remain only as a last resort.  I suppose I'm not willing to suffer forever.  But maybe I am.  But if I'm not, and healthfood is a lie, well then Obamacare will save me.  And I will have been proved wrong in yet another core belief.


J