LIFE ON T’OTHER SIDE OF THE PEN: Organizing God And Blog

One of my favorite things in life is organizing.  When I was young, I used to think how great it would be to organize God.

This thought expanded infinitely once I had experienced childbirth and the absolute delight that is the raising of children.  Good grief.

It could have been better designed.  That’s all I’m saying.

And so for years now, ever since I received my most recent pronouncement that I was about to die (something for which I clearly have absolutely no talent whatsoever), and I figured that as I was supposed to be home-bound, I would do something that would keep me from eating my own brain from sheer boredom (illness – even threatened illness – has to be one of the most boring experiences one is forced to go through).  So I began this blog.

I didn’t really want to.

Self-exposure is probably one of the least appealing acts that I can think of.  But reading volumes can go just so far, and, in the end I figured since I only had a few months ahead of me, any potential judgment I feared would come to absolutely nothing.

As would everything else.

I really believed the doctors this time.  And I was all set to go.  More than all set.  I’m old.  My children are grown.  Had my little eternity bag all packed and ready to go.

But no.

Yet another, what? false alarm?  my body snubbing its nose at the doctors yet again?  another God joke?

Bah humbug.

Anyway.

So not only do I continue, but this blog continues.  I feel that since I started it, I may as well see where its going.

But I keep wanting to organize it.  It’s such a self-indulgent activity that organization isn’t really called for.  But I want to impose it onto what could be the chaos of it all.

So I’ve begun “themes” for the week.  They might not be obvious to the reader, but they are there now.  There has been themes like women, and one that started out to be on the Jesus Prayer but wound up being about Jesus.  There’s been the Holy Spirit (and I already have one planned on the virtues of the Holy Spirit, including Thomas Merton’s poem, Hagia Sophia).

This week it’s angels.  But that’s such a big category, this week it’s “good” angels, which gives me room to do demonology (and a post on the soulless nature of evil that is Lucifer).

I’m doing this all in an attempt to organize my own writing.

But that’s where the dragon of chaos keeps firing away at me.  My writing keeps slipping into the bog of oblivion, over which all I seem to be able to do is tsk my tongue and shake my head.

Perhaps it’s because I have too many “blocks” in my schedule.  There’s prayer (five times a day, which includes contemplation); there’s exercise (that constitutes the sticking out of my tongue at doctors); there’s chores; and then there’s projects.

There are all these growing projects to do for my church.

But the project that has most of my attention and excitement at the moment is the construction (because it is that big) of a prayer for the Congo.  There’s the history of the Congo to look at, the current state (or non-state) of affairs there.  There’s the impact of Western civilization, and the attempts to tame it.

There’s so much.  And it’s all riveting stuff.  And I’ve begun to get a grasp on the overall shape of the prayer (which I think will be so big that it will have to have its own page, instead of just a post).

So I tend to think about that, and leave behind posts I’ve scheduled myself to write, such as one on Eve.  I had written a paper once in seminary (where I was studying Christian education) on how the women of Genesis were antiheroes.  I had anticipated my Roman Catholic Old Testament teacher to be horrified by my writing, but, instead, he suggested that I show my paper to someone on “my” side of the religious world to see if I could get it published.  So I wanted to return to that idea, and became focused on Eve.

And just how HUGE her contribution to the world was.

And I was going to write it during “women” week.

But did I?

No.

The truth is, I could probably organize God if I put my mind and heart into it.

But my own writing?

Not so much.

I wonder if this chaotic-winning reality is just an attempt by God to teach me that there is something about creativity that needs to be tamed.

Or fed an exotic food.

Or perhaps, just that it needs to be listened to and responded to on its own terms.

Oh well.

Back to the un-keyboard.