August 22nd. Insomnia strikes again and I’m up until 2 or 3 am. Not that horrible. I think I took clonazepam eventually…
Breakfast with Brice at the Langhorne Coffee House. No, I did not shower, shave, take medications, etc. before going to breakfast – so that is what I did afterwards. Then it was time for lunch with John B. at the Great American Diner.
I relaxed a bit in the afternoon – watched some TV, took a nap, did some reading, and finally took a bath. My muscles and joints ache – and today they were aching particularly bad. Good thing we have a really deep bath tub with jets upstairs.
Then it was time to prepare for the Executive Board meeting and by 7 pm I was at the executive board meeting. This would last until around 9 pm after which I would swing by the parsonage to see how the grand room exchange had gone.
More paperwork, reading, a blog post, another TV episode, that about caps the night off. Nothing exciting.
I did fairly well throughout the day. When I have a “busy” day I go into “busy” mode and don’t really think about much else. That, of course, means that all those thoughts and feelings will catch up with me later…once I relinquish “busy” mode – and they did.
By the time the Executive Board was over I was sapped…and I’d spend the next few hours miserable (until sleep overtook me).
I’ve given up (I think) on ruminating about what will happen in the future and what decisions I should make now and how they will turn out – this has been fruitless, and I know rumination is useless anyways – but it takes a while to convince yourself sometimes. And I’m not compulsively searching for answers (in books, articles, etc.) – though I continue to search. But…
I do want to know that my suffering is meaningful. I don’t like suffering, but I feel I can bear suffering if I know that it is God’s will for me – b/c I know that He would not let me suffer if it was not for my own or someone else’s good…BUT sometimes I don’t know if the suffering is God’s will for me or if I am just being an idiot and remaining in a position of suffering unnecessarily. And…
God doesn’t talk to me. I beg and plead – sometimes I even threaten and curse – but He remains silent. He refuses to provide me with the knowledge that yes, without question, your suffering is meaningful. In my better moments I think that His message to me is that I need to live in the uncertainty, even in this. At my most desperate moments, I think that the silence is just that – silence – and it holds no meaningful answer.
I’m glad I’ve read some Frederick Buechner. Teetering on the edge sometimes I feel like, “What the heck am I doing being a pastor?” Then I read Buechner’s Secrets in the Dark and hear him talk (and preach) about the darkness, fear, and desperation that have consumed him…and I feel a little better. He is an old man now, yet he still holds to his faith, despite all the darkness…If he has walked this path, then I suppose there is hope for me as well.
I don’t think I use the CES at all yesterday. For the beginning I was too busy and in the evening the cats where driving me nuts and I didn’t want to go get the CES device, so I just went to sleep.