Somewhere today

I got an idea for a post, but I forget what it was. Oh well.

I took it easy today. I finally slept after three days but it was a sick drugged kind of sleep so it took me a long time to ease into the morning. Once I got outside I cleared up remarkably. I ran an errand, and went to therapy.

You know, they do this thing on a person's last day in the group that I used to think was really stupid and cloying. They have a "rock ceremony" where the person picks a little rock out of a bowl and then it is passed around the group and everyone takes a turn saying something about the person and "infusing" the rock with some quality, commonly peace, love, strength, fortitude, etc. and then the person takes the rock home and treasures it for life, etc. I spent a good deal of time fretting about how I was going to deal with the rock ceremony of a certain person who was leaving today. I really disliked this person, found them abrasive, consistently negative, whining, always talking but never having anything to say, and so on. (interesting how we loathe in others the very things we are paranoid and insecure about in ourselves) I really had tried to support this person all along but I couldn't think of anything genuinely good to say about her, no matter how I'd sought that of God inside her, which was confounding. I was trying to dream up not-untrue positive phrases but feared they'd be transparent and I would hurt this person by being false.

Finally I decided that I would just make my message about rest and peace, because they were two things I could see this woman really needed, and I could be genuine about it, and I'd let it go from there.

And you know, when I held that rock in my hand and opened my mouth, the spirit moved in me and suddenly I could see a dozen little beautiful things about this person and her way of moving in the world, and I said them. And it was a gift for both of us, because my eyes were opened in such a peculiar way. I always thought I'd been trying to see the good in her, and apparently I was noticing things all along but hadn't registered them. The Spirit was seeking more deeply than I was, or rather, I guess the Spirit knew what I had not perceived.

I don't know. But it was cool.

As for me I'm grieving today but steady. I've been given a good dose of grace to deal with the latest Sad Thing in my life, and one blessing of this S.T. is that I've been able to see a little fruit from the weary tedious work I have been doing in therapy these months. In the past, a S.T. like this would have sent me directly to some sort of self-destructive act, some sort of self-loathing reinforcement, some sort of despair. And I don't feel any of those things. I can't express how deeply sad I am, but it's a purer sadness, with the hatred (self hatred, but still hatred) that I've lain with in the past removed. So that is good.

Amen.