Random thoughts from the past few days

I've spent a good bit of time mulling things over today. It's good to mull things over from time to time I find. I've got a lot rolling around in my head, but nothing fully formed enough to get it into words. Here are some of the ideas that I'll likely expound on later. Maybe if I make a list here, I'll actually get around to writing about them....

I've been thinking about the idea I was working on in my dissertation. No, I'm not thinking about writing the blasted thing again. But, the idea is something that's never really left me, and in fact, much has happened in the past few months that's left me wrestling with it in some new ways. The basic thesis is that human freedom is more fully realized when we live into our existence as embodied beings in relationship to the world around us. I'm very mindful of the fact that the option of coming out to my mom was never really an option for me until I experienced myself more fully as an embodied being in relationship with others.

I have a better understanding, I think, of what the sense of lostness this week has been about for me. I think I'd decided that coming out to my mom was an end for me, that doing it meant I was healthy at last and that the hard work I've done the past year or so would slowly begin to dwindle as I embraced my healthy, whole self. Instead, coming out to my mom was like stepping out of the shadows where things were hidden. I've become aware of new things to work on; other issues are now much more apparent, and I see that the work continues. Call me crazy, but for a time, that really made me sad and discouraged this week. I'll write more about this later. Conversation with a friend over breakfast today really helped me be okay with it.

I'm on the verge of believing in God again. I suppose most of you didn't really know I'd become skeptical, and truthfully, I'd never really given up on the idea of God, but I had become very aware that my experience had long outgrown my understanding of God. Nothing made that more clear to me than an invitation to pray outloud a few weeks ago. I didn't think twice about saying yes. I've done it forever, but as I opened my mouth and caught myself in a situation in which the words I was about to utter in no way fit what I understand about God, and because I knew the people around me knew they didn't fit, I was caught between a desire to sound good and a desire to be authentic. The result was a very awkward prayer, but a good experience for me. My prayers for months have been wordless and unformed. When I pray that way in private, it's hard to pray outloud in public, but that's alright. The experience brought home to me just how nebulous my understanding of God is right now. The interesting thing, though, is that I believe my faith in God is much stronger than it's ever been. More on this too...but be warned. I'm pretty sure when I get to putting it into words, I will clearly reveal my newfound status as heretic.