Sunday afternoon.  I do not want to go back to work.

But once you are aligned, things line up.  Strange.  You read the chapters about the Russian monk in Karamazov, on the nature of humanity and sin and how that relates to creatures and children, happy, pure of heart, not to be disturbed.  Do not be afraid of the sinful, but take it upon yourself as a sinner that their faults are your own, and once you see that, that changes everything.

The world of people struggles with itself for a way to treat the environment.  Respect the world of nature as another living being, as it is comprised itself of creatures and animate objects with soul, or some form of soul, and the world of nature is well.  How do we live upon the earth?  Is that situation to a spiritual condition, one we are clearly nudged to see, except we like to blind to that and consume and consume, pave it, drive over it all, not walk through.  At least there could be a more respectful way, don't you think.  A way to scale back, to live as a human might if he too were some form of animal in nature.  Clear drinking water, creatures and crops to tend to for sustenance and satisfaction, villages with school houses...  It seems I didn't grow up in a town too far away from that, somehow, in another era.

But instead, the corporate model, short term profit, political power, money to move agendas seeking more profit.   Too obvious to state, too childish, too far too impractical, too ridiculous to be heard, and yet it speaks to the nature of the human spirit, speaks of the necessity of recognizing his status as the lone sinner in the world, in need of making amends and shuddering at himself and the shadow he casts.   His arrogance only grows, unfortunately.  If it's not this great thing he builds to solve a problem he, not recognizing his sin, he builds another.  On and on.

Oh, believe me, I too have lived as a selfish consumer, arrogant, pleasure-seeking, uncertain of my self.  It's hard not to, finding the pressure to succeed, but not always given the deeper picture of what that might be.  Mainstream benchmarks.  And it all makes one subtly depressed, always fighting...

You're supposed to be a man, right, and control things, make things happen, dominate, do battle.  You're a madman if you don't, lazy, a foolish idiot, a disappointment.  Got time on your hands?  Go do something big, go earn, spend.   Use pleasure as a guideline.  

But did we choose how we came into the world, to which parents in what situation, of what kind of temperament.


...  Ah, sins are almost laughable.  Mine are, were.  I had fine comedic talent for them.  I almost outdid myself, kind of like Dostoevsky gambling.  Brilliant timing.

And feeling shame, I did not want to admit.  Like Job, why did all this misery unending fall upon me? Here, Job presages the way of Jesus Christ, at least that's the hint I get.  Man, not being there when the foundations of the world were lain and set, does not realize--what an archaic statement it sounds like upon our modern ears--the nature of his sin.   God's restoration of Job resonates with what will come later...

I wrote it all out, as best I could, sort of like Job.  But failed to see the crucial bit of information.  When I got depressed, that was not seeing a way out of it.

And then, my frame of reference seemed to change.  I got aligned with that person I'd always been, sweet, gentle, peaceful, a friend of animals and nature, that kid who grew up in the country with woods around him, a healthy swamp with cattails, a brook running behind the house, four great seasons doing their thing, cows out in the fields, corn, pasture, places to cross country ski and pick berries.

Is that all a writer is, a country boy reminiscing...