And I walked

““I've got a bad case of the 3:00 am guilts - you know, when you lie in bed awake and replay all those things you didn't do right? Because, as we all know, nothing solves insomnia like a nice warm glass of regret, depression and self-loathing.”

 D.D. Barant, Dying Bites

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Tonight I walked the road

Not my normal walk

Where, entertained by the Finn the dog

And stirred by the mountains and the skies

I walk peacefully

Caressed by the Sacred

And Kissed by the stars As they come out to play

No tonight I mostly looked down

At the gravel and dirt and cracked asphalt

And I walked, and I walked

and thought about many things

I found myself thinking

About how futile it feels at times

And about how totally ineffective I feel

At least at this point of my life

I thought about the fact that people who have

For 10 plus years, listened to me try to share the way of Jesus

Still support one who violates that way

Am I that inarticulate?

Am I that devoid of the Spirit?

I found myself thinking of those people with mental health issues

Who left our therapy sessions

Unchanged

I thought of my children

Such amazing beings

But for years, for a lifetime I have sat on the periphery of their lives

It is not that I don’t want to be engaged

It is not even that I haven’t tried

But honestly?

I don’t really know how to do it.

I thought about aging out of my role as the leader of the mental health program

Of being the aged, sagging Crown Victoria replaced

By the one younger, stronger, and probably smarter.

I thought about clients who left unchanged

Frustrated

I thought about my children, how for so many years

I have lived on the periphery of their lives

Feeling awkward and ineffective

Not knowing how to weave my life more fully into theirs

I thought about how I have struggled to really find intimacy

With anyone

There have been moments,

But then they were gone

I thought about how seldom I talk to my sisters

About how many church people I have not visited (when I should)

I don’t have to wait until 3am

To find myself in the place

Where I am haunted by how ineffective I have been

at bending the curve toward love

tonight I walked

and wondered

if it were time to step down from the pulpit

time to hand over the program

tonight I walked