A Day in the Life

Chaplain Mike over at Internet Monk recently wrote an astounding piece called Tell Me about Your Day. 

It's astounding for two reasons. First because the suffering of the people about which he writes is deeply deeply moving, troubling and real. Second, because we so seldom stop to think that this sort of thing is going on around us all day long, every day, in the lives of the people we meet at work, on the street and in church. Every day. Everywhere.

This is not the exception, I think. It is more like the common human experience. We just hide it better than most cultures.

This is real life. I am struck hard when I ponder it, aware of how close it is to being my life, and afraid that I lack the compassion to face it in the lives of others.

Gazing into the Abyss

Just read an fascinating essay "Gazing into the Abyss." by Christian Wiman. The Hound of Heaven is indeed active, and working, and we cannot predict His way of tracking and following and finding those whom He seeks. Here is a portion:

So now I bow my head and try to pray in the mornings, not because I don’t doubt the reality of what I have experienced, but because I do, and with an intensity that, because to once feel the presence of God is to feel His absence all the more acutely, is actually more anguishing and difficult than any “existential anxiety” I have ever known. I go to church on Sundays, not to dispel this doubt but to expend its energy, because faith is not a state of mind but an action in the world, a movement toward the world.