Through Gritted Teeth (Grateful Tuesdays #6)

What a lovely thing a bike ride is! And what a splendid gift for the Lord of Hosts to give!

I'm so glad (grateful), Father that, even though you are LORD of the Angel-Armies (as The Message puts it), you are also the inventor of the buttercup and the daisy. I thank you for the hints you have left of yourself all around creation and not only creation as in rocks and birds and trees and whatnot but also the institutes you have created, like marriage and families and fathers and churches and the like.

One of the hardest things for me to thank you for right now is direction, because I see that you are pointing me in a hard way. And by "hard" God, I mean a way that requires work.

Work. That's all, God.

Bleh.

How disgusted I am with myself! I hate what I am, God. And I hate it that I'm not willing to change. I hate how, ugh, slow and... I don't know how to say it but acediac I've become.

You know what I mean by "acediac", God. Jeff Berryman was talking about it. I don't really know how to explain it except to say that I know it's not of you, and I'm sorry.

But if I was really sorry, God, wouldn't I do something about it? I am hopeless on my own, God. You know that.

I have a hope in you.

Thank you (I say through gritted teeth) for the hope I have in you. It's hard to thank you, God, when I feel so dead.

But the parenthesis I just used reminded me of poetry. Thank you so much for poetry, God! Thank you for thinking up this brilliant way of helping me in my struggle to declare my thoughts to the universe. Of lifting up my soul to you really, because that's what it's all about.

And I thank you for also for my friends who help me in my effort to lift this massive weight up to you. Friends like Eucharisto (even though I don't communicate with him as much as I should and Katie and so many others God including my family and, though I'm sure the nice people who listen to my thoughts are tired of hearing about her, I thank you for the girl who's picture is serving as the wallpaper of my computer right now. I'm grateful that I can say, when it comes right down to it, that she leads me closer to you and to a better understanding of you and your love for me. Thank you.

Anyway, thank you again for bike rides and for Wendy - my bike - who, I found out, I misnamed, because it seems that the horse after whom she's named is really "Windy". I don't like it when things like that happen, but I guess I can live with it.

Thank you for Mt. Hood and how blue it looks right now, God. I don't want to sound ugly, God, but I think it put the mountains in Colorado to shame. Now I feel kind of bad saying that, what I mean is that I like that you can just look at it and know that it's a mountain. Maybe that's just because it's standing by itself.

Speaking of Colorado, thank you for the Garrett family (I don't know if I spelled their name right); that whole family is spectacular. If my kids end up like their kids I think I'd be proud. Katie (Katy?) Garrett is such a magical person, God, such a gift

Thank you for U2 and for Bono, God. That guy gets the Gospel more and is able to communicate it better than so many other artists out there. I'm convinced that, if my campers had been consuming U2 instead of AC/DC and Pink Floyd and whatever other bands are coming back from the dead these days, my job of communicating the Gospel would have been easier. I don't know, maybe not. Maybe... I don't know. Do you think it's bad that I see your Gospel, your story everywhere? I've been told that I over-analyze things, that I over analyze life and don't just enjoy it and let it come my way. God, whether you gave it to me or I stole it from someone or turned it into something it wasn't supposed to be, I have a brain, a mind that pounces on things, on bits of information and tears them to pieces looking for you, for a trace of you.

Oh Lord! Have I broken your Stradivarius looking for the signature? Oh my... that would be terrible.

But no, God, isn't it the people who don't see you that fall into trouble, who miss the point? Who end up lost and without even spiritual pocket change?

Oh my, God. This really is crazy, isn't it? I've been called wise, God, and I don't think I am. I think it's worry.

Well you know what? To Hell with that! I've too much life ahead of me to spend it on that silly pastime! How ridiculous!

Mmm... God. I thank you for beauty. What a healing balm it is to my soul. As Bono says, God "Soul needs/beauty for a soul mate." Thank you for the beauty that you've sent to me. I know it comes from you, every good and perfect gift comes from you.

So God, kill my apathy and resurrect me to live a new life in you. Let me glory in you.

Amen.