return from a brief unintentional hiatus...

My apologies for the extended absence. It's not that I haven't had anything to write or that I haven't desired to read.

I think I'm afraid. I'm afraid of life. Afraid of asking questions. Afraid of the answers to those questions. The poet David Whyte states: "The price of our vitality is the sum of all our fears." I can't seem to rise above my fears yet to engage life. The cost just seems too high.

In the meanwhile the Enemy says ...be lazy...sit...rest...don't pursue...relax...go back to bed...don't ask...don't call... For some reason he wants me dormant. He wants me out of the battle. Disengaged. He's working hard to convince me that my fears and uncertainties and insecurities are more real and more correct than what Jesus says about me. "Be strong and courageous." "Do not be afraid." "I am with you."

But it's still easier to not move. After all...nothing will ever change if you don't change it. It's like in Jenga...as long as you don't pull the blocks out, you'll never win, but you'll also never lose. The wood pile will never fall that way. And so I sit. I don't call. I don't ask. And I wonder why God doesn't do anything. Why my support hasn't come in, even though I've got plenty of contacts and people who have said they're going to give, how come they haven't yet?! I could go to work if everyone who said they would write a check would just do so. I hate feeling like Dog the Bounty Hunter (with less racial slurs) when it comes to raising money. And why am I so unmotivated?

And for those of you who haven't heard, last week I started dating a really nice girl that kind of came up out of left field. I really totally wasn't looking for it at all, since I had my sights set somewhere else. While I feel like all of this could be a really good thing, I can't help but wonder, when do I step up and start taking charge of my life. Or as dan told me several years back to start living my life and stop letting life live me. It seems like every once in a while I can step up and make a decision and go for something, but as soon as I put myself out there it's only a matter of seconds before I'm back in the fetal position being blatantly bludgeoned again by the very vitality I was in pursuit of.

Its so tough to be so broken down so much of the time. "It was goin' pretty good when about halfway through the flap-coil valve burner started smokin, the hydro-pin spinner was burnin' off the manifold drive. I knew if I didn't over-flood the drive when I was gettin' some of that last pylon tryin' to underplate that hydro-coil, I knew if I couldn't do that, I was gonna have to shut her down..." And while Brian Regan still knows more about cars than I do, I continually find myself unable to start, rolling backwards down the very hill I'm trying to climb. How do I get back to the place in life where I feel as though I'm running on all cylinders again?

dan, I can't say that I understand, but I can say that I feel your pain. And you're more of a man than I, cause I'm generally more concerned about the shit that hits my fan than those closest to me.

And the only encouragement I can offer is "Press On." To what? I'm not really sure. Why? I'm not really sure. All I know (know is too strong--willfully want to believe is better) is that somehow, in someway, through all this God is supposedly faithful.

I need to believe that.