This Blog Sucks

Sometimes, when I'm feeling down, I go back and read my old blog posts that were meant to be inspirational.  When I do, I'm usually struck by one sobering and inescapable thought:

"What a load of crap."

Seriously.  As an answer to life's enduring problems, this blog sucks.

Blog posts, you see, have to wrap up neatly in the end. There's closure at the end of the story, or when there isn't, there's at least a new way of looking at the problem that I couldn't fully solve in 16 inches of type space.

That's what you have to do in writing a blog column.  Send everyone home smiling with a happy ending and lesson learned.  Otherwise, there would be no pointing in writing for public consumption in the first place. 

The only problem is that real life doesn't work that way.

The problems in your life (and mine) that existed at the start of this column will still be there waiting for you (and me) when we are finished, no matter what I say here. 

So when I go back now and read how I managed to put a happy bow on a crappy situation from the past, I don't always find my own words all that comforting.  I still believe what I wrote in all those old posts, but I'm just sometimes annoyed at myself over how simple I made everything seem. 

God is with you. 

Follow your dreams.

Live to the fullest, even when life seems hard.

The best is yet to come. 

All of those sentiments are good advice.  They are easy things to write when you need a snappy, happy way to end a column.  But at two in the morning when you feel desperately lonely and your dreams look crushed, none of it helps a bit.

One thing in which I've found comfort over the years is the fact that our minor problems usually go away quickly and without a discernible trace, even when they seem major at the time.  But I haven't had as much figuring out how to deal with life's bigger problems. 

They seem to linger forever, and all too often, repeat on an endless loop.  I don't know how to keep those kinds of things from battering me down over the long haul, even if I can overcome them in my better moments.  If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. 

Really, I'll wait. 

Nothing? 

Ok. 

I guess it's up to me.  Fair enough.  It's my blog, after all.

This is usually where I'd pivot the column and write about how even though we can't control whether bad things happen to us, there's a joyous freedom in recognizing that we have almost no control over lives, throwing our hands up to Providence and going along for the ride.
 
Truth is, I started to go in that direction here this time too.  I'd write that when I signed up for my faith in God, I made the deal that I was willingly giving up control of my life. Maybe I wouldn't always understand what is happening or why, but in the end, I would take whatever comes, because life with a God who doesn't make sense is still better than life with no god but my own comfort. 

That's all true.   But if I wrote that now, part of me knows that six months from now I'd look back at it and feel that I oversimplified things.  I'd feel that I brushed away genuine angst under a rug of platitudes rather than exploring it head on, putting a post-it note in my mind to return to the pain at some other more convenient time and place.  And when I came back to read the blog when I was ready to have that conversation, I'd feel unsatisfied with what I'd written. 

Truth is, the big problems in life just don't resolve themselves very often, or often, very easily. 

That means that when you finish this blog, you'll still be lonely, wish you had better friends, a more active social life, or a family that better supports you.  Or you'll still have a person in your life who drains the energy from your soul but from whom you are powerless to break free.  Your job will beat you down, money will be still be tight, or you'll still regret the road not taken when the on ramp has already passed.

These things will be true whether I put together a nice little bow that wraps up all the loose ends of this column or not. 

So I won't do that this time.  Instead, I'll tell you that I get frustrated that I can't solve my own problems, let alone yours, in this space.  I feel as though I'm wasting all of our time by writing here, when I can't tell you why bad things happen to good people, or why a God who loves you doesn't always make your dreams come true.

What tends to encourage me, though, when I look back at my life through the prism of this blog, is not that I was able to reason my way to answers to my problems.  It's that notwithstanding how badly I felt during the flood that destroyed my city, the cancer that struck my family, or when people I trusted let me down, I can think of so many moments of joy in between each new catastrophe. 

And that tells me more joyous moments are on the way.  Even if I can't imagine them now. 

Besides, pain isn't always such a bad thing.  Pain is life's warning siren that something inside of us needs attention. It forces us out of our comfort zone. It leaves us no choice but to accept our limitations and give up our illusion of control. Nothing else is quite as effective at focusing our attention on the things that really matter.  It helps us understand joy a little bit better.

I don't wish pain on anyone. I wish we could achieve perfect enlightenment without it. But it's just not possible. 

Life's innumerable frustrations and crushing disappointments will still be out there at the end of this blog.  I'm actually kind of glad that.  If I, or someone smarter than me like C.S. Lewis or Rob Bell, could reason away our problems, we'd never have the chance to grow.  There are lessons in our pain, if only we will look for them.

The problem is that some of these lessons seem to last too long.  And sometimes the pain lasts well beyond the time it takes to learn the lesson it taught.

I don't know how to fix that.  I don't think anyone does.

Here is what I do know:

If you convince yourself that your dreams don't come true, or that heartbreak and failure are the backdrops of your life, there is plenty of stuff out there to reaffirm that notion and you can easily walk through life in the shallow comfort of your own misery. Plenty of people do.

If that doesn't sound appealing--if you want your life to be about something other than your own victimhood--the best way to do that is to invest in something you love. 

Find it.  Spend time on it.  Give it your best, and leave the results up to God.

Doing so has a way of bringing the beautiful things in life come to the forefront, even if only for a little while.  The world seems a little brighter when you're doing something that matters. Or at least something that matters to you. 

Author Rob Bell wrote that we were created for the "relentless pursuit of the person God created us to be." 

That sounds great, but I don't really like relentless pursuits.  I like leisurely pursuits where I can get started at 11, after I've had a chance to sleep in and have a nice breakfast with some coffee. 

So sometimes it takes a little (or a lot) of pain to get me going again, to focus my energy on what matters and whether I'm doing the right things with my life.  I realize that, even if I don't particularly like it.

I probably come back to read this space when I'm feeling down, because it's the best tool I have to process life when it doesn't make sense, and it's my best effort at helping you do the same.  It doesn't always work, but it's something I feel strongly about trying, even when I fail. 

And even when my blog is full of crap.