On Getting Well

It's Saturday morning and I nearly slept the clock around. What a treat!

I've been lax in the blog writing department lately. I write a lot of them in my head, but can't post them here. Sometimes I'm just too lazy and sometimes I'm just too dog-tired to try. Writing takes a lot of work. Really, all this is just a paragraph of excuses. . . when what I really want to say is – i'm sorry and i'll try to do better.

For the last ten weeks we've been a part of a Wednesday night small group from our new church. It's been a really good growth experience for me. Besides making a dozen or so new friends who I can't wait to hang out with every week, it's been a group that is teaching me so much about what it means to be a spiritual thinker in a commercial world. (This week someone compared each of us, as we go through our weekly routines and schedules and then come back together again each Wednesday night, to characters from the original Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer claymation. We are the characters in the "Land of the Misfit Toys." I love that and it's captured my imagination all week!) {wondering if i can find Rudolph on Hulu this weekend!}

This week in small group we talked about Jesus' question to the paralyzed man, "Do you want to get well?" It was a tough question and a good discussion. One of the things I realized is that "getting well" is a process that never ends. I might work really hard to get well from the big, dangerous things in my life – like addictions or insecurities – but truly getting well is a process of continuously peeling back the layers of my life and making all the smaller, and just as consequential, improvements that make me whole.

I asked the question, "What if you just get tired and decide that you're 'good enough?' What then?" And as soon as I said it, I knew the answer. You become one of those people who is stuck, cranky and just waiting to die.

No, thanks. I don't want to be that guy.

So I will keep plugging along, doing the things that bring life to my soul. One of the reasons that I've been a bit lax in writing is that I'm making a conscious effort to exercise my creativity every day. Whether it's photography, intuitively making a pot of soup without using a recipe, playing with paints or crayons, or actually writing something, I'm pushing myself to become more. And pushing myself to let go of some of the things that keep me from "getting well."

I've adopted a new spiritual practice since we lost our hour of daylight last weekend. {coming home in the dark is really, really hard for me. . .i struggle in these long months of darkness} When I get home, before starting dinner, I consciously bring some light inside. I light candles around the house and as I strike each match, I pray for someone who I know is struggling. I remind myself that darkness doesn't last and that light, warmth and home will always trump shadows and dread.

It's just one more way of getting well.