Dear Pneuma,

Have you ever been in a large group of excited people and tried to get their attention, just for a moment, to pass along a piece of important information? Just stepped into a room where people are passionately discussing their political positions and tried to catch their attention with "Hey, does anyone own a blue Volvo? Your headlights are on?" I think God must feel like that.

It has struck me today that just because lots of people do something, does not make that something right, or even OK. Don't get me wrong. I line up with the rest of the folks that say they understand how silly it is to assume that because everyone else is doing something, I should do it also. My mother asked me, "If your friends all jumped off a cliff, would you jump off too?" and, of course, I answered, "No."

Yet, what I actually mean to say is that down deep, I think most of us would jump off that cliff. I would assume my friends knew what they were doing. I would tell myself that there must be something everyone else knows. Maybe there is an invisible net at the bottom of the cliff. Maybe they expect to develop superpowers and fly before splattering on the rocks at the bottom. Surely, if everyone else is jumping, there is good cause and reason.

So, what if, in the flurry of flinging, a single, gentle voice tries to say, "Uh, guys?" What if some weedy little kid with thick glasses, suspenders and a bad haircut were to say, "Jumping off the cliff? Not a good idea"? I don't think we would listen. I don't think we would even hear. I think we would run, jump, fly, and land badly. I think some of us would die. I think some of us would get seriously mangled, and I think some of us would bounce and land unscathed on our feet. What's more, I think we would look at the tide of falling people, and very few of us would decide to stand with the funny-looking guy trying to point out what a bad idea jumping is for most of us.

This struck me today as I read an email from an older acquaintance of mine who is committed to watching over a great-grandchild. This friend has raised two families already, works part-time and has an ailing spouse. Another casual connection has added a baby to her life-not her baby. Not her grandbaby. Not even her great-grandbaby. She has taken over significant care of an infant for a person who is not related by blood. Both of these women are caring for infants while continuing to work, volunteer, and grandmother their children's children.

Another story I heard recently suggested that two adults with children in this United States have "no choice" but to work two full-time jobs in order to maintain a lifestyle; that the price of children is loss of time to be with those children. In another friend's home, I see adult people functioning on caffeine, virtual reality and adrenalin to maintain some sense of sanity in a world of material possessions and social commitments that strangle any notion of free time.

Successful people hold down 70/hr. a week jobs, mow the lawn, bake Thanksgiving pies, volunteer at school or their church, travel for the holidays and add a little bit of continuing education on the tail end of their day. I find in my own life a serious struggle between having "meaning" to the world, and have a meaningful relationship with my Beloved. We negotiate our relationship health by how much time it takes from each of our own pressing outside concerns.

And when I realize that these stories indicate insanity-something un(in)healthy(sanus), I join that funny-looking fellow who has been saying all along: jumping off the cliff is a bad idea, no matter how many people are doing it. I find myself, like him, unheard, but saying it just the same: "Just because the entire world of people outside the window believe they will learn to fly before hitting the bottom, doesn't mean they will." Every now and then, someone stops to listen. Every now and then, someone turns back and walks away from the edge. Mostly, people just keep jumping. It's as if they didn't even hear.

Hope you aren't falling,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

I lost myself. I think I feel relieved. I am a hard person to be around. I am not very funny. I am often hyper-critical and I am easily bored. When I am around other people, I can share the burden, but when I am alone, I have to spend all of my time with me, and boy is that hard work.

Anyway, I got busy, and I seem to have misplaced myself. I can tell, because there is a vast white emptiness inside.

I keep asking, "What do you want," but I refuse to answer. I have some free time to spend with me, but I am apparently off playing hide-and-seek. It's disappointing, too. I have some good questions for me. I even have the time and space to listen. Where on earth did I go?

If you see me, let me know I am looking.

Thanks,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Sometimes grade school teachers and well-meaning parents suggest that jealousy is a small and petty crime: something womanish and insecure, yet in the Old Testament, God-the being whose name is not to be spoken-is a jealous God. Even Solomon in his wisdom claims that jealousy is "fervid as the grave."

I believe jealousy is a thing of power. Rightly to be feared, perhaps. Rightly to be avoided even, but I have to own myself, and I am a jealous being. Envious in the deep spaces of me when my claim is challenged. Angry and implacable towards the transgression of oaths made to me. I am a thick, black-choked swamp of malice and judgment towards that which separates me from my Beloved. Worse, when my Beloved's attention is given to another, the green and spiteful hatred I feel towards that other is potent-vivifying, powerful. It would be a lie to say I do not want to release that power.

In this way, life is choice, always. The truth is not found by denying my jealous nature. Integrity is choosing not to turn it loose. Jealousy-powerful, fervid, deathless-may be indicative of the Divine in human nature, but the New Testament God-embodied and revealed through Christ-is a loving God. Love always puts the Beloved first. Love has faith. Love sets the Beloved free.

Choosing Faith,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Whoever suggests that Enlightenment is a linear process is dead wrong. Finding the way through life is a spiral experience, and that is only if I am being an optimist. Some days I am convinced that life moves in a circular pattern; that, like the Wheel of Fortune, each of us is doomed to walk the same path of ups and downs over and over with no reprieve, changing pattern, or purpose. Today I am convinced the pattern varies each time, and though I may be experiencing a similar adventure, I am not actually in the same place I was before.

My pattern involves a struggle between the desire for control over that which I feel, and the fact that I only feel when I refuse the reins of control. Any artist or athlete can tell you what I mean. Technique only becomes artistry when it is used as a tool of the artist. When mastery of technique is the single goal of the artist, that which is created may work, but will rarely communicate anything important. Keeping the balance between technique (control) and expression (disciplined feeling) is an ongoing exercise for me.

My pattern also involves friction between loneliness and differentiation. It seems I am never completely free of desire to "be liked." I seek the safety and solace of fitting in. I often try to reduce tensions in my relationships by refusing to state a preference or apologizing when some expression of mine creates discomfort for another. Yet that refusal to differentiate myself from other stunts my potentials and contributes to dissatisfaction with my day to day existence. It also leads to shallow relationships-the exact opposite result from the one desired.

Another significant pattern that I revisit with each iteration of the spiral staircase is the inner conflict between ambition and mindfulness. I desire greatness, but I repudiate fame, fortune, power, martyrdom, self-denial, and poverty. I believe that being as and what I am is all that is asked, yet I feel like I have failed with each instance of another's greater achievement. I "should" work harder, focus better, commit more deeply-in short BE MORE.

Each of these tensions re-erupts from time to time in my life. Each time I believe I have vanquished one unworthiness, one obstacle on my path to Enlightened living, I find one of the other old soldiers standing before me. I am left with the choice between taking up my arms or going home. (One time I tried surrendering completely. No one would accept my terms.) So, either I am walking the same path-an ox strapped to the mill wheel, believing the cud I chew is the purpose of my being-or I am walking around the same center, but each step I take is actually taking me someplace new.

I really don't want to believe I am too obstinate to learn. I will take the second interpretation.

Comfortable in my illusions,

Cobalt Dreams.

Dear Pneuma,

I want an existentialist, punk rock, postmodern Christmas this year. I want to celebrate the season the way strange people celebrate the season: with pink-tipped hair, gothic make-up and tattoos. I have this urge to shave my head, give away all my possessions (except my piano), and sing carols around a burn barrel underneath a bridge. I imagine a purist holiday, untouched by emotional entanglement and social expectation. I imagine a free holiday, where the only traditions kept are the ones that really matter, the kind of holiday single people without children have to make.

I told my Beloved this. I told my Beloved I want distance from the crowd. I said, I am tired of trying to fit into this vision that is projected of smiling people in sweaters transformed in a moment by something shiny topped with a bow. I shared how the irony is too painful: that the pursuit of cheer leads us to such acts of childlike depravity. My head actually hurts when I try to figure out what people want from this season-both those that claim it for Christ, and those that decry the coercive violence of religion, yet still need to participate in the sacrificial frenzy of food and purchase. I want space between me and the candy cane in-sanity. I am afraid it may be catching.

I said, there is so much violence, nastiness and despair around us. We are fighting about who has a right to hang up party decorations. We subsist in anger and fear because we cannot afford the trimmings, refusing to claim our power by setting boundaries for ourselves and our loved ones. We tranquilize our lives in alcohol, arguing, video games and fancy ornamentation. We are committing ourselves to destructions: in food, in finance, in fellowship. We fear so hard, we con and shut out our neighbors. We kill outsiders' children while mindlessly stuffing our own children's spirits with expectations of unlimited attainment. We try to fill our souls' emptiness in a frenzy of gifting that seems only to succeed in revealing the lie that getting and having equal happiness. I said, we do this in the name of something nobody even seems to believe in. What do we get out of it? What the hell does it mean? Why does anybody do it?

My Beloved can be wise and said, "If the picture you paint is true, all the more reason we need it." When we are at our most broken, we are the most susceptible to hear. Vulnerability is the pathway for God. When we are spinning out of control, we have the greatest chance to reach outside ourselves and be touched by something we never knew or believed in before. The only problem with Christmas is believing it has anything to do with parades, garlands, the Salvation Army, family gatherings, alternative gifting, shiny new stuff or in whose house we eat the turkey. It isn't even about the worship services we attend or the music that fills our bubble of air. Christmas means Hope when things die. Christmas means Peace in the midst of destruction. Christmas means Trust the best of the worst. Christmas means Love spites all fear.

Maybe it is true that this holiday season heightens my awareness of despair, faithlessness, dis-ease and terror, but the appropriate response for a person of God, is to stand still, reach into the chaos, touch and believe. God is in the guts of us. God is in the midst of us. God is with us. By withdrawing, judging, mistrusting and sharing hopelessness, I deny God. By refusing my heart to my brothers and sisters, I am feeding the Abyss. Christmas is not a panacea. Christmas is a spiritual discipline. Christmas is not that we have opened the Gift. Christmas is that the Gift has opened us.

May I practice Christmas. With shaved head or argyle sweater, may I practice Christmas.

Yours Always,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

I have done something surprisingly revolutionary and difficult. I decided to close my facebook account. As the comments of disappointment and concern flow across my status, I find myself questioning this decision. Yet, in a world with problems such as dwindling fossil fuel supplies, increased awareness of global climate change and uneven health care distribution, this seems like a small kind of decision.

Nevertheless, I rechecked my thinking. Is this a decision from an unhealthy place? Am I distancing from people and reality? Am I trying to hurt loved ones by "cutting them off?" I don't believe so.

I found myself surfing facebook every time I felt lonely. I found myself saddened, angered and vindicated by the political and social opinions being pasted like nametags as status. I found myself participating in a public dialogue where opinions were shouted, labels were applied and honest interchange of idea was impossible.

I decided that this was unhealthy for me. If I have opinions that I wish to share, I can share them with my neighbors, with people at church, with my representatives in office and with my family. If I need people to know what is going on in my life, I can take the time to fill them in. I decided that I prefer a more physical form of social contact. I decided that, for me, facebook was a filler, potato chips and a candy bar, for places of emptiness, but I am not afraid of my empty places. I refuse to become obese on illusions of contact.

I keep thinking of Naomi and Ruth. I keep wondering what people used to do when separated from all that they knew, forced suddenly to live with people unlike those with whom they grew up; being always in exile from the people and places that had been their identity. I think maturity means reaching through loneliness and fear to contact with the present. I found myself, via facebook, trying to hold onto and reconnect to my past.

So, I am going to reach through my loneness and fear to stay in contact with this place and time. I intend to be present here and to allow my past to be a time before, not a future longed for, or a hall of mirrors distorting my image of myself.

I must just be too complicated top handle facebook.

With a sly wink,

Yours,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Thank you for your last response. I am definitely feeling better now. Sleep and scotch really can work wonders. How is it with you? I hope that all is well.

Life here is rich-like chocolate cheesecake; like pumpkin beer. Do you know the music of Stuart Davis? I have been listening to several of his songs. The music often runs deep and explores questions that many don't even seem to consider. In one song, the artist sings "Love is so wide that there isn't a boundary." There is a book I have read titled House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. The book, among other things, is about a house that is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

Living is like these two things: the reality that a human's being is larger on the inside than it is on the outside, and the hard fact that a tape measure cannot be dropped along the edges of any relationship.

I seem to have learned somewhere that LOVE is bounded, defined, and connoted by society: a thing to be controlled and to which access must be limited. Somewhen, I began to believe that LOVE is shameful, humiliating, embarrassing and wrong unless it fits into an acceptable boundary, definition, or connotation. I became a stunted, twisted, wizened husk of a human being, living a life empty of meaning.

My Beloved entered my life and I said: "I LOVE you." Just like that, what was in me was freed to be without. Just like that, I connected to the LOVE that is all around-the LOVE that is immanent and in which my definition of love participates.

Why do so many parents and friends get it wrong? Why do we insist that we must learn to contain ourselves within locked and shuttered houses? Why do we persist in the idea that LOVE can only be as large as someone else's wounds?

I wish you a day free from the fear of LOVE and outside the inside parameters of your home,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

I don't usually ask you for this, but I seem to have found a blind spot in my personality, and I cannot figure my way through or around a problem. Earlier this week, I received some information that truly hurt my feelings. It was mean spirited and unnecessary. Today, I discovered that the person that passed it along merely meant it as an FYI. In other words, this person felt it was necessary information to pass along.

Where I am with this, my friend, is on the mat. This information, trivial as it may actually be, still knocked me flat, and I don't really feel like getting up. Part of me says, you don't have to get up. You can simply leave the ring. Part of me says, never give up. Part of me just wants to avoid this particular brand of pain forever. Another part of me says that only facing it down will make it better.

Which voice knows? Which voice is right? It is not as though my decision ultimately impacts anyone but myself. It is not as though there is any kind of punishment or reward. It is not as though, despite Cool Hand Luke's example, taking a beating really confers any kind of dignity or grace. Mostly what we get from taking a punch is a bloody nose.

So, here I am Pneuma-what do you think? When do I simply walk away? When is it necessary to stand? When do I let the "slings and arrows" find their mark? When do I put up a shield or start hurling my own? I'd appreciate any thoughts you can give me.

Yours Always,

Cobalt Dreams.

Dear Pneuma,

We are so good at hurting. Why is that? We are good at inflicting, feeling, holding onto and prolonging pain. I see it in people who refuse to let their bodies rest. I see it in people who buy and give for others, but refuse to feed themselves. I see it in people who refuse to see a doctor, lest they get bad news, and people who refuse to try new treatments in the management of their disease. I see it in the practice of criticism and headlines based on personal attacks. I see it in the way some cannot even choose to hear a positive possibility.

I feel it in my own self when one critical remark sinks in and bites deep, but a single affirmation seems to slide off my skin. I feel it in my own self when pride tries to laugh at the hurt rather than let another see it. I feel it in my own self when anger and retribution seem like the only soothing remedy.

I know a lot about wearing pain as a badge; I know a lot about sneering around a burning ache of emptiness and fear. Holding onto pain as a purpose is an easy way to live. We have many role models. We see it as the way of success in our work. We see it keep relationships going. We see pain as the background to the lives of many people, and we begin to believe in it.

When we do that, we are wrong. When it is easier to pull a trigger, file a lawsuit, or express our contempt than it is to shake a hand, offer a hug, or hold our tongues, the dark is winning against the light. When it is easier to rationalize our personal vendettas than it is to mourn and move on, death is winning against life. When fear is our first encounter of the morning, the void is winning against the soul.

Pneuma, I hope you are well. I hope your pain has dissipated in the dawn. I hope you choose love in all you do today,

Love Always,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

I am living deep today. It fills me with sadness and care. It opens my heart and I suddenly see where I am needed. I hear where I am called. I know what matters and what can be left behind. I repent missing the way-looking past the moment, carrying the unnecessary load.

I am living deep today. It fills me with excitement and dread. It opens my spirit, and I suddenly see what I have been holding back. I hear where I've been sent. I know what has to happen, and what is beyond my control. I repent losing the way-fearing the next step, dropping my burdens in someone else's path.

I am living deep today, knowing God knows my face, my feet, my hands. I am living deep today, committed to hearing, seeing and loving at the expense of managing, producing and getting done.

Last night, I asked my Beloved why the cicadas sing. Today, I know.

Blessings,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

I am enjoying the grey wetness of this day. Everything looms close and quiet. The world is tucked in and waiting. It is the wrong time of year for emergence, though. It is supposed to be the time of closing down, and shutting in. Yet, I sense something blooming beneath the pulse of the world-something new and exciting.

This is a good time for courage. This is a good time for stepping out. This is a good time for commitment. I think the grieving is done for now.

Yours,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

It seems to me that me and my neighbors are too busy; so busy we hold onto routines and dogmas, onto fixed rotations of to do's, been done's, and still needs doing's just to have a way to mark the time; so busy we only steal time to be together by checking our email, reading our friends' blogs, and watching the newsfeed pages to which we subscribe; so busy, we can only unwind our sorrows with more activity.

We convince ourselves that time is within the range of our control, and then lose the time to be:

Be with others.

Be present.

Be happy.

Be sad.

Be rested.

Be restful.

Be kind.

Being this busy is an ugly habit because it suggests that worth is measured in things done. It tells us that when we allow time to overtake us, we become failures. It says that broken routines are evil-that dancing a step out of time is wrong. We not only forget in ourselves how to play, we teach our children that they are not to play. Our importance begins to outweigh our meaning, and Time becomes a mad rush through the museum, so intent on seeing everything, we remember nothing at all.

Managing time

Controlling time

Measuring time

Beating time

These are all ways to kill our joy.

I believe the great revelation of God is IAM: a statement of now being. Time is not tomorrow. Time is not yesterday. Time is today, and only today. Are you doing today what you hope to do tomorrow? Are you reaching out today where you intend to reach out tomorrow? Are you risking today what will be worth risking tomorrow? Are you feeling today what you will take time to feel tomorrow? Are you loving today the people you might meet tomorrow? Are you being today what you want to be tomorrow?

Here's to a life lived in Time,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

I took an online personality test the other day, and it informed me that my altruism is low. In other words, if it is you or me, I am much more likely to choose myself over my fellow humans. I find this disturbing. After all, my favorite heroes are the ones who sacrifice themselves for others. Does this mean that I am the person in the disaster movie that climbs over my fellow passengers in my eagerness to be first off the sinking boat? I always imagined I was the person who died of starvation in the Andes because of a refusal to desecrate another human's being.

Instead, here I am-selfishly average with a low sense of self-sacrifice. Boy, every time I think I have conquered a bit of my baser nature, I am confronted by another piece. Yet, in truth, I am my nature. I am not someone else's nature. I am made to be as I am. So my question for you, Pneuma, is what do I take from this? Is this a call to change, or is it instead an opportunity to wrestle in myself to a place of deeper understanding about the human being?

Of course, I could always decide that online personality tests are simply a fun game with little to no actual meaning.

Hope you are loving your life,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Freedom, control and fear.

Free: How we are made. The way we come into the world. The way we die. The nature of our souls.

Control: An illusion that makes us forget how we are made. An effort to change the fact that we are in the world. A state that allows us to forget we will die. A corruptor of human souls.

Fear: Participating in the illusion, binding our brothers and sisters, our children and parents, and the forces of culture and nature into hopelessness, rigidity and despair.

Love: Choosing to set our brothers and sisters, our children and parents, and the forces of culture and nature free of expectation. Choosing to become as we are made. Choosing to be in the world until we die.

Just some ruminations, this Saturday night,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Someone told me this week: "It hurts, really bad," and I replied, "That's all right. It's supposed to hurt." I wondered if there was something wrong with me. Should I have said, "Hush?" Should I have said, "That's enough?" Should I have said, "Don't worry. It will go away?" Maybe I should have said, "It can't be that bad. Just get over it."

I didn't because I simply don't believe that we are supposed to live our lives avoiding pain. Life is supposed to hurt. It does hurt. Because we touch. Because we are bounded and connected in physical being. Because we care for others and they are not always with us. Because we mingle our souls and they are pulled apart. Would I trade the hurt for the touching, for the boundaries, for the connections, for the mingling, for the cares?

Is there a sickness in me that I am happy to pay a price for being alive? Should I expect life to come free instead? Should I believe the Universe unjust in that it requires some day I will die? Should I aspire to a place of ease with no limitations?

Yet I can't help but wonder what ease would make of me. How would I know what I am, if I never found an edge? How would I know myself different from you, if there were no spaces between us? If I never felt alone? If I never had to let go? If I never drew back with a bleeding wound? I believe pain must be a good gift of God, which, like so many others, is easily misunderstood, mismanaged, and misused.

May I be brave and wise in knowing when to embrace hurt, when to resist hurt, when to face hurt and when to run away.

As Ever,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

If we move from beginning to end of life, we are travelling. We are journeying. We are on a path, a road, or a highway. Christ is that road. Christ is that journey. Christ is the shape that marks our passage, as well as the curves and switchbacks that lie before us. Christ is neither destination nor starting point, but is instead the place where our feet meet the contradiction that life is dying, and that death means we live.

Christ is the motion of foot before foot. Christ is the motion of stop to take bearings. Christ is the motion of refill the canteen, catch a breath of fresh air. Christ is the motion of turn back or refuse to go on. Christ is time spent waiting for friends to catch up. Christ is pushing through that last hill. Christ is putting a hand up for help, and dropping a rope down to another. Christ is not how we choose the way. Christ IS the way we've chosen.

Whether we go with confidence, fools with no plan, or whether we Google our pilgrimage and carry our GPS devices and cell phones, we are each walking Christ. The road only knows one way to go-life through death in God; whether we know it or not; whether we move intentionally or because we have been pushed; whether the trip is long and laid back, or short, brutish and hard.

It seems to me not so much that we should follow the Way, but that we try and seek out the most excellent Way: a path that leaves behind a trail of light; that, every now and again, takes the direct route through thorns; a journey of discovery and joy, ever watchful for small things hidden in the grass, because this life is the chance we have-not to reach the mountain top, but merely to walk the mountain.

Thanks for listening,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

I would like to weigh in on health care systems here in this United States. Today, I feel a great frustration with health care systems-not because of health insurance; not because they aren't competent; not even because they cost too much. Today, my frustration is with the fact that health care systems do not exist to care for individual people.

For the last few months, I have had some struggles with equipment-machinery and supplies on which I rely to maintain quality and length of life. Today, finally reaching the conclusion that the particular problems are beyond my ability to fix or adjust, I found that I have to make multiple phone calls, mail in the part that is possibly defective, make at least one appointment with a health care official (M-Th appointments only) just in case I am the defective part, and possibly pursue a new prescription simply to change back to a different set of supplies. I add, as well, a time constraint, because I need my equipment to be in working order before the end of the month, and if I intend to order new equipment, it will take 7-10 business days to arrive.

I feel frustrated because the system controls my care, but cannot respond flexibly to my individual needs. I cannot simply purchase the other set of supplies. I cannot simply say, this isn't working for me and I would like to return your product for a partial refund. Instead, every option has to be filtered through a system of clinics, insurance companies and product manufacturers, none of whom actually care whether I use product A or product B.

This is especially obnoxious to me because my situation is chronic. I will not wake up tomorrow without my disease. The lack of control I have in this particular instance is very humbling. It rankles to give up my autonomy. It rankles more to give that autonomy over to a system of regulations that does not have to make it through today with the concerns I carry.

Frustrated, but I'll get over it,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

The voice of God cannot be mistaken for anything else. It is a quiet voice, that arises as from a distance, and speaks in square words. It is a voice of thunder, shaking the foundations of my soul, rending the veil that dims reality, causing the ground beneath me to shift and settle into a new configuration. It is like a warm breeze, a gentle rain, a laughing brook of dancing water; it is like a handful of spring-soft soil.

Other voices are pushy and loud. They constantly chatter a cynical litany of suspicion and sarcasm. Other voices patiently pick away at surety until its seams gape open and I am ruled by doubt and fear. Other voices are cruel, like the beaks of magpies, raucous and sharp as razors. Other voices are rusty and cold as anchor chains, pulling, weighing, dragging my spirit down.

But the voice of God, shakes me like a bear hug. It lifts me high and whizzes me around in a dizzying circle. The voice of God is simple and straight; it only ever means exactly what it says. The voice of God is the voice of a lover, liquid, and caressing with an unbearably gentle touch.

The voice of God opens clasps, balms wounds, and fills my spirit like wind in sails.

Whatever it is in me that fears, whatever it is in me that is small and hurting, whatever it is in me that believes the worst, is born of the poor sad voices of cowardice and despair. It is born of a world that claims ugliness and imperfection as its root value. The voice of God knows better.

Cobalt Dreams.

Dear Pneuma,

How do I differentiate between pride and self-expression?

Wondering,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Just answered the door to a young man trying to sell me magazines so he can go to St. Thomas. Had to tell him I knew the gig, that I understood he was involved in a scam. Kind of ironic, as I intended to write to you about how life is perfect just the way it is. I was going to show how heaven can have nothing that competes with having a self and life.

Now I have to ask myself, if the world were exactly as it is, minus the magazine scammers, would that be better than the world as it is, with magazine scammers. All things considered, probably not. After all, people being people is how a magazine scam is born; people reaching for something beyond themselves; people believing they have a powerful idea; people expressing the hurt and desperation of death by hurting and despairing others. People hoping, trusting and opening their doors.

So much that causes pain comes from the world being made as it is made-diverse life forms and matter configurations bumping up against one another, relying on one another. Some are takers. Some are givers. Some share. Some shade. Some stand. Some climb. Some fight. Some run. Yet none is without touching another. Sometimes those places where my life touches another's existence can't help but cause pain. After all, who's to say that a virus changing my body is an evil thing, when the virus has an existence that requires it to change bodies.

And, unlike that virus, I am able to know myself separate from this great reality. I can stand, climb, fight, run, look, sleep, care, share, take, and give beyond any simple limbic response or spiritual predestination. I am alive, left free in a universe of dangerous and marvelous things to prosper and to fail, to love and to hurt, to fear and face. I am alive, left free to choose what to believe and how to be. I actually, simply cannot imagine a heaven that can offer me more. I really do not want a safe universe that gives me whatever I will and never requires anything in return.

If that means I have to turn away a few magazine scammers, then so be it.

I give thanks to God for the life I've been given,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Don't you love it when a metaphor comes to mind that helps you figure yourself out? I finally had a quiet day in which to reflect, and I found myself struggling with my faith. I have spent a few weeks in pretty intense religious surroundings, and I noticed that I was harboring resentment and sarcastic commentary for almost the entire time. It was as though the old agnostic cynic was trying to seize control of me, by battering and bruising my spirit. So that little blade that I have called Christianity, was starting to wilt-I was beginning to question why I got baptized.

Then, today, while I was reflecting, I saw a reed in my mind. Where I grew up, that reed is something we call snake grass. Snake grass stands up tall and stiff, but often blends into the surrounding grasses. If you bend it over, it will develop a small scar on one side, though it will stand back up. If you push it over enough times, at exactly that place, it will break or lay down and it won't stand back up.

My spirit can be like that grass. It has places where it has been pushed over, cut, and left laying down. Generally, those wounds were not intentional. It is very easy to step on grass. Nevertheless, those are places of weakness in me. What's more, my habit has been to stay down when pushed over. My habit has been to mourn and moan the loss of my stiff uprightness. My habit has been to curse the foot that crushed me.

Here is where the metaphor helped. Opposite the crushed bent side of the reed, is a strong, unbroken side. That side has been overdeveloped. That side pulls constantly. That side is stiff and invulnerable. It says, "Go ahead and push at me, I won't go down." My habit has been to harden my strong side. My habit has been to resist and refuse to bend.

Therefore, Pneuma, I am going to reengage by nurturing and strengthening the bent, broken bits. I am going to find sources of support and care in feeding, watering and upholding my belief in Christ. I am going to reengage by bending and flexing the stiff, hardened bits. I am going to respond with acceptance instead of righteous indignation, and allow my pride to take the bruises for a while. I am going to accept my responsibility in getting my faith reed to thrive.

Love Always,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Thanks for sticking with me.  In some ways, all of this reflection makes it seem as though I can't just live spontaneously; as though I have to reteach myself to walk, talk, eat, sleep, even breath every morning.  From one angle, it is truly ridiculous and rather funny.  Certainly, I should be able to at least wake up and breathe without thinking about it.  

I do try to remember what it was like in third grade simply to be-to show up, act, think thoughts, feel feelings and never concern myself with anything beyond that particular moment.  Yet somewhere, sometime, I started asking this question: "What does it all mean," and while, for years, the answer had seemed to be, "Nothing," one day, the answer came back "Something."  Now I simply can't stop asking it.

So, I dissect each action and I vivisect every thought I catch, but since I discovered my heart, try as I might, it won't come apart for me.  When I question its motives, it stubbornly blinks at me.  When I try to change its mind, it smiles and continues with its own plans.  What's more, this heart of mine is crazy.  I simply cannot make heads or tails out of it.  It asks me to do things that have no benefit.  It asks me to make choices without seeing options.  It tells me to trust.  

Following its lead is the scariest thing I have ever done (actually: it told me to jump out of an airplane, and I did!!).  In doing so, I've been taught the most sacred, sensuous and exciting dance steps I have ever learned.  This is why I reflect, read books, meditate, question, analyze, and constantly check in.  This is why I am never really sure I am sane.   I spent years tuning out my heart.  I spent years distrusting what is in me.  I spent years cultivating a life template that would let me avoid the question: "what does it all mean?"  It is hard to undo the formatting and replace it with a skin that is a better reflection of me.  

Thanks for sticking by me as I continue to try,

Cobalt Dreams  

Dear Pneuma,

When I close my eyes and shut off the white noise, I am in a cobalt blue space, alone but for the knowledge of God.  In that space, I am not defined as someone's subset.  I am not bound in duty or obligation to any set of rules.  I am alive; I am free; I am myself without trappings. 

I open my eyes, and I am suddenly in a space with furniture, decorations, tools, and rooms.  I am suddenly a being connected to other beings, each of whom defines themselves in relationship with me.  There are duties, obligations, rules, and trappings.  I am alive; I am bound; I am clothed.

What is right and good when the free being in the cobalt space yearns to go one direction, and the bound being in the defined space is asked to go another?  Sages, intuitives, and self-help gurus suggest the free being is the true being, and that only in honoring the true being can life be lived to the full.  Yet, in having friends and family, the bound being is connected to others; and sages, aesthetes, and the covenanted community suggest that the bound being is the true being,  and only in honoring the true being can life be lived to the full.

So, is the artist, whose art serves others, the free being or the bound being?  What is the worth of the art if others do not appreciate it?  What is the worth of the art if it does not come from a place of free integrity?  Which is first?  Which concern takes precedence?  In arts practice, does one strive to become a part of human community or to stand apart from human community?

Arrg.  Who thought it was a good idea to give me the ability to choose?  

With Love,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Loneness: the moment you realize no one else lives your life or dies your death.

Loneliness: the sadness in the moment you realize no one else can hear the music in your head.

Lonesomeness: the yearning to share that which cannot be shared

Are the barriers between us a blessing or a curse?

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

I went piano shopping recently, and the whizzy, dizzy desire engendered in me was terrifying and wonderful all at once.  This hunger, one I have had since at least third grade, surged to the forefront of my mind.  I wasn't even looking at pianos I was intending to buy.  I was just looking at pianos for the first time in years.

My hands ached to feel the keys.  My ears yearned to hear the deep, resonating boom of a well regulated bass.  My heart jumped into my throat, trying, unsuccessfully, to get a seat where it could see.  In a moment, all thoughts of financial planning, covenanted goals, the needs of poverty-stricken and dying peoples world-wide, were swept away in a yearning for an instrument of sound.

My first instinct was to get away-to go someplace where I could get this yearning under control, but if there is one thing life is teaching me, it is that fear doesn't accomplish much.  Fearing my own powerful desires is not useful.  I've known myself for quite a while, and I very much doubt that this dream of a baby grand piano arose from shallow materialism.  I very much doubt that, were I to buy a NICE piano, I wouldn't play it or enjoy it.  In fact, I am even confident that settling for a lesser instrument won't work.  I won't love it and my music will suffer.

So, while fear suggests that I stay away from temptation, knowledge suggests that this is not temptation but something less cosmic in its impact.  Fear suggests that things get in the way of a relationship with God.  Knowledge suggests that only I get in the way of a relationship with God.  Fear worries that an "extravagant purchase" does not honor My Beloved's relationship with money.  Knowledge suggests that my relationship with money can be honored as well.  Fear suggests this desire for a piano evidences a selfish, shallow character that cares more for art than for people.   Knowledge suggests that the music I share evidences a character molded, shaped, formed and best expressed through sound.

Though I realize this letter makes an argument that leans to my desire, it is an important argument for me to make, because the nature that pushes me away from my desire is a fearful, angry, judgmental and insecure nature.  I have been taught, though perhaps I haven't yet learned, that another word for good is Love, and as far as I can conceive, Love is not angry, judgmental, or insecure.  Instead, Love is fearless, patient, encompassing, and complete. 

Following the promises I made to myself when my life started over, I will trust, follow, and walk the blind way and see where it takes me.

Love Always,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Did you know I have been working on a composition?  Did you know I have been working on a book?  Did you know I am planning a concert in the fall?  Did you know I have been painting my house?  Did you know I have been leading music groups and organizing worship for about 30 hours a week while being paid and expected to work for 5 hours a week?  Did you know I have been managing finances and maintaining a social life?  Did you know I have been running regularly and meeting with health professionals as well as keeping up with long-distance friends and family?  

Did you notice I am crazy?  Too much.  I take on too much.  Then I have to drop something and I feel like a failure; you know the person I mean: a loser,  a liar, one of those people that you want to avoid because their lives are made up of problems they themselves created, but they are either too stupid or too self-willed to change their behavior.  

I feel like that.  Is there someone out there that juggles all of these balls and can keep them in the air?  If it is impossible, why do I keep trying to do it?  If it is possible, why can't I seem to get the hang of it?

The thing that really makes me feel like cringing away and burying myself in blankets until next fall is shame.  I feel ashamed because I am afraid of the consequences of failure.  I am afraid to admit that I am a mediocre person.  

What will people think of me if I say I am going to do something and then I don't follow through?  What kind of friend am I if I want to avoid discussions because I am too tired and stressed out to truly listen and care?  What kind of whiner am I if I think I am working hard when I KNOW most everyone else is working harder?  Why can't I just tough it out like everyone else?  Why can't I just put in that extra effort and pull it all together?  

Yet, something tells me that only in facing down these fears will I find ways to stay out of this position in the future: this position of lies where I act like it costs me nothing to meet expectations; this position where I put my goals on hold to perform up to non-existent standards; this position where I calculate self-worth based on hours worked, stress accrued, and number of innovations implemented in a short time; this position where I seem to think that trust, loyalty and faith are rewards I can earn.

Time-that seems to be key.  Take time.  Allow time.  Trust time.  Believe in time.  In the meantime, I shall let go of my myth and embrace myself, one more time.  I shall walk face first into the meetings and allow others to be proven right.  I shall gather the bits and pieces of the goals I scattered and try to put them back together.  I shall take a deep breath and decide that my first responsibility is not to another's hopes or expectations, and I shall try, yet again, to take things slowly, one step at a time.  I shall name myself  less than I have hoped I could be.

So-Book, I release you.  Composition, I release you.  Job, I release you.  Home decoration, I release you.  Responsibilities, I release you.  Exercise, I release you.  Concert, I release you. Relationships, I release you.  Greatness, I release you.  Whatever I have said I will do, I release you.  

I can fail.  I can lie.  I can hurt.  I can incomplete.  I can quit.  I can be whoever it is I am.

I can.  I will

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Why is it so hard to accept injustice?  What does assigning blame do?  Why is it so important for my brain to order the world in such a way that I relate to my disease as a reflection of my moral goodness or failure?  Why is it so difficult to detach my self-image from my illness?

Today has not been a great day, physically, and I spent a lot of it wondering, "What did I do wrong?  Where did I fail?  Why can't anybody fix this?  Why can't I figure out how to get back into control?"  Anger and sadness war inside me, both frustrated that they have nowhere to go, so they attack me.  They tell me I am not "right."

I want to blame my doctors.  I want to blame the technologies I use to manage my condition.  I want to blame my life.   The fact is, I have an incurable and chronic condition, that I neither invited, nor deserved.  The fact is, I can only do the best I can, and that best means I live longer, and better.  The fact is, that best doesn't cure my disease, it just makes it more manageable.  The fact is, some days I just don't feel real good.

It really pisses me off that I can't kick something in the shins and make this go away.  It really pisses me off that being good doesn't protect me from this.  It really pisses me off that I sometimes have to stop doing what I want so that I can focus on this.  It really pisses me off that even after years, I cannot seem to completely transcend this desire for reality to conform to my will and my actions.  It really pisses me off-because this disease is an injustice that cannot be justified.  It is a wrong that won't be righted.  It is unfair.

So what I want, Pneuma, is to grow into the kind of person that stops needing life to be fair.  I want to stop being so childish and selfish in my feelings on days like today.  I want the wisdom and the peace to know that death and pain are part of God's good creation-that mortality means we are limited.  I want to walk away from the idea that life, exactly as it is, whether it be full of difficulties or joys, is imperfect.  Life isn't imperfect.  Life is exactly what it was meant to be.  

Pneuma, may I release my selfish inflexibility, my prideful need to coerce and control, my insistence on an intellectual and moral perfection that leads me to view this gift of life with anything less than the joy and awe it deserves.

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

The questions we ask like "What is at the end of the Universe?", "If God created everything, what created God?", or "What is the basic unit of reality?" often come to a place of no answer.  When we reach that far, or look that deep, our minds are stunned.  They sit and spin their wheels at an incomprehensible paradox.  It seems to me that we have invested in technology, our hope to surmount those kinds of barriers by building things that can look closer, reach farther, and think faster than we have ever been able to do ourselves,  yet we still don't know what is at the bottom.

Instead, we are finding a vast unknown, and despite everything we do "know," everything our beautiful minds can comprehend, manipulate and ideate; despite all the ways in which our scientific methods have "proven" the natures of things, we still cannot fathom the fullness of reality.  We cannot even be sure that there is a reality.

At our core, or at our outermost boundaries, there is something completely inexplicable.  What I mean, is that, at some point, we realize there is other.  We cannot escape it.  Even if I agree with those that believe all reality is an integrated whole, for we deluded bits of reality that think we are individuals, the integrated whole is still something other that we do not know; in fact, we can neither know it as itself while separate from it, nor know it as itself unless we are separate from it.  Either we are in it, separate, and know it is, but not what it is, or we are it and cannot see or name ourself.

Left here in this place of paradox, then, this place of self because of an unknown other, being and not-being, boundary and boundlessness, part and whole, we have to exert will and choose a place of belief if we want to function at all.   This is the foundation.  This is the ground.  This is the "Big Bang."  This negotiated relationship of self to other is realism, pragmatism, humanism, creationism, deism, nihilism, and quantum mechanics.  This is the something that we place in the nothing we know is there because it is not everything else, and we have a BELIEF.

I spent a large portion of my adult life trying to ignore that nothing place I kept finding because I believed that BELIEF was not enough.  One afternoon, I realized BELIEF is really the only choice we have.  I do not know whether to pity or envy those who do not know their experience of reality is built on nothing less than the beliefs they embrace.

Love Always,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

The word "know" is an interesting word. There was a time in history when "to know" someone meant to have had sex with him or her, "to know in a carnal sense." This meaning includes a sense of something more than a rational exercise. It seems to imply that to truly know something (or someone), you have to see, taste, hear, and feel it.

So, today I say, "I know why it is cold outside." I say, "I know why water boils." I say, "I know what you mean."

To enrichen the word "know," do I mean "I not only understand the scientific principles behind boiling water, I also encompass the feel, flavor, sight, and sound of boiling water?" Is my use of the word "know" meant to convey a scientifically proven set of principles when I tell someone "I know what you mean?"

It seems, I often use the word "know" when I am trying to turn a belief into a statement of fact: "I know the sun will come up tomorrow." "I know it won't do any good to talk to my sister-in-law." "I know there is God."

In the future, I hope to use "know" with a richer sense of meaning, and to avoid replacing the ideas in which I believe with unproved and unprovable "I know" statements.

Because belief is stronger than knowledge on any given day of the week, and knowing something will require more time and depth of engagement than I usually give.

Happy Monday,
Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Today, my thought turned upside down.  I was hearing God's story, and I heard a reality I had not actually heard before-God is a "screw-up."  God gets it wrong: all over the place; all the time.  If I use Scripture as God revealed to us, I really can't escape this idea.

First, God created, and "it was good."  Somehow, people moved away from God, and Eden fell to Cain's anger, and ages and ages of pain passed, until God decided to try again.  This time, Gods' goodness was the rainbow, the olive branch,  and the dove.  

Time passed, and the world moved away from God.  God spoke to Abraham and said, "Maybe if you move away from all of these other people, and focus on your own family, we can get something really marvelous going," so Abraham moved to Nevada (or someplace pretty similar) and it worked; for a while. 

Then, times in the desert got tough, people moved to Egypt, and after a few generations, people had forgotten that the earth belonged to God, and that "it was good."   They got caught up in class distinctions, religious definitions, slavery and few other "not so  good" things.  God had Moses lead the Children of Israel back out of the "big, bad city," possibly hoping that fresh country air would clear out the cobwebs and get people feeling right in no time. 

God decided to live among us for a time.  God stayed with the people, hoping, by being visibly present, that they would remember.  Instead, God scared the living daylights out of folks and they told Moses: "You talk to It."  He did, but then he was gone, and God tried speaking to the people through  wise women and priestly men, but the people said, "Please give us Kings.  You are too much, God.  You are too much."

So God tried again.  How many failures is this now?  How many false starts and "do-overs?" Is it five?  Is it six?  The next time God tried to make good, we got Kings-Saul, David, Solomon-and life was good for a while, if our Bible is to be believed, and yet . . .yet. 

So follow God's failures through the words and prayers of the Bible, through the wars, the plagues, the exiles, the losses and destructions, and eventually you arrive at Jesus.  So, what if Jesus is not a culminated effort, not the fruition of creation's purpose, but yet another attempt by our God to be with us, to be in us, to love us and share the wisdom and joy in a creation that was meant to be good?

I know readers, that believe the Bible shows us how pitiful and stupid people are.  I know readers that believe the Christian faith is meant to teach us how unworthy, unimportant, and altogether screwed up we humans are, but:

What if the God of the Christian faith is not Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent, and Omni-Perfect?  What does it mean if God, as revealed through reason, tradition, scripture, and experience, is the "screw up?"

It means that God always tries again.  

What does it mean to worship a Being that never gives up?  What does it mean to worship a Being that, not succeeding at first, tries and tries again?  What does it mean to see Jesus, not as the "Perfect Human Being," but instead, as another Hope of God, proof of the Faith God has in us, that some day, we may just figure it all out: that Eden never fell.  What if Jesus is not the last, but simply another in a long line of attempts by God to say "I love you.  I love you all?"

Thinking new thoughts,

Cobalt Dreams