Not a God Post

This is not a God post.  I wish it were.  I haven’t written a God post for ages.  I long to write something witty and heartfelt and spiritual and profound.  But you just won’t find that here.  I’m sorry.

I look back at the God posts I used to write, Soul Diet and Mary, Help of Kitchens and Clomp, Clomp, Clomp.  What gives?  I used to be so spiritual, so tuned in to my faith.  And Mrs Monk.  Did you ever read Mrs Monk?  I was so holy when I wrote that.  I wanted to “transform my home from domestic to monastic in eight easy steps”.  I totally wrote that.

I guess I’m just not like that at the moment.  I think that’s why I haven’t written a God post in such a long time.  I don’t feel like I have anything to offer.

It’s not like there’s something very wrong.  I’m not having a crisis of faith (I’m really not that interesting a person).  God and I are still on good terms.  I’ve just lost the sort of rich, fragrant faith that permeates everything I do and everyone I meet.  Instead, I have something a bit stale and cold.  Kind of like the toast you put on for breakfast, but then forget about until the end of the day when you happen to look at the toaster again.

It wasn’t some big, dramatic change either.  Bit by bit, I’ve somehow lost all of my prayer habits.  I used to be in this lovely mum’s prayer group that met every week, but that stopped running.  I used to meditate as I hung out the washing, but when rainy weather came, I had to resort to clothes horses and dryers (and wearing dirty clothes) and sort of fell out of practice.  I used to get up early each morning and read the bible and pray, but – and this one’s really embarrassing – when the house next door was demolished, a mouse moved in downstairs (lured in, no doubt, by the smell of abandoned toast).  I was so terrified of spending alone-time with this small, nocturnal beastie that I stopped getting up before dark and gave up on my morning prayer ritual.  For the record, the mouse’s sojourn was very short-lived, but the damage had been done.  This is why I always maintain that mice and rats are the DEVIL’S CREATURES.  Ugh!

I can sort of see why the Church insists on Sunday Mass attendance, much as it makes her sound like a bossy parent.  It’s like an anchor when all else falls away.  If it wasn’t expected of me, if the deal was “Come along whenever you feel like it” or “whenever you feel up to it ” or “whenever you feel holy enough“, then that would be the end of it, I would keep sliding away until I had nothing.

So what’s the solution?  How do I find butter for my cold-dry-toast faith?

Well, I guess part of it is in what I’ve just done.  I had to overcome my pride to write this awkwardly-worded post.  I say I talk about ‘God in the Mess’, but I would rather avoid the mess.  I would prefer to have it all together all of the time.  To be such an awesome Christian that I don’t even need God at all.  The rest, I suppose has something to do with little things.  In building back gently what has been so gradually eroded.

There might even be a God post in that.

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