fortress of time

It’s Monday; another week of intensive koine Greek begins.

I’m sitting in the basement student lounge: this may become my go-to morning-practice spot because I’ve never seen anyone in here at any time, much less between 7:30am-9. Also, all our lights are on timers, and no one expects a person to sit in the dark… and sitting in the dark doesn’t trouble me.

I’ve written out my passage (still Jeremiah; cannibalism today) and have just finished my 10-minute struggle of silence.

In the cracks of “Jesus Christ/son of God/have mercy on me/a sinner,” I think about today’s quiz, about my visit to Lebh Shomea in August, about frozen meals from Costco, about asking my gynecologist for more estrogen, about …

I’m pulling scraps of putative action up around myself.

I know this flailing doesn’t decrease my anxiety. I’ve been practicing setting these kinds of thoughts on the table since, oh my, the psych hospital? My early work with Thea? And today’s batch are simply head-shaking since they’re all already written down. They’re not even in the “don’t forget!” bin.

An essayist wrote recently* about sin (τον ήμαρτον) as separation from God/love–about Jesus’ death on the cross not as God-payment like the Levitical sacrifices, but as a way to erase separation:

[Says Paul, in the letter to the Romans (8:38-39)]
I’m convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life, not angels or rulers, not present things or future things, not powers or height or depth, or any other thing that is created.

Today I see my tatters of not-yet-activity as rags of separation. I don’t know why-!?! —my human condition?— and I need to go to class.

Something to think about, though. What is it about this fortress of separation, these scraps of quasi-controlled time?

 

 

* “recently” — Truthfully, this is not a uncommon approach/understanding, so I’m not going to try to track this particular essay down.

2 thoughts on “fortress of time

  1. I too am dealing with rags of separation – your words so perfectly capture my emotional state right now…tatters and rags. Thanks for the vocabulary.

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