It Never Changes

The breath came fairly easily this morning despite my having smoked yesterday. It was just a one-day relapse this time, rather than the usual two, because I got up this morning and threw the remaining half pack in the trash. Good riddance to a bad day.

Yesterday was one of those days when, appalled by the present, the mind reflexively reacted by seeking refuge in the past. Big mistake. As Yogi Berra once pronounced with unconscious sagacity, "History ain't what it used to be."

The main source of anguish these days is the country's appalling political/warfare/economic mess, but I don't want to go into that here. See today's Catboxx blog. My other main source of discomfort stems from trying to find a reason to live now that all the things which formerly lent meaning to life -- love and marriage, work and home -- have vanished. I'm old, alone and loveless, and daily watching myself physically degenerate under the advancing encroachment of Parkinson's Disease.

So I prayed this morning for the capacity to be able to keep my attention on That Which Never Changes. I know there's something bigger than me, bigger and more powerful than all of us, and that it will be here after we're gone. What it is I can't say nor understand, for it's out of time -- eternal -- which is why it never changes. I'll never be able to help anyone else, much less myself, if I can't transcend the mundane, the secular, and the commonplace cares of life.

--30--