Sunday morning

9:04am, apartment in Chandler, Arizona, Sunday morning, December 05, 2021. Sundays holds great promise but never delivers. This morning my mind is filled with infinite possibilities; I can go anywhere, do anything, be anyone I want to be. Yet before long hours will pass, afternoon will approach and I will become resigned to waking up Monday in the same life as before.

God thoughts

5:52pm. Returned from Orange County. I didn’t stop in palm desert so no check in there. Talking with my daughter about creativity. Dreaming of being the chaplain. Listening to Camus’s The Stranger And Pirsig’s Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance on the drive. All that together led to existential pondering…The concept of god is who ever validates our thoughts and hopes. The belief in god exists on the plain of thinking about the past and the future. I remember the past because it brings me joy. I use it in the present to being me peace. Same with a hopes for future. Not because it is real or even achievable but because it brings happiness. Some concept of returning to the past is feasible. Some concept of obtaining a dream future is feasible. Finding god in some form of the ideal is feasible.

Audience

5:49am the way I post and what I share differs greatly depending on the audience I imagine as I write. Sometimes I write for my future self. Other times I write for strangers. Sometimes The WIL. Lately I have been picturing my wife and daughter finding this blog now or after I die. I believe the posts are most real and honest when I selfishly do it just for me to go back and read. I recently found a handwritten journal I kept from when I was did a clinical pastoral rotation at St. Mark’s hospital in 1996. While I tried to be honest in the journal I failed to capture the scene of what I experienced. As I read the journal I kept wanting more information. I wanted to know more about who I talked with. What they were like. The words they said. I wanted deeper analysis of what I was thinking. I wanted to know my hopes, fears and emotions. Because of the experience if finding the journal and realizing what is missing I am a better writer. when I am cognizant of my desire for more information I write more engaging material.

Why write

It is 11:38am. I am still on the apartment. I have had a weird headache all morning. I took some medicine but it hasn’t helped much. Thinking about writing. What do I write for? What do I hope to accomplish? I have all day to get something done. But I have tried in the past and nothing materialized. Add writing to the pile of things I want a new perspective on.

Inner person

7:55am the inner person is vibrant, confident, deep thinking. He has a million thoughts, hopes and dreams. The outer me is shallow. He goes to bed alone. He wakes up alone. He seldom interacts with anyone or shares a thought before arriving at work. He does not have deep conversations with people. No one knows his hopes, dreams, ideas, plans. Only I know the inner me. My most intimate relationship will always be with a voice inside my head.

Future

9:10am I am excited for the future. I never got to be happy as a father. Before my daughter was born I began grieving the loss of the chaplain, time with the WIL. When my daughter was a year old our marriage was wounded. All my happy memories were before my daughter was born. We haven’t had the “good” time of her life yet. There are good memories but not an overall good time. My wife and I have struggled. This morning I found hope. Hope that the time off happiness as a parent is in the offing. Just as the time of happiness before I was a parent eventually came as the chaplain in utah. I am ready to embrace happiness. Love. Family.