My head hurts.

There are so many thoughts swarming around in my brain, I can’t decide which one to give attention to first.

Do I focus on the dilemmas I have with my new temp job… as I contemplate the possibilities of it becoming a long-term gig? Do I want to stay? There are things I’ve noticed, patterns emerging, echoes of sounds I’ve heard before. It’s one thing to deal with those things in a non-Christian environment, where I can excuse the problems with the reality that the people I work with don’t know Jesus, so I can’t hold them to the same standard I hold myself to… but this is a place where everyone "supposedly"  is a Christian… what do I do with that??? What do I do with actions I see, attitudes and behaviors that to me stink of worldly wisdom and desire. Do I stay and try to make a difference, or do I walk while I still can?

Back to the thought-swarm.

OR– Do I focus on what we talked about tonight in our Gathering… spirituality, inspiration and creativity…? What is spirituality? Can it really be defined as we defined it tonight: "the honest, earnest search for God/Truth." Where does inspiration come from? What is it, really, and why does it seem so fleeting? Is creativity only that which can be defined as "art"? I don’t believe so, but I also don’t know how to readily identify what it can be defined as. Well, that’s not entirely true… this weekend, an idea, almost an epiphany, shoved itself to the front of the thought-swarm… Martin Luther’s nailing of his 95 theses to the door of the Whittenberg Church was an exceptionally creative act of rebellion, which led to another creative act… a reformation of the Church. It came about because of Luther’s honest, earnest search for God/Truth. So I guess, in some respects I can identify creativity outside the realm of art… but it seems so rare, and fleeting. How can I become more adept at it?

Back again into the thought-swarm.

OR– Do I focus on the creative ideas currently banging on the walls of my brain, begging to be let out…? Poems that are like wraiths swirling just beyond my grasp. The minute I reach forward to grab hold, they turn into so much mist and vanish… The frustration of this dance causes me to leave them alone entirely, which just seems to make them scream louder to be paid attention to…. I long to be a writer, but find myself often frustrated, not in the process, but by the lack of my own ability to produce a finished work. Everything I have, it seems, it half-finished… I lost inspiration and just left the thing where it stood.

OR– Do I focus on verse God led me to this morning, Isaiah 43:1. God, in His infinite grace, unfailing love and unfathomable ability to cut through all the crap and straight to the core of my struggles spoke pages to me through that one verse. Do I delve deeper into the passage? Do I meditate more on it, and on what I heard Him say to me as I meditated on it this morning?

OR– Do I focus on some things that have come up in my counseling recently…? Things like giving myself grace, allowing myself to grieve publicly, realizing just how much I have to grieve over, dealing with all the feelings accompanying and stirred up by all those losses…

All these thoughts demand attention. All of them want to come out at once. All of them want to talk all at once. For months my brain shut down, went on strike, refused to say a word. Now I can’t seem to shut it up. There’s so much noise inside my head I can hardly hear the sounds outside it.

Is it any wonder why my head hurts.

But now, this is what the LORD says- he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine." — Isa 43:1