Thoughts to Depress the soul.

The snow has mostly melted, the ground is brown and bare, the hormonal smell of spring fills the air. The sky is hazy today and although one can hear the happy chirping of the birds the world feels dark and empty. Just when one feels that the world could not get any more depressing, it does. I decided I would ban the news - that lasted one, maybe two, days. It's like a drug - I hate the effects of it on my mind, my spirit, yet, I gravitate to it like honey. Why is that I wonder. It's the same story over and over again, so and so was shot last night...a family of three was killed early this morning....the girl's lost dog was beheaded and placed in a box on her doorstep. It's sick stuff like this and it kills the joy inside, grieves the spirit, makes the heart cynical. Taking a walk on a sunny day isn't as relaxing as it once was as one becomes skeptical of every passerbyer - cautious of the lone walker's motives. I once asked my tutor at L'abri in Switzerland "why" to all of these questions about the existence of evil, the absence of good. He basically said "why not, are you doing anything about it". I'd have to say I'm not doing a whole heck of a lot about it. As sad as that is. And to be honest - I'm afraid to, yet that statement alone reveals my part in the presence of hell on earth. Where is the hope, the trust, the promise, the strength? I pray that I will be more open, less afaid, and that love will somehow take over me. Even this prayer seems empty - Not because God is bad or absent because I do believe that God is present in the pain, again not as it's cause but as the hope. It's the empty prayer feeling of saying something over and over again expectant of change but seeing none. That is the mustard seed of faith that I have today - that perhaps there are things happening, good things that I cannot see but nonetheless exist. What can I say, it's a gloomy day and this is what I have today. Becky-