He thinks too much

"Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look; he thinks too much; such men are dangerous." Dangerous not only to others but also to themselves. Those of us who are alone so much tend to think too much. We live inside our minds, and minds are notoriously irrational. Just think about your dreams. Some dreams we can interpret easily - they relate to events of the day, concerns of the week, a recent happening or what you ate for dinner. Other dreams are bizarre and seem to have little relevance to anything. That's where we can go astray when we live in our minds.

Just thinking about God and praying silently in our own words can distort our perceptions of God until something jerks us back into the reality of The Other. We tend to anthromorphize God just as we do with animal stories. The reality of God is we don't know a whole lot about God. We do know more about how wishes us to act and live - and alone and in our own minds isn't it.

When I read the beginning of the "Big Book" in Alcoholics Anonymous, back when my father was trying to get sober and failed, I was amazed that the way to their "salvation" was to find another drunk and try to help. To seek out others, to put self behind the needs of others. Jesus said, "Inasmuch as you have done to the least of these, you have done to me." A maxim that's difficult to follow.

For the past three years, I have been living in my mind. Yes, I have contact with others on a regular basis, but not much. I am not "out there" doing things. In consideration, I have been quite ill. Now that I am better, I realize that I've been living in the mind of a crazy person, which is dangerous. My thinking is skewed to think only of me. And, I leave myself wide open for all the cantankerous and disturbing memories of bad events in my life. They were mostly in my childhood. I haven't acknowledged or taken responsibility for the bad events since then. Not my fault - all because I was emotionally abused as a child. Yeah. Right.

I've been depending on medicine and medication to lift me out of my quagmire of mind and body and deposit me on sane, happy and populated ground. Realizing this, I snort-laugh. How dumb can I be? How blind am I to all that I know and feel? This quagmire isn't going to get drier or smoother without my help. I can't sit here and knit and expect to be transported to another state of mind.

And, God. I've had what I thought were lots of conversations with God, times when I spoke, and times when I listened. It's possible that what I heard was my own voice from deep inside my mind telling me to wait, do nothing now. And, it's possible that God was working inside me to ready me for this moment of realization that now is the time to act. Not solve all the problems at once, but to inventory the situation and work toward resolution of the snags and peek through the doors that I've closed. I'm not ready to give up my isolation, yet. However, I think it's time I entered the world again...slowly. I'm fearful of doing anything too quickly...might be just my crazy mind steering me down the primrose path again.

Today is the first day of my new exercise program. I will get on the treadmill every day for at least 10 minutes. For me that's a quarter mile right now. I'm winded and breathing hard at the end.

Today is the first day that I will read prayers from a written prayer book every day.

Next week I may make more changes in my routine, but this is enough for today. Oh yeah, I recharged my iPod again, and music definitely helps. And, another thing - I just saw the osprey returning to the next across the creek as I was on the treadmill. Yahoo. Spring is here!