Something very big is rolling

There is something very big rolling around inside me.
I feel like a pinball table with a ball that just won't stop.
It's bouncing of different bits of me.
Not only can I not identify what the ball is
but I can't identify what the different bits it's hitting are.

..... maybe ....

maybe the ball started out as an assignment on
"what the purpose of prayer is"

now it's like a snowball rolling down a hill
it's picked up all sorts of things
and is big and very solid.

It's not a ping pong ball,
more like a 4 inch steel ball bearing

Thud it hits something else
thud - no sleep tonight
- realing too much from being hit again
thud - hit to the head I guess
- no sensible thought going on here
thud - another hit to the things that used to make sense
- and now don't

I have no idea who I am
I have no idea who God is
I have no idea what prayer is
I have no idea what the purpose of prayer is
.... except that it is alwasy "just a little bit more" than what I think it is

RLP talks of different roles
I have roles - yes
but I can't identify them
I have no sense of belonging to anything

In amongst all this confusion . . .
One of my friends really wants to help me do something very different for my 40th birthday
One of my friends wants me to help her run a discussion group - she sees me as a freelance vicar!
One of my friends tells me I talking prophetically to her

do they know who I am?

Tonight my soul is bleeding

In February my best friend, who had been sharing my house for the previous 9 months, moved out of my house and into a convent. She is currently a postulant in an Anglican community. Her community is one that I have known for a long time and is actually on the way home from my work place. On Monday(her day off) I took her out for a pizza and beer. I miss her terribly - it was a good night but she leaves a big wound.

Tonight for very good reasons I had to go and see the people that battered my soul as a child. They cooked me a very nice meal, found a red wine I liked which is amazing considering I didn't think I liked red wine.

I got home to discover that a really close friend came very close (the second time in 2 years now) to dying.

I'm sitting here, with too much work to do, in a house that is so untidy I can't see it ever being tidy again, almost constant pain in my shoulder from neck muscles that are so tight they are pulling my rib over my collar bone.

it's all just too much.

tears fall
my soul bleeds

and I cling to a strange phrase

"Behold I desire truth deep within you
and shall make you understand wisdom
in the depths of your heart"

(based around Psalm 51 v7)

Just a brief note

To say thanks for the hug! Had a beautiful hug from a friends 6 week old baby - still very small, slept in my arms for quite a while!

2000 words written on placement analysis (plus another 1000 on the report of the placement!)

3 meetings with wise and Godly men that leave me very puzzled

Away this weekend on a prayer retreat with my course

maybe I'll have a few words after that