Live in the moment. This is the gospel of our age – live for today. Eat, drink, buy, travel – experience. Sex, drugs and rock and roll has become sex, pharmaceuticals and immersive digital content. YOLO, LOL.
I can see the appeal, and there is a sliver of truth there; if only to enjoy the everyday graces. Dappled sunshine, a cool breeze, the smell of fresh coffee, the tender yet intense embrace of a child just before bedtime … And I am deeply thankful for these moments that have been given to me.
But doubt pursues me. Regret lingers, coming into my vision with a disorienting pang of sorrow; a fog that too easily curdles into melancholy.
Or hardens into stoicism; not faith or hope or love but mere perseverance. This too shall pass. Vanity, vanity …
In this space I seek not a fortress of doctrine or intellectual architecture but peace; not the cold stones of a systematic belief that must be defended at any cost, and yet whose fragility is evidenced by its inability to adapt or change or speak outside its own self-selected club, but a place of rest.
Green pastures, still waters. The still small voice. Mercy, and not sacrifice …
Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
I believe; help my unbelief.
