Signs

If you've been a reader of this blog, well, thanks for coming back.  You know, and new readers will see, that I'm a fan of the penultimate prophet, John the Baptist.  You don't have to go far into the archives to see a reference to Elijah hearing God as a "small, still voice".  I am fascinated by how the prophets came to know the message they were to convey, to see the path that they were to follow.  

If God is trying to reach any of us now, he has a lot more noise to cut through to deliver a message.  Not that I'm anything like a prophet, but I surround myself in constant static to interfere with the signal.  If discernment is needed, with twitter and TV, I can drown it in a constant stream of entertainment.  The good news should be that no message has to cut through the heavy fog of constant alcohol consumption, but distraction is still way too easy. 

I was in deep state of distraction when I read a tweet in my timeline from a writer I follow.  She asked for links to blogs with fewer than 1,000 page views per day.  Since this humble and ill-tended project doesn't get that kind of action in a year, I replied.

Curious to see what she might find, I paged back through the blog.  What I found surprised me. The blog contained a lot of advice that I needed to hear.   I knew that I had become complacent, but I hadn't admitted to myself how thoroughly I had withdrawn -- from friends, from prayer, from recovery, from growing.  My writing was an implicit indictment of how I've been shrinking from so much that has been before me.

I can take some steps in the right direction.  Advent offered a little nudge: prayer is regaining a more central place in my life.  The Advent wreath is in place during the first week of Advent!  But here's the deal: I'm not fixing this by myself.  My withdrawal and my desire for easy comfort grow from the same roots that fed my addiction.  

So, it's back to work.  I need to find community, e.g., friends, meetings, involvement in my church.  I need to find someone who holds me accountable.  I need to get outside myself through service. I could stand to write a little more, too.  Finally, I could express a little gratitude that a tweet could serve as an unanticipated sign along the way.