Apologies

Be sorry once. Apologize if there is something you believe is yours, but once is plenty.

Just Power

If all God had were power, what would be the point of being God?

Beyond Age

It is annoying that people knowing the boys' ages think they must then be typical of that age (or of an expectation of what is typical). Since about age two people have thought they could discern from this single fact just what they were like. I expect it will be the same with Matt, and I anticipate being no less annoyed.

Options

He holds on to dying as an option to life, seeing its intervention as the resolution for which he need not be responsible. He is not alone with this magical thought, but as long as it is there the prospect of it happening rules out the more realistic choices, those where he would actually have to be responsible.

Permission

It really would be alright to notice beautiful and loving moments and to remember kind and good things without also having to cry.

Fear of Fulfillment

We can resist peace, being too familiar with our struggles to know they are without value.  Where no one else might see them we can envision tragedies, and will hold to that vision until a real tragedy can emerge.  Is happiness so frightening a prospect, and why must we make fulfillment the only villain?

Only Information

We can be aware, but awareness of what happened, of what is now occurring, and even of future options is only information.

Attached to Craziness

Even when the craziness makes no more sense, its familiarity keeps us attached to it.

Alone

We are sometimes so afraid of being alone and other times we wish we could be. We cannot fill ourselves but realize as well that no one else can.

Relapse

Here he comes. After a brief visit to wellness, he is back to be sure he will be welcome in the madness. Though it is a sad place it is also familiar, but maybe this will be the last time back. Maybe it will not be as familiar as he had hoped, as comforting as he recalled. He may not unpack, much less settle in. Perhaps, this time the madness will not seem like home.

What Is Right

The essential rule is to do what is right, and while there can seem to be conflicting rights or rights that seem opposed it may be we are confusing what is right and what is without pain or difficulty.

Not Enough

No one is ever changed by knowledge.

Attempts at Flight

Each attempt at flight is blocked by little boys with bears.

Obligation

Obligation is the more essential motivation and without this sense of what is owed he might do nothing at all.  It is when there are conflicting obligations that it becomes uncomfortable, since meeting one means the other is left owing.  It is then he seems to tear.

Perspective on Problems

The problems that actually could be handled feed into more global concerns where no resolution is available.  They become then so gratefully frustrated by the inability to respond.

Finite Treatment

If treatment is not to be indefinite there has to be an expectation, indicators that change is in progress and when what is anticipated.

The Fact of Feeling

They confuse the fact of their feeling with the feeling of it.

Doing Right

You would think doing what is right would be less complex.

One Day at a Time

Some are sober a day at a time.  Others are in denial on the same scheduling, putting off for one more day any healthier choices.

Quality of Life

Before quality of life can be a question there must first be a commitment to life itself.

What to Do With Grenades

We seem inclined to dramatic gestures and resigned to their being sacrificial in nature, and so we dive on grenades that could instead be thrown back.

Acquainted With Madness

If we address the madness in its own language or respond on its terms it may think we want greater intimacy.

Exhausted Revelation

The revelation seems so exhausted.  We seem to have wrung from it all its uniqueness.  Perhaps, it is time for another.

Undoing the Shrine

It is time, I think, to undo the shrine, recognizing it memorialized my depression more than your love, which is real enough in our memories and in our souls to need nothing else.

When

When I no longer have to write it down, when I have no need to reflect and consider, when truth is no more a surprise and when I am no longer at home in the pain, then I will have begun living.

Games

Old men playing young men's games were not seeking for an art form.

Insisting on Order

People who insist there be order can end up feeling responsible even though they are not.

Blinded

The republics leaving the Soviet Union rush to establish armies.  Are they so ignorant of realer needs?

Relative to Beginning

The beginning seems always so near.  Only moments ago these aging people were so young.

Hypotheticals

In a discussion generated more by boredom than interest and more typical of the setting than of any reality, they were asking which is the better motivation:  fear of condemnation or the promise of salvation.  What was more effective and what was more pure.  Of course, neither was really that effective and certainly purer was not the right term.  We do what is right because it is right.  Nothing added to that need be considered.

On Second Thought

Initial responses, those generated by compassion, are often undone by actions influenced by further thought.  We may with time permit too many factors to have a vote.