When you write something that breaks you

It's the third week of my first Lent, and I'm feeling it. Oh, am I feeling it. This is a raw season, and I am going to come out of it a very different person than when I went in. It's a scary feeling, at once sobering and intoxicating, feeling myself dissolve in the chrysalis of time and waiting to see what will emerge when the stone is rolled away in three Sundays.

I've lost a bit of weight. More than that, I've been having moments. One after the next. Several of them back-to-back. And they're starting to get scary.

Take the one that happened last night, when I wrote this:

Neil's a softie. I'm a Christian here, and I *do* have problems with what you do in church. Because by the time somebody has to tell you to "keep it in church," your theology's gone very, VERY bad.

There were two likes, and one comment which I replied to, and that was that. Except that it wasn't.

Memorizing 1 John: six weeks later

This was where it started:

7/14/2012: ...picked out the Spiritual Disciplines Handbook from the library, again, and this time I set myself to one of them: a memorization of 1 John 3. One of my go-to Epistles of the NT, and it's... one of my go-to Epistles in general, like Psalm 103 and Psalm 19....

There are 24 verses in the chapter; one verse a day, and I'll be able to memorize it all by August 19.

Well, that didn't happen. I did, however, manage to memorize 1 John 3:1-24 by September 1, though. As of today, I've skipped back a bit to 1 John 1:1-3; my plan is to work my way through 1 John 1-2 and take it from there. Hopefully I should have the entire thing down by the end of the year.

Also, what she said up there at the top

So far, this series has been as follows:

• I used to define myself in oppositions...
• I used to need to assert my faith...
• I used to think of this thing as stone tablets...
• Faith used to be a capstone...

Tonight I'm going to interject with words not my own, from the same series of posts.

I used to think I needed to “reach out” to those who are marginalized, overlooked, oppressed…

I used to... but now... (4 of x+1)

In the last few nights, I've gone over bits of myself then and now:

• I used to define myself in oppositions...
• I used to have to assert my faith...
• I used to think of this thing as stone tablets...

Tonight, the long-promised part 4 of this series:

Faith used to be a capstone that needed holding up; now it's a cornerstone that needs building on.

I used to... but now... (3 of x+1)

So far in this series:

I used to define myself in oppositions; now I'm defining myself in relations.
I used to need to assert my faith; now I need to trust it.

Tonight, I used to see this whole thing as stone tablets...

I used to... but now... (2 of x+1)

This whole thing began here. In keeping with my meme du nuit tag, I continue with the second part of it tonight.

I used to need to assert my faith; now I need to trust it.

I used to... but now... (1 of x+1)

This entire thing was set in motion by a blog I've been lurking on, because I've never gotten around to posting very much this last week.The question was what are some of yours?

And I answered. These are my extended answers, because I feel like they merit some unpacking, and because there are just enough that I can make this a multi-night habit and get back into the routine of paying attention to both my functional blogs.

I used to define myself in oppositions; now I'm defining myself in relations.