Hopefully, I'm getting my writing muse back. The first half of 2010 has not been good.
On the political and economic front, politics is like Jackie Chan splattering a fly in the movie trailer-"That's nasty!" The economy is staggering out of the cratering it took in late 08 and most of 09 and Washington isn't helping much; the finance bill that's working its way through Congress will likely hogtie the banking industry and cut the flow of capital into small business and we have at least 2.5 more years of that old man who's a day older than me in the White House.
Meanwhile, the GOP is shooting their own; when the scene is set for major gains, they act like the Chinese in WWII who can't stop their civil war long enough to run off the Japanese. When voting for TARP (signed by Dubya, lest we forget) is grounds for excommunication from the Church of Don't Tread on Me, things aren't looking all that chipmunk friendly on the politics page. Gerson's Ugly Party is large and in charge.
My personal life is in tatters. I'm only semi-employed, tutoring 16 hours a week online and doing some free-lance writing, and have had to file for bankruptcy this April. To my credit, I was able to do all the paperwork for a Chapter 7 filing myself (it's easier than you'd think, if doing a tax return cubed sounds like fun), saving about $1000 on lawyer bills in the process; when they had my hearing last month, I was the only one their who filed pro se and got far fewer questions on my paperwork than the other people who were going before me who had lawyers.
Working part time, living with my parents and having Eileen work all of a half-hour in the last six months (a temp-gig to gather information on contract bids that went quickly; she got paid for 4 hours) has not left me in the best of spirits. Resume don't get responded to, since a PhD with no experience that neatly plugs into a standard business flow-chart is a tough sell even in a good economy. Thus, I work on writing on the side and have too much time to think.
Nor has struggling to find a church home helped. A nice Baptist church that we started going to started to turn authoritarian and legalistic, so we're back at the Vineyard church we got married at. It's not perfect, for the pastor often tries a bit too hard to be relevant (without watering down the Gospel, mind you) and has brain-burps like the Trunk Monkey ads show up as a sermon prologue. However, the folks there are nice and its old-home week when we do go there.
That's why the first half of the year has been a blogging wasteland.
God is still on the throne. Better things lie ahead.... including a return to daily blogging.
I don't know what to say. This stage of your life should not feel or look like a wasteland and it must seem like God is still on the throne but not paying attention.
He isn't finished with you Mark.
I grieve with you, and will keep you in my prayers.
Posted by: Bene D | July 02, 2010 at 06:42 AM