Change in the Heart of Faith

No one week is like another, least of all the last week.

I said to Father in confession this week, The devil is clever, and quick. You have to be like a tennis player, darting to return his shots. Father replied, wisely, Yes, but where does the tennis player return, but to the center, to be ready.

I think I am ready, but I have surrendered the center, or such as most people would recognize it as such. I feel attenuated. Stressed and beaten, or stressed and alive and fighting. Rarely do I feel relief, the kind of relief that allows one to say that everything is okay.

Can one dwell in this state? or, is that the goal of life, to feel content? Every best fiber of me says, No. There is no reason to feel content, or "okay." Not in this life. This lie is a trial. A place of purpose, of work and sorrow and joy and hope and defeat and testing and the occasional victory.

It's worth reflecting on the lives of the Saints - or perhaps simply famous intellectuals, politicians, etc. Offhand, I cannot recall anyone who is famous for feeling content. Quite the reverse!

I should be content to feel contentment where I can. God knows there are so many souls who never do! So, where do I feel this?

After every Mass.

After writing to the purpose of addressing my faith.

And here and there in my life. But, in many parts, I am unhappy. Ah. But even this seems to me, at my more lucid moments, to be to a purpose. I think I might explore dwelling in that state of mind as a kind of mechanism. But that is hard for me. I take my feelings seriously. I weep at Communion, I am stone-cold at personal displays, even to a purpose, as for art.

For art, but art for what? I ask that question not to question artists, but to question the world.