Melony, 41

Melony, 41. Someplace, Texas.
Closed.
It bums me when I realize that sometimes I'm too brusque.
I don't like it about myself, but it's part of the package.
The Paddle-Partner calls it "snarky"; I think of it as "being on my spiritual-period". Or maybe I'm just some crotchety old dude.

A few days ago I made an announcement on my profile to the microcosm that "...bipolar=scary"
I did not mean to be "mean", just up front, and didn't have enough 'letters' to be more specific on my profile. In my life bipolar people make me feel crazy because they make assumptions about my intention without checking reality, and often respond to their imagination and blame me for their behavior. That makes me crazy, and sad, and angry-- thus: scary.

Melony41 wrote to me out of the blue asking what I meant by "bipolar=scary": fair question; I appreciate the opportunity to explain that being in a relationship with a bipolar person can be exhausting, and I've had some negative experiences with bipolar persons in my life.. She agreed and shared an experience she had with a relative, then mentioned how scary that was for her and stuff.
She is a creative, lovely sister in Christ, a community builder who accidentally writes poetry simply by penning her thoughts. I enjoy reading her words. She also seemed a sensitive, compassionate person, yet courageous enough to ask a stranger from the blue a direct question-- I respect that. So I replied.

 I apologized if I was too blunt on my profile. Then I did something weird: I offered advice from the microcosm, because she had just arrived and may not understand the processes: if someone is obviously not a match for you, it's acceptable to "close" them, because you see something in that relationship that just won't work, and so that it's a good thing, because it allows both of you to move on. (I guess I was giving her permission to "close" me if I had offended her beyond repair or if she would not ever have further conversation with someone who might write something as brusque as "..bipolar=scary", because she seemed a sensitive person? and might not understand that it's ok to close an account? because she was new to the microcosm?) I warned her beforehand my comment was weird, but I actually was trying to be helpful.

She writes back that she was diagnosed bipolar at one point in her life, but that her friends don't agree with it, that she was perhaps healed, and that I obviously don't want to date bipolar people, and "closed" me before I could reply.
Ummm ok.

Ok.
But I obviously had not closed the account if I was writing to her.
So I obviously did not want to close the account...
So she obviously made her own decision, then blamed me for it? Hmm.
Life is messy.
I would not have closed her.

Closed.

What's Love got ta do with it?

There is a special place in the chest of a man, somewhere in proximity superior to the aorta, that registers feelings deeper than the mind can comprehend.
It is a dull, deep feeling that just sits there like a lump of stale pita bread that was not adequately washed down, a sense that something is there and it's not quite right.
The ancients and contemporaries attributed this to "the heart" and has manifested itself on Hallmark curios for many Februarys now, some red graphic more reminiscent of Ipomoea than cardiac.
I do not like this feeling; it is like a cousin to anxiety, like when you realize you are about to be called on the carpet. It is a hanging, open sensation that something is out of place; like Elvis, shalom has left the building. It is the feeling that occurs when a girl realizes that she will not be asked to the prom. It is a feeling a boy feels when he sees his best friend flirting with the girl he has a crush on.
Crush.
That's a good word.
Crush. This heavy sense that there is something there, pushing in or on.
It is also the feeling one has when he or she chooses to lay aside a dream before it can be further dreamt.
RIP--John 12:24

Diatoms

God's Creation is truly amazing. The biodiversity found in extant and extinct records boggles the curious and challenges the taxonomic tyro. We know that of the millions of species on our blue planet, only 1% are alive today. We also know that Big Industry did not extirpate the dinosaur-- Darwin's verifiable ideas are spot-on: death happens and has been doing so for quite some time now.

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/chromista/diatoms/centriclive.jpg

One of the amazing creatures we find floating in amongst the surfboarders of the world is a wee creature we collectively call diatoms. We use their corpses in impacting soil structure, industrial microfilters, or even measuring micro-optic resolution, yet the most amazing contribution is that of a photosynthetic drifter.

Diatoms are considered to be a form of glass-covered alga, a lethargic cousin of the heliozoans (who also have very cool Christmas-ornament-appearance under the microscope). What's interesting to me is that these photosynthetic protists need upwelling to stay in the euphotic zones. No current? They settle to the bottom and die. Which reminds me of: us.

In my One-Year Bible these last few weeks I've been reading through the book of Judges and I am amazed. Really. Actually shocked.

When people get away from the Current of the Holy Spirit in their life, they settle... and that is a bad thing. I read where fathers rashly make some bizarre vow to kill the first person who runs out of his house if God will give him victory--so he kills his beloved daughter, even though God had nothing to do with that-- choices made apart from the Current. Samson gives his power away like a sex-addict thinking with his reptilian brain. Benjamites gang-raping some chick to death, so her man cuts her up with a kitchen knife and sends body parts as an invitation for payback, but the Benjamites protect the perps and get pounded like the hilarious scene in flick "The Avengers", when Hulk meets Loki, then work a technicality for how to help the few survivors replace their slaughtered wives and children. Crazy.

We are ugly when we settle... even dead... when we allow distractions to take us out of the Flow that keeps us exposed to His life-giving light.

God, keep us in You; protect us from ourselves.