The Pit

I was up too late last night and ate too little today and ended up in a hypoglycemic perfect storm of angst and depression. It's a little frightening how low I can get in a situation like that, even if things are going well.

I've been really down since getting back from GA. I'm increasingly impatient to get back to Starr King and my classmates there, and increasingly ready to divest from my current job that takes up so much of my time. I work full time, and only get to go to classes one day each week. At least it looks like this semester I will be at school on Tuesday's so I can participate in chapel and see more of the SK community.

Any jokes you may have heard aside, it is a great place to be. For some reason this summer I am having a harder time negotiating the strange schizoid life of being a full time seminarian, a full time information technology worker, a full time father, a full time lover and a full time friend. There has been some turmoil in each sphere of my life of late.

As petty as my struggles are in the cosmic scheme of things, I wonder what can I do to deepen my faith to the point that it could help me when I lose sight of it all. I ask this not just for myself but for all. It seems to me that in the congregations I know people tend to revert to their childhood faith or rely on psychotherapy when times are hard. What can we do to make our congregations a better resource and sanctuary for people in need? Is this particularly a weakness of liberal strands of religion? How much harder is this when there is no personal god to call on?