A Madman’s Proverb

A dapper apple dabbling in debauchery
Drives the drowned clown’s frown down,
Therefore, babbling buddies grabbed drab crabs
For bait straight out of a great crate.
That being said, the brave knave came out of the cave
Only to find his mind in decline for lack of wine.

The glass is half full, the glass is half empty.
Did you know that you could drown in only an inch of water
But can’t live longer than a week without it.


Unless I make a point to keep it from happening most of may days mimic the behavior of a pinball. Bouncing around random sources of light and sound until finally I come to rest in the gutter. Though at the end of the day the house is clean or I’ve successful put another $180 in the bank, my life feels unproductive. To continue with the bad metaphor its like each day is an accumulation of points in a game that will not matter once over. Numerous times in the past three months I’ve sat down and wondered is this all life is going to be. This would be one of those glass is half empty moments. My immediate reaction in most of these instances is to try and find something to cheer myself up, a good book and beer, Brooke, sleep, etc. But the most intriguing thing is that these type of moments resurface again even after a superb evening with Brooke. Like the first six lines of the poem above no matter how colorful, life doesn’t make sense without a something to give it meaning. Thomas Merton wrote in his book A New Man: “The battle that wages inside of us since birth is the battle between spirit and void, between being and nothingness.”
Don’t get me wrong I love my moments with Brooke, I love reading a good book, and Lord knows I love beer. However when I do not have a perspective that allows me to enjoy them properly, i.e. an active ear to hear God (contemplation according to Merton) I may not be refreshed. C.S. Lewis describes a similar phenomenon in his book The Great Divorce. Lewis describes people from hell traveling to heaven to meet people there, and in doing so shows how even the most honorable things on earth are nothing with out God to perfect them. He tells of a mother who on Earth loved her son more than anything else in life but without God to perfect it her love became possessive and selfish. The even better news that Lewis shares in The Great Divorce is that God can see beyond the evil things we do to see that which we were, in our twisted way, desiring and can transform it into something that honors him as well. This must have been what Solomon had in mind when he wrote about taking joy in your toil, because in this light even that which we dread becomes freeing.