I am entranced with Christian Wiman's memoir/series of essays entitled My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer.

This is my second or third attempt at reading it; I was simply not ready for it the first time.

This time, though ...

If you are a slightly angsty, deconstructing or deconstructed Christian or Christian-adjacent person, Wyman's writing is for you. If you doubt it all, question everything and won't tolerate shallow, cliche, bullshit answers to life's most perplexing questions, Wyman's writing is for you. If you yearn for a deep stream, Wyman's writing is for you.

An example:

"God is not absent.

He is everywhere in the world we are too dispirited to love.

To feel him - to find him - does not usually require that we renounce all worldly possessions and enter a monastery, or give our lives over to some cause of social justice, or create some sort of sacred art, or begin spontaneously speaking in tongues.

All too often the task to which we are called is simply to show kindness to the irritating person in the cubicle next to you, say,

or to touch the face of a spouse from whom we ourselves have been long absent,

letting grace wake love from our intense, self-enclosed sleep."

(Christian Wyman)

Oof, right?

Every phrase like a gentle punch ...

• the world we are too dispirited to love ...

• the task to which we are called is simply to show kindness ...

• wake love from our intense, self-enclosed sleep ...

Wyman reminds me that to doubt, to feel despair, to ask all the hard questions - it's all ok.

And if you give him time, some serious attention, a silent place to read and absorb, his writing is full of rich reward.

Gonna' share more soon.