A Gem Of A Screed

It's one of those blank page kind of mornings.
I keep reading other web pages and coming back here as if expecting to see something other than a blank page. I think that fits the definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

One of the most recent reads from my book pile has been by Heather King called Redeemed. Here is one of my favourite passages, close to the beginning of the book, where King has given a brief summary of why she turned to God for help, especially for help with her addictions:

"But why do you need God for any of that? you might ask. Why not just be better - love your neighbor as yourself - on your own? Because personally I'm too scared, too lazy, too selfish to be better on my own. I want to be better but the fact is I get real bored, real fast, unless I am getting a ton of approval and attention. I like to dress it all up and hedge it all around and try to hide it, but my basic stance toward all human beings is: what can you give me? I have a kind of spiritual advisor who helps me look at my...I'd like to say "issues," but they're really more like massive, glaring defects. If I'm stuck, this woman will often have me write about it as a way to help me see where I might have been wrong, where I haven't let go, where I need to pray. Recently I wrote what I secretly thought was a masterly analysis of the troubling situation at hand. It had pathos and humor, it had corollaries and tributaries, it had a quote from Dostoyevsky. I was halfway through reading this gem of a screed to her over the phone when she interrupted me. "But were you selfish?" she asked. Man, was I pissed. Selfish? She totally did not get it. I should never have tried to explain myself to someone who was not nearly as smart as I. She did not even begin to grasp how complicated the thing was, how multilayered, how deep. It took me two days of inner raving, ranting and seething before I realized: I'd been selfish."

You gotta love a woman who is so honest.