But what does it mean, then?

My life kind of fell apart a month ago. I mean, not really, not in the bigger grander scheme of things, but it fell apart enough to leave me pretty ripped up for a while; ripped up but totally ignoring the shreds, trying to cope through business. That's what I do, it's my thing. Usually the end result is self destruction of some sort: chaos sometimes, or a more quiet bleeding of the soul.

More troubling than having lost the longest term and maybe most significant relationship of my life (or, not lost, but changed in a sad way, maybe) and having the future of my job questioned, was the reality that the thing I call religion, the thing I sometimes dare to call faith -it wasn't doing a thing for me in the midst of all this. And I kept being reminded of that - of how my toolbox seemed so empty.

I struggle with ideas like providence, the idea that God would somehow have the time and energy to perfectly plan things in my life, whatever the motivation behind it. I don't buy that, but I do believe that things happen in a way that is not entirely disconnected, things happen in a succession that allows for growth and continuity. The best explanation I have for that is the idea that as we continue to learn things, we're more open and receptive to whatever comes next; that maybe those things would have happened or already did happen, but we didn't see them or attach the same significance, because X Y or Z hadn't happened yet. Not a divine plan, but still something mysterious.

I wouldn't have had this difficult but amazing relationship if all the other difficult and amazing relationships hadn't come before. I wouldn't have been ready to learn how to say what I needed and wanted from someone if I hadn't have had so many people ignore me when I said it before. I wouldn't have been able to see that sometimes it doesn't matter if its right or perfect or still in the middle, sometimes it ends anyway. And sometimes things being unfinished are exactly the way they're supposed to be. And sometimes things are never finished, and what does finished mean anyway?

Or, events are ways of reifying what we think we know. I say, have said, that my understanding of love and human relationships includes the idea that we are all busted and broken and trying to sort ourselves and each other out; not that we are unfinished and waiting to make each other and ourselves whole. I sorted a lot of who I was out; I was and still am whole.

What I needed, maybe still need, in the midst of all that, was some comfort. Sometimes UU's talk about the comfort of "other religions" with a hostile and condescending tone, as though comfort is some sort of bullshit pablum that we are too intelligent to need. That's a bunch of shit. We need comfort. And comfort doesn't automatically translate to easy answers, to pie in the sky, to an absolution of accountability. Comfort is something to hang on to, not the truth not the gospel not the end all be all. Its the little piece of land that you can find in the storm. It's still raining like hell and the wind is still bowling you over, but you've got somewhere to stand.

And I didn't find that. And it scares me.