Happy Blogiversary

Today marks one year of Apokalipsis. This is my 132nd post, out of 365 days. I suppose that averages out to about one post every three days or so?
A year is a long time. This year, this slowseason has been the longest extended period of time I've lived in one state since leaving Oregon four and a half years ago. I feel a lot less settled now than I did then. I guess my life is in a deconstruction phase right now. It probably has been for a while.
I like the word deconstruction. My pastor used it in church yesterday, and I very nearly raised my hand to correct him on the finer points of its meaning, which would have been totally acceptable in our dialogue-driven church, but I abstained since really I would have just been tooting my own horn, and that shouldn't be what church is for.
I guess it is sometimes what a blog is for, though.
Deconstruction isn't a softer sounding word for destruction. It is destruction, construction and reconstruction all happening at the same time. When you deconstruct something, you pick it to pieces, no longer satisfied with the assumptions you have built up around it. You get inside, tear it apart to see all the gears and cogs and grease and ghosts that spin inside the machine, and you pull the whole thing to a great, grinding halt.
Then, if at all possible, you pick up the pieces, one by one, and turn them over in your hands, examining all sides, getting to know the parts of this grand construction.
And then, slowly, you can begin to build again. You must be careful to not rush. The idea is not to replicate, but to respectfully restructure, to grow. And if you grow too quickly, you'll end up staring back up at a great monstrosity, a tower of babel that just needs to be torn down again.
If you are careful, you can rebuild from the inside, where you can watch each gear spin, and hopefully clean, adjust or replace it as needed. Because deconstruction is a process that is never finished.
When I started this blog I was in what looked like a more stable, grown-up place than I had ever been in. Erin and I were finally living close together, I was surrounded by my friends, living in a nice house, finishing up school, part of a fantastic church and writing dozens of pages a week. I could not ask for a better situation, really.
But then eventually, things started falling apart. Erin decided to move back to Wisconsin. The community built around my house dissipated as my housemates all moved away. I graduated from college with no further plans or prospects, and felt like I had somehow wasted the whole thing. My church began a drastic transformation process. I was no longer sure what in the world I should be writing.
I honestly did not know what I was living for.
Not that I didn't want to go on living, or anything quite so defeatist.
But I hated waking up in the morning sometimes, because I had no idea what to do once I got out of bed.
I understand now how jihads and wars get sold. Certainly hatred and a lust for power are factors, but I think further down than all that, people simply thirst for purpose, for something to live for. For something to wake up in the morning and be ready to die for.
For anything but the restless tossing and turning and unknowing, the frightening weight of ennui . . .
.. . . . .
What I want more than fame or money or even health, is a purpose. I suspect that you are the same way. You may already know what your purpose is. I am not sure that I do.
But I don't want to rush too quickly into one. I think that's what lead to war and jihads and clenching desperately to things you can't keep.
So I am deconstructing me.
or rather . . .
I am allowing myself
to be
deconstructed.
amen.