Glitch Season

Every so often, you notice that every­thing is bro­ken (a lit­tle or a lot). It seems to be part of the cycle of life. No one knows where it comes from or why it begins or seems to end. You can sense it early in the day. Frus­tra­tions are ahead. The small­est things that have always worked seem to sud­denly put on the brakes. Keys go miss­ing. Machines seem to go on strike — almost as if on some sort of cos­mic cue. You are about to be tested. Your patience, your seren­ity — your very san­ity is on the line.

There are sev­eral options avail­able and a few road­blocks to avoid. Remem­ber that it is a fallen planet. Remind your­self that Murphy’s Law is indeed part of it all (“if it can go wrong it will go wrong”). Get philo­sophic about it as soon as you can. Walk away from the frus­tra­tions for a few min­utes and start again. Stop to pon­der that maybe the uni­verse does not want you to do what you are doing. Maybe you are miss­ing another more impor­tant cue. Remem­ber the life of Jesus as por­trayed by the Gospels — espe­cially by Mark. No mat­ter how many “mir­a­cles” you per­form, the peo­ple that are sup­posed to be pay­ing atten­tion are just not get­ting it. In short, if Jesus faced frus­tra­tions, so will you.

Glitch sea­sons come and go. Relax. It is, and always has been, part of life on earth. Use it as a time to back away. Maybe the uni­verse is re-booting and is in some sort of vul­ner­a­ble stage. Per­haps the glitches of life are there to remind us of how tem­po­rary this life was designed to be. Full per­fec­tion does not belong to any­thing down here. Expect things not to go right all of the time. That is the nature of things. Dis­il­lu­sion is always con­nected to illu­sion. Deal with it.

In the mean time, take a deep breath. Life goes on. Go on with it. The next stage is com­ing. Remem­ber the life of Job. Bad things hap­pen — and they do not nec­es­sar­ily have any­thing to do with how you have lived. You do not see the other side of the cos­mic cur­tain — and never will in this life. So, since you are lim­ited, go about your days in faith. You have already seen enough of the story to man­age the rest of the story.