Forgive me Father, for it has been 37 days since my last blog post… I went from livin’ on a prayer and swinging between trapezes to….the vortex. You might know the vortex. A rabbit hole of commuting, packing lunchboxes, getting blood tests, feeding anti-virals to snot-monster, hacking up a lung, kids. A little matter of organising a fundraiser for close to 300 folks, smiling at clients whist chomping on deadlines as if they were smarties (or Valium, or something slightly speedier), taking on a new work gig whilst keeping all my others, and fighting off the Dark Lord.
I feel God slipping through my fingers like water. Which deep in my heart I know to be impossible, but when the 18-hour work days mount up, when the to-do list of simply getting the days done and delivered is banal and repetitive, it’s too easy to be sucked down into the vortex of life, rather than up into the life of the vortex. 
I also know now that my relationship with God and Jesus is strengthened when I write. Sometimes it feels like I pick over my faith bleached-bones like a vulture, others it’s more Satin bower bird, where I pounce triumphantly on a glimpse of azure. Lately it’s been tumbleweed blowing through the nest.
As I’ve written before, the trick to writer’s block is to write. So these words are dragging out across the keyboard like an vagrant being told to move along. There is no azure. Just tumbleweed tiredness. Not even slanging, vodka-cruiser style prayer.
“I want You back,” I whisper.
“I never left,” He answers.
“Then how come I feel like I miss You?” I implore.
“Because you’re looking too hard, Phil.”
Ah. And there it is. The brilliant blue amongst the tumbleweed. That has been worth the deletions and frustrations in getting a measly 390 words onto a blog post. At an average 2.3 words per minute.
God is in my seasons. I am learning, unlike my fast-paced entrance into His world, that our relationship does not always rely on the original, singular hard focus I once required to change course and establish traction.
Sometimes it’s soft focus. Returning back to being in a world of doing. And sometimes the only way you can simply let it be is by blurring out the hard edges. That’s where He waits.
One Week In August 