The Time is Near

A few weeks ago, there was little on the television, having lost access to MSNBC due to some digital event which I don't fully understand. I decided to watch the second season of Millenium, the old science fiction/theology series from about 10 years ago. At the end of the credits for each episode, the words "The time is near" appeared on the screen and after a while, I began to ponder the meaning of those words.

This evening it dawned on me (well, if that isn't a contradiction of terms) that those words had particular meaning to me.

When I began writing this blog, it was about 6 months after I had left Hopkins. I had no job, no call and, for all intents and purposes, no church. It was a few months after the most significant relationship in which I had ever been came to yet another end. Unlike the previous endings, it was not to resume. I was alone. Alone in my house in Baltimore. Just me and Lacey, Rachel's dog of whom I had obtained post-marital custody. The two cats had died. My friends distant, if not disappearing altogether. Even my therapist had retired.

I think it was Bettye (who I introduced here early on) who suggested that I was entering desert time. She was, as usual, more right than she could have ever imagined. I was being driven out into the desert for an indeterminate time. Tonight, I came to the realization that I have been in that desert all of this time.

So, as I began, "the time is near." The time to leave the desert is near. It is my intention to reflect upon that desert in the blogs soon to come. But first, I had better write my two weekly devotions for Epiphany. Chuck doesn't need any more stress.

The time is near.