Purpose

My watch stopped last night and I was unable to get it running this morning. I wear it on my left wrist along with my komboskini. I took my watch off, since it is useless now that it does not run.

My komboskini doesn't seem to work, either. It doesn't remind me to "pray always," and when I do pray, it doesn't seem to get used all that much.

The mechanism for the workings of the prayer rope is me. I've been noticing that this mechanism isn't doing its job. I've been shaking it, hoping to rattle something inside, but it's still broken.

Today I read this beautiful entry:
"[W]hen I am not praying, I am not the only loser. Everyone who depends on my prayers is also losing. When a watchstander falls asleep at his post, the enemy overtakes him and lives are lost. When we cease being vigilant in prayer, we fall asleep and the enemy overtakes us. Those who depend on our prayers suffer as a result." —Kevin Basil

"Oh, help!" said Pooh. "I'd better go back."
"Oh, bother!" said Pooh. "I shall have to go on."
"I can't do either!" said Pooh. "Oh, help and bother!" —Winnie-the-Pooh in Winnie-the-Pooh

"The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off.... Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off--just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt--and there it was lying in the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly looking than the others had been." —Eustace in The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader"

In recent months, things have been breaking. My car: air conditioner, lock-cover, trunk lock, trunk door pneumatics, belts. Last week I looked like an advertisement for band-aids from papercuts. Just last night I bent my fingernail backwards (two nails, actually: one on the car, one playing ping-pong), Virgil tripped on the phone cord, and I stumbled into the fan in the dark which left me with a bruised dent in my foot (grumble to having left the fan in the kitchen).

The Roman Catholic Pope died. The former Archbishop of the Greek Archdiocese of North America died. The father of a Church school teacher died at Peter's parish assignment. My father is dying of cancer.

I have been grumpy. Okay, especially grumpy and cranky, even for me. I've been antisocial, wanting only to stay up in our little apartment and be by myself. At the same time, I've felt lonely, alienated, and unwanted.

Is there a storm brewing, or am I just becoming more aware of the battle?

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Sheesh. All these thoughts just because my watch broke. Thank you for continuing to pray for me.