Restless

Dear Eugene,

How are you this morning?  I wonder if are ever agitated over nothing, like, even now?

You know how sometimes the heart is like a beast that refuses to stay down.  And what's the rumpus?  Nothing, just a little tweety bird that I can't stand to see it stand on a branch that does not even have my name on it.  If the tweety bird would just go away, then world peace can be restored...

One doesn't need to know the reasonableness of God's existence or his attributes or even his actions before acknowledging it really isn't reasonable to let a little trouble cloud up our whole being and assume someone or something is to blame for the restlessness and Why not God?  Like sure he can do something about the world, and why not this, this very little tweety that I so detest for no strong reason?  It doesn't take too much to please me, really...

"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."  The line is so over-quoted that it appears trite, hackneyed, even now.  But Augustine must have been really agitated when he said that, do you agree?  Or if he wasn't, then the restlessness must have crept back into his heart maybe that very evening, or the next day?  These are not words of comfort; these are words of agony.

Agonizing, Alex

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