It is 7:24 AM according to my atomic clock 12/25/TUE. I have been awake since 5 o'clock AM. My mind is always speeding. I wish I had a mind that was silent. I wish my mind was empty. If I close my eyes to enjoy a moment of silence my brain erupts with a million American pop culture visions. I am praying for silence inside my mind and not constant noise. Carol was already up when I got up to face Christmas Day 2001. Outside is snow and death. There was nothing in the morning paper about the wreck I passed yesterday coming home from work. The people must be ok that were involved in the wreck. BREAK I had to stop writing to have breakfast with my wife. Time is now 8 o'clock AM. My feet are cold and I need a coke. So this morning I remembered what I was thinking at work yesterday. I was praying all day at work for God to take me home. I told God I did not want to live any longer. I told the Lord I wanted to die and go to heaven. I am depressed. Why am I depressed when I have so much to be happy about? Am I living in sin by being depressed? Am I being unthankful by not finding meaning and purpose in America? the World? Why can't I be happy at the bottom of the Egg Pit? I have always been told as a Christian that happiness is a state of being not something that one has because of outward circumstances. I have been told one can be suffering physical pain and experience the joy of God in the midst of the pain. So why don't I feel joy when I am at the bottom of the egg pit doing meaningless work day after day? Why am I screaming to die when I should be shouting with Holy Ghost joy because I am saved and going to heaven? Something must be wrong with me spiritually? It does not make Christian sense to me. So here I sit moaning in a warm house full of food with plenty of all the good things of middle class existence. I must be a fool to be so unhappy. A spoiled brat. A fat American holy man wailing in self-pity. It is all sick. A sign that I am not spiritual but of the American flesh. Yesterday as I worked I told myself that next year 2002 I will empty myself of everything. I will strip myself of credit cards, books, CD's and money and live a life of work and prayer Nothing else. I will go to work and come home to close the door of my study and seek the silence of God. Why fill my existence with things that do not take away the pain of existence? Why seek things that do not silence the noise at the center of my being? So Christmas morning goes by. Time is 8:17 AM I got me a coke and put on a pair thick wool hiking socks for my cold feet. I read last night some of the 'Introduction' to the book "Power, Politics, And Culture: Interviews With Edward W. Said" in the living room by our Christmas tree. Carol sat next to me drinking a cup of English tea while we were enjoying a moment of Christmas 2001 together. We went to bed around 10 o'clock and I read some of the book, "Christ Crucified: The Marrow Of The Gospel In 72 Sermons On Isaiah 53" by James Durham. I did not sleep well during the night. My brain would not shut down. Now here I sit Christmas morning. I have no plans for the day. Time will go by. I will close to sit here wondering why?