definitely cyclical

Confessing to feeling down and distant from God to a friend on 'the emails' recently.

She asked some really good questions and as I ponder them I begin to suspect that these feelings (which seem to come to me often when I am stressed and stretched) are more a product of immediate circumstances than of the deep truths to which my life is connected. And if you can understand that mangled sentence I congratulate you.

Well - listening and pondering help and I am listening to Elvis Costello's psuedo-bluegrass album. Here is one to ponder...

Is this not a pretty tale? Is this not a riddle?
A bow shoots arrows through the air;
a bow drags notes from a fiddle.
But who is the beau of a woman's heart
That a king may send to battle?

Is this not a pretty tale? Is this not a riddle?
If red is the breast of a soldier's tunic hung with a silver medal;
and red is the thorn that protects the rose
(a deeper red than the petal);

how deep is the red our redeemer bled
the debt of our sins to settle?
How deep is the red?

Elvis Costello, 'How deep is the red?' from his secret, profane and sugarcane album.