The abiding sadness

Earlier tonight I went outside to smoke a cigarette.  This, after spending most of the day inside and in bed, idly watching crap on youtube and thinking about how much church I've been missing, and regretting the heck out of it.  And being tired, just so tired and not up to anything.  I use that as my excuse for neglecting that which is the most important, my spiritual health; as I am too tired to think of anything else that might be more accurate.  I console myself with the knowledge that I'll make it up in the future, when I live close by again, if ever... and that I'll even go to church in the morning.  But I know that by then I'll be too tired. 

Anyway.

I stepped outside at about 7:30 and sat down and lit up a smoke and loaded up my e-book on my phone and commenced to reading of True Grit.  I didn't even know it was in my e-library.  I ran across it yesterday and started reading, and it's a helluva good book, by the way.  So, as I was getting settled, I looked up and was suddenly and forcefully cognizant of the living evening as it passed through and around things such as the sky, the clouds, the grass and the leaves, and the tree branches and the air, and myself.  Even in the dead things, like the painted wooden and artificial structures of the houses, and the hard substance of the pavement, and the scattered gravel.  I got up and wandered in a kind of daze over to the road and did a slow 360, looking at everything and mesmerized by the beauty of it all.  You'd never realize that there are so many colors of green until you have the knowledge battered into your eyeballs, which is what it felt like to me.  Getting battered by beauty comes somewhat close to almost describing the feeling of wonder, but to attempt to go further would almost feel like an insult to the plain and simple truth of it.  So I'll just say that at the time, I felt overwhelmed by the simple feeling of the moment and the fact that I was imbedded in it, in this one, particular coordinate of ongoing existence, and that I had the senses to absorb the information which describes it, and that I was this thing which could soak it up and turn it into a sensual phenomenon that my body and soul could recognize as beautiful.

I stood there inside it for as long as it took to finish my cigarette, and then I walked back into the dark house.  Upon leaving that moment behind, I immediately felt a strong sense of regret and remorse for just being away from it, and separated from all of that which I had just witnessed.  And I realized that, even though my heart can break for the beauty of the world, and I can marvel at the miracle that I am this persistent witness to it, I despair at my awareness that none of that wonder has ever touched the deep, abiding horror which occupies the roots of my soul and stagnates there, and it doesn't quell the abiding sadness.  This puzzles me quite a bit.