Sweet and sour tiredness

Like some sort of badly cooked Asian dish,
The thoughts in my head are stirred
And my logic fried
As I turn up the heat of self- judgement.

My stomach feels uneasy
As I swallow a taste of my own medicine;
I never had the best culinary skills.

I always thought I never added enough faith
Into the existential mix,
But on Sunday the minister said that faith wasn't something
That could be measured anyway,
Like it was an ingredient you could buy off the supermarket shelf.

No...
"Strong faith is dependent on the strength of the one beng trusted,
Not the strength of the one doing the trusting."
So you need to know and understand the one you are trusting.

How much do I know and understand?
There's no point reading a cookbook if you aren't going to do any cooking.

Oh enough of this cryptic metaphor.
Sometimes I think reading the Bible to find out more about who God is
Is like trying to get to know a cook by reading their recipes.
Bloody hard.

As is knowing what to do with the recipe.
You can follow everything to the letter,
And the results are nothing like what you imagined they should have been.

I'd much rather it was one of those origami books,
The ones that tell you what to do step-by-step,
And have pictures or diagrams that show you exactly what it's meant to look like,
At each step.

Or even some sheet music:
Sure, it's hard to read at first,
But you go through it slowly,
Making sure you're learning everything correctly
(because mistakes are hard to correct once you've learnt them);
Practising one bit,
And another bit,
Before putting it all together...
And once you're comfortable with it,
And playing the "right" thing has become second nature,
You make it your own...
You're still playing what's on the paper,
But at certain times you emphasise some bits,
And don't emphasise other bits...

Actually, that's a pretty good analogy.
Hmm...

But how do you know?
How do you know you know?
How do you know what you don't know?
You know?

When it doesn't work out the way it's supposed to
You're left hungry
When you were meant to be enjoying the fruits of your labour...
And you have a whole lot of cleaning up to do.

Sometimes it's easier to read the cookbook,
And not do any cooking.