Duality

I am obsessed with being true to myself. Authenticity is my watchword; the standard by which I measure every action and choice. Yet, if as the Scripture contends, I am by my very nature a sinner, then by simply being authentic in this manner I can never attain anything more than the rank of a common wrech.



If only it were that simply--prolific baseness or unattainable glory, yet the Scripture also contends that I have another nature, or more accurately, purpose that pierces through me like a steady steam of sunlight through a window pane heating it with its refractive touch. Consequently, the only authentic act is to become totally translucent and clear myself of anything that would obscure or diminish the light.



Which is the truth and which is the lie? For which would I be wasting myself in a pointless pursuit that was either too far beneath me or too far above me? Which is the true hope and which is the false one?

Night Vision

Jeremy made an interesting observation last night about misery and its desire for company. It is not, as many suppose, that those who are 'miserable' want to bring others down with them but rather that those in the darkness just want to know someone else is there. What need do I have for someone who does not know what I know and does not see what I see? I have no desire to forcibly bring another into my reality just so they can scoff at my experiences; what I need is to be reassured of is that those experiences are not exclusive to me.

But is it then the case of the blind leading the blind? I think not. Those of us who are practiced at navigating through the darkness have acquired what I might call a type of night vision. However, our ability to see does not come from some artificial source of light, instead it emanates from within us. My eyes have become quite accustomed to this peculiar illumination and I am not sure that I could stand and stomach the light by which everyone else perceives the world. Despite this, there is no doubt that I will keep searching for it.

Bedside Manner

A few posts ago I wondered if I would return to Merton or not; I have and with my return has come a resurgence of sensitivity to my now defunct calling. Merton in a paraphrasing of 1 Corinthians 15:50 explains that, "God sometimes gives Himself to us where He seems to be taken away."

I have drawn the parallel between my current life outside the church and the time both Jesus and especially Paul spent in the desert, but it didn't quite fit. In both cases they were actively and consciously preparing for their respective missions whereas I, especially in the beginning, had not such thought or goal in mind. Even now the future seems unclear in this respect; it has not so much been a dark night of the soul as it is has been a silent void for me, without feeling rather than the intense pain often associated with spiritual longing.

Could it be that even through my coma, He has been speaking to me, repairing my soul like a faithful friend by my bedside? The idea intrigues me. I am so compartmentalized sometimes and fail to see movement that lies beyond my two eyes. I still don't know but the thought that I somehow remain in the hands of the Master even though I have left the field and turned in my tools is comforting. At the risk of sounding Calvinistic, I have heard it said that God does not remove His calling from us but rather we remove ourselves from His calling. He does not retract; we deny. For now, I am thoroughly convinced of at least half of that statement.

Faith, Hope and Love

We had to put our cat down on Thanksgiving. We noticed her limping on her front leg around mid morning which was odd because only days before we had brought her to the vet because she was limping on her back leg. We were unsure as to what to do but after it became clear that she was not herself we took her in only to find out that what she was experiencing was a blood clot. The vet withheld her diagnosis until she was able to conduct a few tests and x-rays. When she brought us back into the room to discuss the results, we knew it was bad but it came as a shock that the vet had found two tumors in Chyna's lungs. The prognosis was bleak; to continue her life would only mean more pain. It was a heart wrenching decision but Chyna was already gone. She was in agony and the only humane thing to do was to look her in the eyes and stroke her as she was put to sleep.

I could barely hold it together. I was sobbing uncontrollably, my chest heaving up and down as a folded myself into the corner of the small "dying room" they placed us in for the procedure. Jess was upset but reassured Chyna that we loved her as she stroked her gently. When I could stand, I hovered around her, reaching out every now and again to run my thumb along the top of her head as I had done countless times before yet she did not respond by purring rather she stared, wide-eyed back at us from within the blanket that was wrapped around her.

Among Jessica's many reassurances of love and longing, she told Chyna that she would see her in Heaven several times. My initial reaction was not one of cynicism or disbelief but one of hope and with that response, I began to reflect on the difference between hope and faith. I concluded that faith is having the belief that such and such is true without the ability to definitively prove it while hope is the desire for such and such to be true without the ability to believe it.

I hope there is a Heaven where all sorrow and suffering will be replaced with joy but I stop short of believing it exists. I want nothing more than to be reassured that my mother and even my cat are consciously frolicking in paradise; it is hard to think of them in any other way because they still exist in my mind; therefore part of me rationalizes that they must exist somewhere. But it is a unassailable placebo, selfishly constructed for my own continued delusion rather than for their ultimate destiny. At least, that is my cynical assessment but perhaps hope is a step towards faith rather than a crutch for you before you can put your faith in something, you must be able to imagine it.

Too Much Time on My Hands

I was contacted by the professor in charge of my doctoral program at Drexel that I passed my qualifying exam. My dubious efforts on the offending essay I spoke about in the last post actually garnered me a 'pass with honors,' the highest grade one can receive for an answer. Despite the spotlight that the instance cast on me and my questionable pursuits, now that they are over I will calmly return to the path I was on and slip back into the stupor--that is, until the next detour.

With the passing of the test, I have a little more time on my hands. Really I don't, I should be working on my proposal, what I mean to say is that I have more freedom to choose what I do with my time. Some of that freedom will undoubtedly be used to 'fritter away the hours in a offhand way,' but that goes without saying. The better question to ponder is what will I do with my time when I am energized and motivated.

People normally think of motivation as specific but for me, motivation often takes the form of a general mandate, an increase in the DEFCON level if you will, to improve myself, to move myself further down the road but that motivation never includes an definite destination. Its like the old phrase, 'you don't have to go home, but you can't say here.' Motivation is synonymous with irritation for me. Sometimes that irritation leads to healing and sometimes to more pointless suffering.

That is why I writing this morning and why I went to the Evangelical Lutheran church last weekend (it was disappointing, an uncomfortable mixture of high church and contemporary elements, neither of which the congregation seemed to be much into), I want to be intentionally. But there are so many choices. Should I through myself into academia, business or back into Merton. At some level I believe and desire to be in all three, but such a course usually prevents me from doing any with much success. Good think I have a lot of time on my hands to contemplate it some more.

A Subtle Torture

I feel one of my turns coming on. Not a tumult but rather a distraction. I feel myself being pulled away. I know where this leads and yet I will inevitably follow it to its completion. Whereas before I could claim a genuine interest in the novelty of it now I am a regular player in this farce. I know it is pointless and yet I continue to play the fool.

I see greatness and know the power and passion associated with a life of meaning and hope but I feel nothing and choose instead banal distraction. I am a corpse without a burial, a sweaty tourist at the sacred altar. I have tossed my pearls to the swine then followed in after them only to become one of the herd, blinded by the filth that relentlessly clings to my eyes. It is my undoing; it is the culmination of my self-destructive will; it is my bed and I have no other momentary desire but to lie in it.

And yet I see the light piercing through the muck for I know what I am doing. Unlike the swine, I am not ignorant which perhaps relegates me an even greater depth than they for I, knowing that the present is fleeting, insist on living in it exclusively. Yes, and all this is true but for the slightest of irritations, what amounts to a persistent itch that never allows me to fall completely asleep. It is a subtle torture that is no doubt meant to revive me from my lethargy.

Near Failing Experience

I had one of these, just this past week. It was during my qualifying exam. I got to the last question for the morning session and then panicked. The question was different from the one I was lead to believe was going to be on the exam and the prospect of reconstructing an answer with the amount of time left on the clock was overwhelming.

I say near failure, but there is a very real chance I will fail on this question. After the time was up and the immediate panic subsided, embarrassment and doubt crept in. I felt as if everyone else close to me has found their niche and are slowly but surely moving toward recognition and meaning while I stumble from project to project like a frightened animal attempting to escape its enclosure only to realize that there is always another barrier to go through. There is no freedom outside these enclosures; the only freedom to be had is found within the place I am in—whichever place it is I decide to stop running. Escape is not only useless it is unnecessary for freedom.

I can’t believe that I have turned out to be one of those people—a mundane, track-house residing commuter who believes his life holds greater meaning than the brand of furniture he is able to buy. So I never think I’ll be good enough, I don’t feel loved, my past failures continue to haunt me and I am afraid of commitment. It all been said before, this pathetically hackneyed dribble. I am ashamed of myself; it has to my perception which is flawed because I’ve tried to better myself, take more degrees, professionally manage my money, even to the point of perfecting a firmer handshake and the confident look in the eye when I meet people, but none of this is leading anywhere. It’s me who is the problem and the only way to avoid the problem is to avoid being me. A very real part of being me is being continually mired in these thoughts and conditions.

Life Coach Or Life Saver

It is true that I can't feel, but I am unaware of my lack of feeling. It is a start. At least I am not oblivious to my indifference. But it's not really indifference as much as it is numbness. There is an intentionality about indifference; whereas numbness is seemingly beyond one's control.

I did feel a flash of discomfort last night when Jeremy pointed out an article in the local newspaper about Frank's church. The picture on the front page must have been 4x6, taking up most of the space beneath the header. It was a photograph of the side of the church, the one that faces the highway. Draped next to the church's name was a banner depicting some feet poking out from beneath a sheet along with the head of child. The caption read, "ourrottensex.com." The article went on to explain that Pastor Jones believes that God wants us to have a great sex life and that although this could deemed a risque or inappropriate topic to discuss from the pulpit, for him, it held great significance.

I was not surprised or appalled by write up, those emotions have long since become redundant in regards to Frank's church but I was still a bit amazed. Out of all the stories in the Old Testament detailing dedication and sacrifice, out of all the teachings of Jesus in the gospels regarding sin and commitment and out of all the exhortations from the Pauline, Petrine and Johannine epistles regarding holiness and servanthood and Brian chooses one of the most narcissist topics for this campaign.

Arguably it is shocking, but I venture to guess that it would have been even more shocking to proclaim that Christ does promise you a better life. Not only would it be scandalous but I think it would come as a surprise to many in the pews. It was not what they were lead to believe when they received that postcard in the mail, or saw that commercial on cable or even when their friend invited them to see the band on Sunday morning. No, God is there to help us organize our lives, entertain our kids and find us parking spaces near the mall entrance on rainy days. As it turns out, He's more a life coach than a life saver.

I know it's silly but this makes me think of that bumper sticker you see sometimes, mostly in the parking lots of fundamentalist churches that read, "if God is your co-pilot, switch seats." But it does make you think, following seems to imply that your will is subjugated to His; He calls the shots and determines the path forward not you.

Reduced From A Torrent To A Tickle

I passed by the nursing home again today and felt nothing. What is happening to me? Is the power of distraction that potent? I was sure that this was not a passing phase; well, I claimed it was but I thought I was just in denial. Surely the pull was too great. For weeks, even months I felt dogged by this relentless nagging, this tugging on my pant leg to turn back or at least stop moving. And then, just like a near miss with a car on a dark road, it is gone and with it all the passion, pain and insight into my condition. I looked around for any trace that it every happened but it was all a faded my memory. A memory upon which everyday experience heaps piles of meaningless instances onto so as to completely obscure its fleeting moments of clarity. I am numb...worse, I am distracted. I have slipped back into my stupor, barely taking notice of the road signs.

What more is there to say. I feel as if this is my only memento of that experience. To let it end, to peter out like a half hearted ovation, would be to completely resign myself to its falsity and with it the adventure of life. The truth is that I loved the pain, the disquiet; for in it and through it I felt something which meant that I could feel. Feeling allows us to experience life beyond the senses beyond the confines of observable truth.

But now I am in the dessert or more accurately, a tepid pool of water. No more raging seas and harrowing waves on the horizon just an imperceptible grey. In light of this, drowning is conceivable a more acceptable risk when one is dying of thirst. But what if one only has an annoying tickle in the throat?

Not Sleeping Too Soundly

I've hit restaurant row and I'm circling the parking lot but I am not sure that I'm even hungry. I get so easily distracted. I have forgotten the desperate starvation I felt just a few weeks ago and as soon as I got a whiff of what's on the menu, I got finicky, turning my nose up at the very same meal I was willing to work hard to get. I guess all I really want is a smell in my nostrils and a taste in my mouth to keep me occupied; a morsel to chew on without the hassle of including meaning on the menu.

I am studying for qualifying exams so I have temporarily left Merton; but I keep him on my night table as a reminder each night before I go to bed that I may be distracted by not satisfied. It's just a rest stop on the journey. As faithful, he never allows me to sleep soundly but I don't want soundly anyway, I want deeply in sleep as well as in waking.

Tending Not To Tend

It is true that I am searching for a perfect version of Christianity; I can admit that. On the one hand I realize the futility, even the danger, of pursuing such a course, while on the other, I see it as a holy duty, the fulfillment of a promise I once made. The existing models don't work, not because they fail to get results but because they are results oriented.

The most popular model of church is one in which a pastor, usually trained and ordained, shepherds his/her congregation by preaching to them in a one-sided dialogue for anywhere from 15 minutes to over an hour. The pastor may not interact with a particular member of the congregation at another time or any other way over the course of several months until the obligatory harvest picnic. In churches where the congregation is unusually large, the contact with the pastor may only be possible via a video screen. This can hardly be viewed as effective shepherding.

In business, supervisors are usually limited in the amount of people they can effectively manage; anymore than seven and the supervisor risks allowing an employee to slip through the cracks, missing vital performance indicators. If this is the case in business, where cost is the ultimate determiner of practice, how can churches, where the quality of discipleship should be paramount, allow pastors to oversee huge congregations?

Sermonizing has become the modus operendi for most shepherds and because of the impersonal nature of the act, pastors are forced to provide practical steps for implementation at the end of each sermon otherwise the congregation has no idea what to do with what's been said. But it is not that the word, which does not return void, is effective, it is the fact that there is no one of mature status to guide that Christian on how to apply it in their particular situation. Instead of living one-on-one with the person, getting to know their particular needs and struggles and mentoring them in the way they should go, a general word is pronounced from the pulpit and people take from it what they think they need or want to listen to with little or no accountability.

Sermons become instructional guides to living--following these steps to fix your marriage, forgive your neighbor and manage your money. Instead of building people who see the world through Christ's perspective and who are therefore better able to make the choices that genuinely glorify God, pastors create two categories, the obedient and the disobedient, neither of which have any correlation to a life committed to Christ.

This approach is all wrong. Stewardship is preached as a substitute to pursuing Christ. It amounts to instructing a thief on how to spend his ill-gotten gains for the furtherance of the kingdom. Because they only have a few minutes to speak into peoples' lives, pastors feel they can only address the symptoms and not the disease or they simply diagnosis it as sin, like the common cold, a give people a laundry list of ways to prevent it.

Jesus took only twelve disciples and walked with them, ate with them, lived with them closely for three years. He loved them, guided them and at times rebuked them so that when He left they would be able to faithfully carrying on his work. True shepherds know their sheep and are willing to lay down their lives for them, not in principle but in the genuine knowledge of those look to them for direction.

Myself Fulfilling Prophecy

I am unable to live in the moment. Every sliver of time I experience is analyzed and either remolded to create a unified past or cast forward in an attempt to illuminate the future. Each one of my decisions, my movements, even my musings are means to an unseen but yet desirable end. Merton warns of dangers of excessive self analysis arguing that being oneself is more toward the ideal than simply knowing oneself.

I am unable to find contentment. I am constantly reminded of what I do not have and thereby what I need to obtain while at the same time realizing the futility of my efforts to attain it. Not because it cannot be attained, I have too many examples of those who have been able to possess it, but because I, myself, do not exhibit the attributes that would ensure that my efforts, rather than my intentions, were be rewarded

I am unable to find peace. I long to be away from all this societal stimulation, flashing its unattainable wares in my face, distracting me from finding my true self. I just want to enjoy the water; I don’t want to be drawn in any direction by the current. Of course, the irony is that I desire more than anything to be in the current and that where I am now provides me the greatest opportunity for contentment outside the norm—but I refuse to take it because I know that I did not break free from the current but rather have always found myself lost at sea—I have never been strong enough to survive, let alone succeed, in the current.

I would rather have been rich and given my possessions to the poor in order to be poor than to have only known poverty. I want to be humble, but what is the value of humility if one has never experienced or has no basis for personal pride. I would gladly choose to be the world’s refuse and turn my back on all that is worshiped by my peers if only I could believe that I am not already such. To put this into perspective, I am on vacation in Hawaii.

Perhaps I am not My Own

"To be all things to all men that I may save some;" it is by far St. Paul's most disappointing verse in my mind because it has been the mantra of countless seeker-sensitive churches. I much preferred the unequivocal, "I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself would not lose the prize." But these two very Pauline verses are more alike than they appear at first glance for both speak of St. Paul's legendary commitment to preaching the gospel. What results is that he is prepared to do whatever it takes to ensure the promulgation of the gospel even if that means beating his body into submission.

So many have read that verse and assumed that it meant abstaining from carnal desires such as sexual cravings and laziness and no doubt that is part of its meaning. However, I see a deeper connection between the two verses, one that further illumines the extent to which one needs to have mastery over the body.

What if by beating his body into submission, Paul was able to be all things to all men. He was a Pharisee and a learned man, yet he preached to the Gentiles. Paul must have been way out of his comfort zone to go where most apostles hesitated to tread at first. Perhaps beating his body meant giving up his preferred method of communicating and understanding God. If so, then in my zealous study of all things Pauline, I missed one of the central message of his ministry. It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me--I am not my own.

Paths to Purpose

I am feeling nothing. I thought I was going somewhere, moving toward something but like closing my eyes after spinning in circles, the motion I felt was an illusion. I've returned to strategizing about my life, seeking out other paths to purpose. I don't want this to become another pursuit, another well-thought out process that achieves a certain end. If I proceed, I want to do it for the experience itself. I must refrain from formulating the end before I start; it will only lead to disappointment and disillusionment.

Focusing on the present has been interpreted by many as being shallow and narcissistic--only living for the moment. Yet it must be even more narcissistic to prostitute every moment to some particular end that fulfills a loftier purpose. This approach leaves no room for a genuine experience of the now. There is an important difference between doing everything for a purpose and doing everything for one purpose.

Wading In Restlessness

I waded in restlessness all morning and then I was sucked up into a passing wave of anxiety that tossed me into despair. It was as if I had missed the last turn off before an unfinished bridge and I was still on the road, speeding towards the edge. My hearted raced and I could not sit still. I frantically looked for a place to turn around, unable to slow down my uneasy inertia.

I had noticed the clues before but failed to see the pattern and now undeniable evidence was coming to light that fingered me as the culprit of my own deception. My slogan had always been authenticity yet I only ever paraded beneath the banner of purism. When I came face to face with the reality that the Divine could not be fitted into a systemic formula of propositions I declared that there was no God at all. I was distraught and weakened but still strong enough to turn and walk away.

I have always known that and often taken pleasure in the determination of my will but always under the illusion that I was being authentic. Yet, what does it mean to be authentic? If it is simply being true to oneself, then it is an empty promise for what person can ever claim to be comprised of only one dimension, one desire, one will to pursue a singular goal? Perhaps I was authentic but it would have only been to that part of myself that I chose to acknowledge and thereby placate and if so, was I being authentic or merely a purist?

Rather than embrace the mystery and remain true to my calling, when I confronted the paradox of faith I pandered only to my finite and self-aggrandizing intellect. I chose to lean staunching and wholly on my own understanding. Like a spoiled child, I was defiant, if the play would not be played by the rules I learned, then I would refuse to participant. And it was this blatant elitism that I called authenticity.

But what about my calling? After studying the scriptures to show myself approved I failed to count the cost of discarding my need for intellectual consistency, ironically, falling victim to the very mantra I barked at every passerby who was seemingly unable to surrender mundane pleasures for spiritual disciplines. In my dogged devotion to a particular conception of a perception of a momentary flash of the Real, I sacrificed my only true experience of God. And with that offering of my experience went all of my divine sensitivity so that what remained for me were the faint recollections of an inexplicable passion that had once drawn me deeper and closer into His will.

A Slave Without A Master

Once I accept that I am utterly unable to conceive of, let alone create and sustain, that which is without flaw, which is the nobler choice; to abstain from action and thereby avoid polluting the world with more garbage that only supports my desire to feel significant or to act out of a genuine responsibility to others and thereby choose to live in the constant knowledge that what I have created possibly adds to the confusion?

Both paths may be paved with authenticity but each may also lead to delusion. I am not sure why I feel uneasy, perhaps even guilty, about embracing the type of Christianity I desire to be a part of. I think that if I enjoy it, derive some comfort and meaning from it, that it must be wrong. Not only do I want the Real, I must have it in a real way. How can one hope to truly see the Divine through broken glasses? It is not on my terms that such glory will be revealed but rather it takes commitment, patience and yes, even discomfort before one can experience it.

I don't want to make my best guess and then leap just to move away from my present circumstances instead of making a movement in genuine faith. Although Peter, distressed by the implications of Jesus' message declared, "where else shall we go, You, only, have the words of eternal life." Perhaps one can be as genuine in the desire to believe as in belief itself. Strangely enough, sometimes I feel as if I have already moved into His house but haven't yet acknowledged the relationship. I talk to Him, occasionally but always under the guise of conversing with myself and yet I do not pray. I feel as though I am preparing for work without seeking employment. I experience all the anguish and exhaustion but with none of the promised joy, rest and security. I am a slave without a master.

I realize that my analysis of the faith only takes me so far. But it is just beyond my meticulous plan for truth that Truth actually lies. I can sketch it out no further yet I cannot move forward without the light of conviction. Thus, I am left with one option, to call on the spirit to guide me into all truth. But it is from this choice that I shrink back. To relinquish the reigns of my life is the ultimate test of faith--a faith which I do not yet possess.

An Unforesee Opportunity to Reconsider

I ran into Frank's senior pastor, Brian last night at a mutual friend's birthday party. I knew it was inevitable that we would talk because if I was to converse with anyone there it would end up being him. When he made it over to where Frank and I were sitting, I tried to play it cool as the resentment that had boiled up over the past five years after we read Chesterdon's Orthodoxy together only a few months after I graduated from Bible College was simmering just beneath the surface. At the time, I was at the height to my resentment towards Christianity and his arguments and, what I saw as, his blatant compromises made him embody everything I hated about the American Evangelical church. It was after those meetings, as I watched his ministry prosper that that I truly began to despite the man.

With Frank on staff, I got weekly intel reports on their plans to increase attendance and construct a sprawling complex by seemingly any means necessary--mass mailings, cleaver sermon titles, children's crusades, leadership conferences and copious amounts of well orchestrated Top 40 hits literally enhanced with smoke and mirrors. At the center of this storm, or more accurately, the one stirring the winds that drove the behemoth forward was a man who I had believed saw the world in a similar light as me and yet was able to play the game--I saw he was a traitor to our personality's intuitive legacy. Yet his efforts did not go unrewarded, as Frank proclaimed to me one morning, "we are now considered an emerging megachurch," and in keeping with that ecclesiastical tradition, Brian secured a book deal to cement his status as pastorpreneur. I mostly resented the latter. His ever increasing numbers would prove to be the ultimate undoing of the church as Christ's law of small numbers proclaims, 'narrow is the path and few there be who find it.' But as for the book deal, I felt that he was over stepping his bounds. Books were reserved for those who spend their life in quiet contemplation not churning out pop-spirituality intended for an audience with the attention span of a kindergarten class.

Now of course Brian took the time to send me a copy of his book when it first came out. He made sure to attach a little note thanking me for our past intellectual engagements. I only finished the first sentence before I threw it down in disgust. It read, "the year before I graduated seminary, I lost my faith in God." The man who had enjoyed so much success as a pragmatic leader, willing to resort to pop culture and production gimmicks was now trying to play the intellectual angst card. As I recall, his lost of faith lasted less than a year and then he went onto ministry. I too lost my faith in God a year before I graduated Bible College--it has been seven years since I've been back. By comparison, Brian's faith crisis amounted to no more than pre-wedding jitters whereas mine was an absolute divorce complete with the wrangling over what was His and what was truly mine. Yet Brian can boldly write on how 'to hang on when you can't see His plan.' In my mind, if you're holding on, you're holding onto something and that was much more than I had to put my hands around.

Enough of my 2 Corinthians 11 defense. Our conversation started out superficially and I totally intended it to remain that way but when he started asking questions about my life, I could not lie. I wanted to play it cool, but I am just not at the place where I can put up a front; I don't think I have ever been there. I told him straight away that I thought I was at a crossroads regarding Christianity; I just figured I'd put it out there and if he responded with some trite advice that insulted the depth of my struggle then I'd open the flood gates of my indignation--what was he to me that I should be concerned about his opinion. But he didn't and I wished he had. What he proceeded to do was anticipate my thoughts and articulate my struggle in a way that only a fellow sojourner could. I loathe sounding like a school girl after her first kiss but I must confess that his words penetrated me.

I am not sure if he is aware of how many times I have burned his image in my mind as an effigy to the type of superficial Christianity I hate or that after receiving his book that I started my own work as an ode to my hatred of his ministry style, if not, he unknowingly touched on all of these topics forcing me to reevaluate my opinion of him. Not to blame Frank, but I think that what I was getting was an extroverted sensor's account of an introverted intuit's actions and because of it, I incorrectly judged his thoughts and motivations. The one characteristic of our personality that will always be a burden is that people do not understand all the thought and intentionality that goes into our actions. They may look the same from the outside but the path that brought us to those places was long, winding and full of many detours. I recall a person asking if I was an atheist, before I answered I wanted to put my response in context so that she would not classify me as a simply another God-hater, there was a tremendous amount of thought, experience and anguish that went into my conclusions about God and I wanted to her appreciate that. Ironically, by wrongly judging Brian I have subjecting one of my own to the same sort of misconceptions that dogs me everyday.

This is in no way an endorsement of his ministry practice or philosophy but it is an admission that in my arrogance I ignored his authenticity I violated one of my core tenets--to avoid judging others' actions without first investigating the person. Although I believe my seven year hiatus brings with it more complications than Brian's shorter departure, the essence of the experience may be very similar thus providing me a with possible roadmap out of this maze of malaise.

Indistinguishable or Indescribable

I still think the whole idea of Christianity is ridiculous but I am somehow inexorably drawn to it. Yet I don't want to be another one of those simple seekers--the type of spiritual day trippers who want the occasional adventure but without the long term commitment. I accept that this consciousness of something greater, or perhaps it is just a strong desire, will not leave me but I am loathe to talk about the Divine in broad terms for I believe it is one's own failure to see the Divine that accounts for much of the lack in clarity. Of course one could always use the argument that God defies our explanations and hopefully that is true for any God that could be explained by us is no God at all. Yet, this does not give us licence to discard all sense, both spiritual and practical--the very sense bestowed upon us as part of creation.

While a claim to have direct knowledge of the Divine may be a bit pretentious, I am much more content with mystery than I am with ambiguity. There is an important difference; for whereas ambiguity implies a lack of distinctiveness on the part of the object, mystery denotes a distinct lack of knowledge on the part of the perceiver--indistinguishable versus indescribable. Mysteries can be explored and possibly solved with the right details but ambiguities are by their very nature elusive to human comprehension. Ambiguity allows the seeker to fill in the gaps with a sort of spiritual license while mystery compels the seeker forward in true faith. Ambiguity insults the presence of the Divine whereas mystery glorifies it.

Catching More Flies With Money

I almost made it to church this morning as if my willingness to attend a social ceremony is any indication of my feelings towards God. However, when I pulled up the website of my biblically-based destination I was irritated to find a description of what to expect that sounded more like an advertisement than a statement of faith. Even more appalling was that eight phrases had been highlighted throughout the blurb to accentuate their importance:
1. Hospitality
2. Free Starbucks ® coffee
3. Continental breakfast
4. Inflatable bouncing castle
5. Fun, high-energy children's service
6. Inspiring music
7. Creative communication
8. Practical insights

Is this what should come to mind when describing the church? This belongs in a hotel conference center brochure not as an invitation to the place one fellowships with the saints. Now this was no we're-afraid-to-acknowledge-Paul seeker church, this was a traditional evangelical house of worship. Since Paul's opinions are suspect, so that we can compare, perhaps it would be prudent to find out how Jesus drew a crowd.
1. I will make you fishers of man
2. Come to me all who are weary and I will give you rest
3. Take up your cross daily
4. Hate your mother and father
3. They will hate you because they hate me
5. Narrow is the road and few there be who find it
6. Am the way the truth and the light, no man comes to the Father but through Me
7. I have come to seek and save the lost

Are you getting the picture? My hermeneutic might be a little bit off but the main gist of these passages seems to be one of commitment. Sure Jesus had miracles but even He despised having to do them to get people's attention. If we were to look at the Sermon on the Mount as the first launch of Jesus' advertising campaign, the Son of Man would not seem to be that savvy for surely he understood that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

But being the Son of God He knew what was in men's hearts and that they would never appreciate, let alone receive, the gift of salvation until they acknowledged their need of it. However, He did not show them their sin but rather how sin pervaded every aspect of life; thus avoiding the pietistic trap of pointing out the sliver in another's eye while missing the blank in one's own eye. Some churches are afraid to talk about sin because they don't know how to to. So instead, they focus on God's love and mercy, but these have no real meaning to a world whose most pressing need is figuring out how to fund all their desires at once.

Of course there are are more serious problems, like homelessness, hungry and sickness that people are dealing with but not in the vicinity of these churches. To think that Christ offers eternal life and the chance to realize the infinite and what we end up emphasizing are free Starbucks and inflatable bouncy castles. I am sure there is a genuine desire to bring people to Christ through these gimmicks but what could be more powerful than a committed Christian giving the words of life out to one person at a time? Sound familiar?

No Redemption, Only Regrets

I see myself falling into the same trap. I feel the guilt returning and with it my attempts to achieve holiness through my own efforts. I know where this leads, to despair and a desperate call for grace. I am a fool. Jeremy made an excellent point, one that has come back to me several times since we last met. He remarked that my desire to exercise humility is pointless without Christ. He assured me that if he were without Christ, he would not waste his time using the servant's entrance.

Despite this, I am convinced that I have had a hand in my own undoing; therefore, I am compelled to find a way to redeem myself. Yet, I am quickly realizing that my endeavors may be quite in vain for the I have lost more than my faith. I have lost time and with it possibly the opportunity to fulfill a deep and persistent calling that has followed me through my various uturns and denials.

I fear that I have had my chance, just like Saul who was granted the kingdom, hailed by the people and annointed by God only to lose his crown to a shepard boy. I could have spoken the words of life with passion and conviction to a dying world but I choose instead to replay to myself the condescending mantra of intellectual suffering. I could have submitted myself to one greater who could have shown me the way to walk on the narrow path but I choose instead to stubbornly saunter into the thicket. No wonder I can't help myself, I must first be saved from myself.

I feel the urgency of a fire burning within me, yet the more I run, the more disoriented I become. I know where I should be but I have no way of getting there. I am lost--sadly an acknowledgement that is as useless to me as the man who realizes his own mortality the moment before he dies. No redemption comes from such realizations, only regret.

Though, if I miraculously found my way, I am unsure that I could live again in the light of the Real. I wouldn't know how to live for my every thought, every action and intention would be exposed for what it really was--a pathetic attempt to ensure my own salvation at the least possible cost to me.

The Deeper Side of Darkness

I have become aware of an unsettling fact, it may be pride that is keeping me from the faith and not any theological or philosophical issue after all. I told Frank the other night that I could not conceive of professing faith again but that was simply the recognition of an outward reality. I had to go deeper. Just as I had begun my lonely journey out of the faith with the question of what would falsify my belief in God; now, as I stand at the entrance, I must ask myself what would falsify my refusal to believe again.

The roots of my refusal are deep and twisted like those of an ancient redwood. Some are easy to discern for they lie just above the ground but others stretch far below the surface lost amid layers of earth and it is these roots that anchor me to my position. On the surface, it is all about hypocrisy and theology. I can't return because I would encounter the same people that made me loathe every moment I spent in chapel, their radiant faces only a facade to a spiritual life spent in mediocrity. And even if I could slip past these to the throne of grace, there I would find that very same questions that drove me from this holy place still exist, unresolved. But neither of these reasons are significant enough to keep me from a truer meaning if I know it really existed for me, for real meaning is not compromised by mere facades and paradoxes.

When I have pulled up the bare barky sinews of my refusal, decayed by constant reiteration to family and friends, I find that it is not others that have kept me from the faith but it is my own relentless, paralyzing pride that has buried me so deep. The roots of my dissent are smeared with the dirt of my own unwillingness to submit. The truth is that I am able to image befriending and even being one of those hypocrites again; I can even envision being content within the mystery of an eternal God made flesh in order bring redemption to an undeserving world, but I refuse to say the words that would gain me entrance. 'Oh wretched man that I am, who will save me from the body of this death.'

I feel as if I writing the obituary to my old life in these posts while still living it. But I would rather endure a rigorous regime of hourly self analysis than go under the knife of conviction. I want to remain in control and I know that such a desire will lead me nowhere but as much as I despise baring the burden of this responsibility, I have carried it too long to set it aside. And then again this could all be an unwanted buzz from an intoxicating idea that inspires me to soar toward the infinite when all I can really do is stumble into a deeper darkness.

Blurred in Ambiguity

I recently realized that the task is not to find myself for how can I discover something that has never been lost to begin with. Rather, the endeavor is to accept, or love as Nouwen and Merton would posit, who I am; of course, this simple directive belies it arduousness. The first challenge is to see myself as I am. My persona has become like every other object out there, glazed with a thick sheen of my own hopes and biases. I must peal away the residue that I have projected onto my vision of myself to see more clearly. However, each time I attempt to do this, I am immediately unnerved by what comes into focus.

I intentionally blur my image so that no one--not even myself, can label me, fit me into a stereotype or a classification because as soon as these categories and descriptions are revealed to me, I am forced to acknowledge or deny them. If I deny them and they are accurate I run the risk of being disingenuous but if I acknowledge them, I have placed another stroke onto the canvas of my life that cannot be removed.

Ironically, on the journey to certainty there are many rest stops promising the comfort of ambiguity. As an example of this, when my hair first started to thin, I did what every man in his late twenties and early thirties would do--mask it beneath volumizing conditioners and gels. I even went as far as to purchase an over-the-counter formula for regenerating the hair follicles. Of course, it failed to give me the results I wanted. Finally, rather than spending precious time constructing elaborate comb-overs each morning, obsessively angling mirrors to see how the light penetrated through to my scalp, I shaved my head. I accepted my baldness. I looked myself in the mirror and said, 'I am a balding man.' It took a lot to admit that. Similarly, I finally started buying smaller sizes after years of buying mediums that hung off me like wet linens on a line. I looked at myself naked and finally saw myself as a short, skinny man But as difficult as these realizations where, they only represent the gateway to the path of self acceptance.

Because of the changing nature of our bodies as we grow, we are somewhat more accustomed to altering our perceptions of our external selves than we are of modifying our perceptions of our internal characteristics. In fact, as my body changes, I cling more fervently to the endearing internal sense of who I am; but in order to truly accept myself, this facade must also be torn down.

I have always seen myself as reflective, intellectual and often moving against the current of the mainstream but do my life choices bare this out. I work in a corporation, I live in a townhouse community in the suburbs, I own one safe car and one sports car and I shop at Banana Republic. What does this say about me? If I am putting up any resistance to the mainstream; it is decidedly passive. I console myself with the notion that I am not swimming, arm over arm, with the current--but even that would be more authentic than just bobbing in the flow as I do.

The fact is, I am not reflective; I am analytical, and there is an important distinction that can be blurred in ambiguity. The reflective person pulls to the side of the road to look back at where she has been, whereas the analytical person simply slows down to hypothesize the more efficient path forward. I can't write like Merton because I do not think like Merton. I am no intellectual, I intentionally surround myself with people who are focused on practice and not theory. I live on the left bank of the Schuylkill, not the Seine. And what's more, I don't even try that hard. I am no more driven than the person who takes the time to shuffle some papers around when he hears his boss walking down the halfway.

Of course, there may be others who have gotten a leg up and owe their current circumstances to who they know or who their parents knew but they too have to accept themselves and must account for how they came to be where they are. As for me, I am sure that my race, my gender and my father's middle income status have played a significant part in bringing me to this point. But I am responsible for all of it, even the things I cannot change. That is why the second step is acknowledgement without the promise of change. It is easy to acknowledge a circumstance if you believe that by acknowledging it you can better alter it; it is another endeavor entirely to acknowledge a characteristic about yourself that is immutable.

Desiring Commitment While Committed to Desire

I have been contemplating the difference and interplay between desire and commitment. I am coming to the end of my structured classwork in my doctoral program. After I complete the qualifying exam and submit my proposal, I am on my own. The classes and even the comprehensive exam do not trouble me as much as the prospect of researching and writing the dissertation. I waited two years after finishing my masters degree before applying to a doctoral program for this very reason. I had to count the cost.

My fear, real or imagined, is that despite my planning and my temporal desire to complete the program, my lack of genuine commitment to the project will result in my failure to finish--earning me the unenviable moniker of ABD--all but dissertation. One of my tasks as a doctoral student is to assemble a dissertation committee. I must interview potential committee members whose expertise best aligns with my topic, selecting them based on their qualifications while avoiding potential conflicts of ego.

In one such interview, the professor, after warning me to tread lightly on the minefield of departmental politics, asked me what I wanted to be. Maybe it was because my head was filled with all the various hoops I had to jump through and obstacles I would have to surmount to finish, that made the idea of a career in academia seem somewhat unappealing to me at the moment or maybe it was the realization that what I was doing in that moment wasn't actually bringing me any closer to what I wanted to be.

Of course, I reassured the professor that I desired to be a professor, even if just an adjunct, but was I wholly committed to that end? To be honest, I was annoyed, the question came out of no where like a sucker punch and I wasn't ready to block it, in fact, I didn't even see it coming until it hit--what do I want to be? My surprise belies the fact that I think about that very question everyday; however, regardless of my true knowledge of the answer, I continue to work towards something and it is that movement that succeeds in relegating that question to the abstract arena. In the midst of motion I can blow it off with semantic quips such as, 'does anyone really know what they want to be' and the like.

But for some reason, when the professor asked that question at that moment, I could think of no line of defense. Maybe it was because he asked it as an aside to the main topic of the conversation not and not at the crescendo after building up to it that left me so subject to its power. Whatever the reason, it led me to open myself up to the possibility of accepting the realization that this is not what I want to do. Doctoral work is a noble pursuit, it could even be lucrative in my line of work as a instructional designer and I could easily find an number of philosophical issues to satisfy my addition to the ethereal but ultimately, it is not what I want to to write about, it is not what I want to spend my time contemplating. I can dress it up, I can put a mask on it, but it is not what I love--it is not what I am committed to. Of course that begs the question; what [past] version of myself do I still carry the flame for?

Could I be committed to something I have no desire to be near? When I compare my past life with my present condition I see a disturbing absence of passion, I lack commitment to my pursuits. It isn't that I have no place to go but rather I have no real conviction about whether or not I get there. I remember what it was to be committed and when I see the half-heartedness that pervades so many of my endeavors I can only lament the loss of my faith. But if I was so committed, how did I end up here?

Being versus Believing

For one of my doctoral classes I am doing a lot of reading in sociology. The perspective is overwhelmingly liberal and although I have softened many of my views over the years, especially since leaving Christianity, I still find it difficult to subscribe to the left wing agenda en masse. Maybe it is the manner in which their message is communicated; whereas conservatives are often condescending, liberals tend to be offensively witty--a sort of enlightened sarcasm intermingled with the occasional kook that is convinced the sky is falling. And of course, the answer is always more regulation, more government control.

Honestly, I haven't thought much about my political leanings, I have always seen them as a byproduct of whatever philosophical system I ascribed to at the time. When I was a Christian, I voted Republican, when I was an anathema to the faith, I voted Democratic. But now I am neither or perhaps both--so where does that leave me politically and socially? Rev. Linda is decidedly liberal, focusing her ministry on themes of justice, peace and equality which are code words for lighter sentences, decreased military operations and increased welfare...I say in jest. But there must be a middle ground between imperialism and pacifism, between crushing the little guy and spoon-feeding him.

I think my biggest problem with the liberal perspective is that it unwittingly transfers responsibility away from the individual to the abstract communal entity. For me, all change must happen, in fact, does happen, at the individual level. If I can read about single mothers struggling to survive with starving children and become indignant yet continue to eat at overpriced restaurant that cater to the type of clientele I aspire to be, what does that tell me about myself? If I believe that by donating $10 dollars a month and writing my congressional representative is an indication of my positive devotion to the cause, I am mistaken. If I believe every statistic about poverty, hunger, homelessness and racial oppression and still continue to live the same way I did before I heard those numbers, I am worse than a hypocrite, I am a fool.

At the risk of allying myself with the infamous strategy of trickle down economics, I will say that I believe that everyone must take responsibility not only for their actions but what their actions or lack of action say about them. If my liberal zeal is only a guise for my own jealousy of the rich and does not arise out of a more admirable desire to help the oppressed, then what does that say of me?

Reports like these are necessary, even desirable but they are not nearly enough for the journey, in fact, they do not even constitute one step of that journey; they only offer another option to those who must choose how to live and what steps they will take in this life. Rev. Linda said that I was a pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps kind of guy, and although I have tried to alleviate the heavy burden of personal responsibility, I cannot. Each of us faces this world alone and without pardon from the punishment of freedom.

The painful fact is that I always have at least one other option which affords me the opportunity of choice and each choice, no matter however small or bounded, however insignificant or grandiose, resonates from inside me. It is choice, then, and not circumstance, that determines who I am and this is not meant in the socio-economic sense. I do not blame the poor for their continued poverty or the rich for their reckless extravagance but each makes their own path. Mother Teresa is a model not because she helped the poor but because she helped the poor. She took on the responsibility of being someone who acted to a certain end.

The Ever Elusive Calling to Greatness

I am torn. It has been several days since my last entry and although I desire to continue forward I am too often bogged down with my other obligations. Even now, I struggle to eek out some time from my schedule to write this entry. I feel as if I am fighting a war on three fronts. I am competing with my colleagues at work for better pay and positions, I am competing with my classmates for recognition and grades and I am competing with my own sense of who I should have been by now.

Work provides me with the means to live and class is an extension of that professional life while fulfilling a deep need within me to always feel as if I am bettering myself. I have tried to align these two fronts as best I can, using work projects for class assignments, focusing on work related issues as case studies, but it still feels as if I am stretched too thin. Add to this my philosophical wanderings and it becomes all together too much.

I know what I should do, serve only one master for either I will hate the one and love the other or love the one and hate the other but I cannot continuing striving to succeed in business and academia while at the same time going beyond both to attain to an ever elusive calling to greatness.

But I can't give any of it up, especially not the latter. It seems that the less it fits in with the rest of my life, the more I need it as a part of my life. Schooling will come to end, eventually, but this journey to find my place, my calling, is too essential to who I have come to understand myself to be. I am afraid to turn aside from that journey, despite the late nights, frayed consciousness and lingering sense of frustration because I feel as if the moment I turn away, I will loose the path entirely.

The Id and the I Am

I had my second session with Rev. Linda this morning. I showed up on time, instead of 15 minutes early, which is indicative of my lack of enthusiasm for the meeting. I felt unprepared and unmoved but of course, I can ramble just as good as any other self-obsessed megalomaniac that gets high off of hearing his own abstract vocabulary on rotation. So I bantered for a few minutes until I was able to pick up on a theme that tied together my scattered observations of the last month.

It seems that I am searching for authentic Christianity, one that has an evangelical hermeneutic combined with a postmodern ethic. I want certainty without judgementalism, love without relativism and wonder without ignorance. That is why I often find myself interested in the lives of high profile Christians. I want to investigate how they live out their faith and, more importantly, if they are able to do so consistently. Anyone can conceive of the ideal, but few can live it and Christianity is a system that is best practiced live. But so many fall short and although I know that this is a function of human frailty and finitude, it still irks me that the majority of people who profess to know the mind of God can still live steeped in so much mundanity.

The irony of my quest for authentic Christianity is that even if I were able to find it and could unpack it, I would be least likely of all to be able to live it. This authentic Christianity is like a beautiful young woman who is most desirable whilst her virginity is intact. To try to live this ideal would be to reveal the sheer impossibility of such an endeavor but maybe this is what Christ meant to demonstrate in the Sermon on the Mount. I recall one of Frank's co-pastors interpreting the narrow gate verse this way, "the road is narrow because without grace few are able to live it." Of course that leaves the possibility open for some, Mother Teresa, The Dalai Lama, etc. but for the majority of us, authentic communion with the Divine seems only possible through grace.

But as Bonhoeffer points out, this grace is not cheap. The truth is, I have found examples of authentic Christianity, aside from negligible human flaws, I just know that I could never live those lives. I am frustrated by my utter inability to attain to greatness--to walk that narrow path upright and on my own two feet. Rev. Linda says that my problem is sin, more accurately, my obsession with the problem of evil. She went out to suggest that because my problem is actually a conglomeration of several different issues, self-loathing, fear, hurt and intellectual angst, that I should consider seeing a spiritual counselor. In line with this suggestion, she is going to investigate some retreat options for me. Maybe this will all lead me to where I should have started to begin with--a psychologist. My malaise is as psychological as it is spiritual.

As an aside to our meeting, I asked Rev. Linda if she loved Christ. To my relief and amazement, she did not immediately respond but sat back in her chair and contemplated the question, then, after several moments, answered, "I feel more comfortable saying that I know that I am loved by Him." It is in these quirky answers and insights that I begin to see shafts of light in the darkness. I can walk forward guided by these flashes, although blindly, in the hope that I will not have to turn back into the dessert from whence I came.

The Scope of Truth

My next meeting with Rev. Linda is rapidly approaching and I feel like a child with a project deadline. What has changed over the last month? I've been back and forth, sometimes I feel enlightened, inspired and free to accept my destiny and move forward in it, while other times, I am frustrated and lost or totally distracted--satisfied on the surface to continue playing out this farce. The good that I see is too good to be true while the muck that surrounds me has already permeated my being. Which is more real?

In my desire to push myself along the path and not linger for too long at any one point, I started reading Merton's No Man is an Island. It seemed to be written for the general seeker, whereas Nouwen is written for Christians in crisis. Despite his niche, I find it odd that a lot of what Nouwen writes resonates with me...and how could it. I am definitely not at the same place Nouwen was when he composed this book and yet he is still able to reach out and touch me with the insight of one who is in the midst of the dark night.

Sometimes I feel as if I am fighting too hard..."why do you kick against the pricks," while other times I feel as if I will give in too easily. Of course, Merton is profound and not at all orthodox in his explanations. He is able to balance between belief and rationality as he untangles the mysterious web of the conscious cosmos. I just don't want to believe because I need to believe. I want to understand what I believe. Blind faith is like blind love, without any real value because it is totally ignorant to the object of its devotion.

There needs to be a distinction between faith in a God and faith in Christianity. For me, once I accept by faith that God exists, then I must decide between the various explanations of that existence. These explanations, or religions, rise and fall on their ability to rationally, systematically and consistently elucidate their position. Having faith in God is difficult enough without adding the extra burden of accepting ridiculous explanations as to the nature of that existence.

Yes, truth may be elusive and mysterious, it may even be messy but it is not sloppy. It is not slapped together without any thought given to the whole. Truth is pervasive and therefore must be internally consistent, that is not to say there are no paradoxes but the paradoxes should be fundamental--they should stem from the very core of a system, they should not arise at the intersection of the resulting tenets. I do not mind a grandiose explanation of reality, however, I do take issue with one that fails to appreciate scope of truth.

Awakening From Another Spiritual Stupor

It all seems too ridiculous...the concept of God and the afterlife, the need for a savior and the master plan. I can see it all unfolding before me, its true genealogy revealing its most humble beginnings in the newly awakened minds of our earliest ancestors. When first able to put into words the reality of death, instead of embracing the realization that they were just like the flower and the deer, they chose to elevate themselves above the rest of the natural world. They told stories of another life for their forebearers to reinforce their importance to their children. They honored their dead with gifts and offerings that would help sustain them in this next life. But some began to question, how can the revered rest with the unworthy; the very question that was echoed by David in the Psalms. It was then that we see the formation of a place for the righteous and a place for the wicked--a Heaven and a Hell. But this, too, needed to be clarified, explained to the illiterate masses. Thus, a code was established, abide by it, they were told, and you will live, break it and you too will be broken. But the code was hard, costly and unbearable, so there came a Savior who promised to pay the debt of sin that had been levied against them.

All major religions follow a similar course, the fallen condition, the code to completion and the hope to come--that is what makes them religions, whether the goal is enlightenment, self-fulfillment, Valhalla or Heaven. They all promise a way out. The reality of this pluralism in the world always sours the taste of Christianity for me. Often, when I awake from the spiritual stupor that descends on me, I am appalled to find that I would even consider this collection of fables to be the very keys that unlock the Real.

And yet, this cynical position, though intellectually safe from ridicule, is itself absurd. True, pluralism seems to reject out of hand any claim to absolute truth but what does the proliferation of religion reveal about the human condition. Of course I am not the first one to suggest that therein lies one nucleus, a kernel of the Real, that all the other particular religious orbit around. I never have any original thoughts, any feelings of creativity and genius are merely the function of my profound ignorance.

Despite the feelings expressed in this post, a line from Nouwen made tears well up in my eyes when I read it. He wrote, "This is a sincere desire," speaking of the search for meaning, "don't look on it as an expression of your own neediness or as a symptom of your own neurosis." I had expressed a very similar thought to Rev. Linda in our last meeting. I don't know why that it strikes me as so unique when another person writes what is written on my heart. We are all the same, why do I feel as if I am the only one? But it is in the commonality of conscious experience, like the ubiquity of religion, that a transcendent truth is hidden, but what it is or who it points to remains a mystery to me.

Related To Estrangement

It is hard to rule the world from a deluxe townhouse development on the outer rim of the suburbs. Where I, like the trees have been emasculated, their once viral phalanxes reduced to mulch only to be reborn as flaccid samplings rising from well manicured patches of sod. They bend, nearly creased, with the slightest passing breeze because they have neither the inner strength nor the outer shelter of other, more mature, trees to sustain them. It is a desert landscape punctuated by a small plastic oasis where one only spends the night before making the next journey back to civilization.

I am a nomad who utterly refuses to claim this place as his home. I traveled back to what I have always considered to be the center of the universe--my birthplace in northern New Jersey. I grew up there perched a top the first cliffs that rose beyond the elongated skyline of New York just pass the industrial sea of the Meadowlands. Every point west, north and south seemed like an arid wasteland in comparison to the vibrant metropolis I could see and smell from my bedroom window. This is my home; this is where my identity resonates from and yet I have not lived there in more than 15 years.

I visit often but only as a stranger, there are no longer familiar faces behind the doors on my street ready to welcome me into their kitchens and backyards to play. I can only pass them slowly in disbelief that I was ever a frequent guest in these homes. But it will never be to me what it once was and I am not sure that it ever truly was what I think it was to me. I have to let go off it, put it into perspective with who I have been for these past 15 years. I am afraid to really look forward; I am content to contingency plan for the future. I continue to upgrade the parts on the ship as I drift down the river so that I can be ready for whatever I encounter, but planning for any possibility leaves not time and resources for the one course that I should be on.

When it comes down to it, I just don't want to choose and I can feel a decision coming on. I was invited to hear Frank speak this morning and usually it is my practice to visit his church when he is scheduled to deliver the sermon; however, I could not bring myself to attend today. I couldn't bare to listen to the songs and hear the scriptures again. Christianity is like a beautiful woman with a tremendous amount of baggage. We were together once but it did not last and now as the years pass I have started to idealize her. But in reality she has let herself go, she no longer possess the curves that once drew me to her, underneath the emotion and poise is a body misshapen by fat and wrinkled by age. But if that is all that drew me to her in the beginning, did I ever really love her or is it all hope's propaganda. Perhaps, I never left her and she is my estranged spouse.

My life in two worlds has left me with little peace. I want to get away from the distraction of my duel obligations but I cannot. I am conflicted, what I want, I dare not have and what I have, I refuse to embrace. I keep telling myself that this is not me. That I am someone else, somewhere else. But that is a lie. I am here, for good or for ill. This is my place. I can run, but it is only as if on a treadmill, I can never leave where I am. I cannot escape the person I am or will become. This is the throne in my flesh.

Coming Out Of The Closet of Abstraction

I have realized a disturbing characteristic of my narcissism; it lusts after potential and what can be gained in the future while at the same time disdaining what is already possessed but true self love embraces the present. I live in two worlds, the present and the future, the pragmatic and the principled, the tactile and the rhetorical. To me, my life appears to be so abstract, even my writing only makes passing references to my lived experiences, my relationships, my job, my studies, but how I live out my waking hours is like a gay man's heterosexual marriage--a sham, not at all representative of who I am. Yet, I am terrified of coming out of the closet of abstraction. Abstraction used to be an escape from the delusion of the mundane but now it has become the securest of all prisons. I am like a replica put on display at a museum for fear the original will be damaged if brought into the light. The stakes are too high for me to do what I am constantly being pushed towards.

I like to think on all of these things from a theoretical perspective. I say to myself, 'if I came back I would do this and that thing' or 'it is clear that this is the way such and such should be done.' But I remain motionless, sulking with my arms folded beneath a withering tree. I am unsatisfied with my life yet I refuse to change it. Writing is cathartic but it gives only the illusion of change for those who are searching for a reprieve from action. I realize that what I need I do not have and what I have relied on to meet that need could never have fulfilled it. I have wrongly blamed others for my own lethargy and shortsightedness. They were never the answer yet I sought to press them into the void that cannot be filled by my ideal. Perhaps, the emptiness I feel is not from any void inside me; rather the fulfillment of my being comes when I myself fill the void that exists outside me, the same void which holds my place and my purpose in the world.

In The Quiet of Being

In a previous entry, I wrote how I loathed my perception of myself. It think this disdain must be examined further for in lies some hidden truth about my quest for meaning. I have heard it said that you cannot give or receive love until you love yourself. I always thought of that kind of reasoning to be too soppy to be true. I thought it was natural to love oneself, even someone who commits suicide does so not because she hates herself but because she loves her life too much to continue in pain. But there are many types of love, I'm not referring here to the difference between the love of a mother or a sibling, a friend or a lover--the various objects of love, but rather the variety of intentions of love.

Some are intent on possession and control, others oneness or destruction and then there are many who simply desire with an intensity that appears to be love because it burns so strongly. The latter is commonly called lust, which has come to have a sexual connotation exclusively but I think there is another kind of lust. It is a mix of fantasy and longing just as regular lust, but this lust covets the ideal. It refuses to see imperfection until it is forced to in the intimacy of that long awaited embrace; it is then that familiarity truly breeds contempt.

In my opinion, most people lust after themselves only to realize they were not who they hoped they would be and then they quickly come to despise themselves with an intensity that far surpasses the that lust. This is what I believe has happened to me. The few times in my life that I have lifted the veil that shrouded my being, I was appalled to find the grotesque features of an imperfect face staring back at me. This is why I prefer the state of becoming to that of being. I spend my life in the pursuit of attainment never relenting for one moment to embrace my being. Before I have completed a task, I am already engulfed in another. My life has become a series of refinements and readjustments rather than a project. I am continual on a diet but am afraid to step on the scale and weigh the choices that comprise who I am. I study and research but seldom apply my knowledge. I define myself with verbs such as seeking, learning and contemplating but never with nouns which I fear will shed to much light on my darkness.

With this relentless running how can I have time to realize who I am now. How can I love what I cannot hold for even a moment. I had hoped that in the pursuit of attainment there would be meaning enough or a least ample distraction but there is not. One cannot help but look back periodically to find the way forward--a trajectory that thrusts one higher at a definite angle but there is no such thing when I look back on my life presently just a thousand random acts events hung together like notes scribbled frantically on a staff, it can neither be called a song nor a life. Despite this feeling, this pungent disappointment, I must tune out all the superfluous sounds and listen for my life. Perhaps, it is the deafening noise of a distracted life, a life spend on becoming, that I loathe and not the authentic me. Perhaps it is in the quiet of being that the true melody of my life will emerge.

Returning To The Scene Of The Crime

I thought for a long time that my faith was dead, rotting to the point that I was able to loosen the knot it had tied around me. Then, for some unknown reason, I found the rope again, clinging to my leg like a frayed piece of cloth, and decided to follow it back to the place it started, presumably the very place I had formally been so entangled. At first, I thought I knew exactly where it would lead me, so I intentionally meandered back for fear that I would get to the end too quickly and the journey would be over. But I soon realized that I was lost again. Maybe the rope I found at my feet was not the same one that I had previously unraveled. But why this compulsion to return to the scene of the crime.

Nouwen writes extensively about love and he has definitely given me a greater appreciation for its importance but at the same time, in my opinion, the phrase, 'I understand you,' spoken truthfully, fulfills me more deeply than the more commonly sought after, 'I love you' because one can love, quite genuinely, in spite a lack of personal knowledge whereas there is no such deficiency with real understanding. In fact, love and understanding could be seen as mutually exclusive. Love is an act of faith while understanding is an activity of the mind. It is very close to the distinction between sympathy and empathy; while a sympathetic person can hold you, an empathetic one will be able to walk with you.

I look for love, because that is what I been conditioned to do, but I long for understanding naturally. Perhaps my search for purpose is really a quest for understanding. If there is a great plan of which I am part of, then once I realize my place in it I become one with the designer. I am fulfilled by fulfilling my role. A square peg can find both its purpose and its truest counterpart within the emptiness of a quadrangle void.

I had resigned myself to a life lived in the avoidance of pain. I had packaged it up in eloquent monologues and even I bought the lie that mine was a deep and tortured path only a few would dare tread. I realize now that my path is a crowded one, trafficked by a host of others seeking the very same through personal freedom and financial independence. But if the avoidance of pain--the tolerable life I speak so often of, has truly been my goal, then I have utterly failed by all accounts. But now, instead of focusing my hate on others, I loathe myself because I have been one of them. Here I defer to the words of St. Paul, 'Oh, wrecked man that I am, who will save me from the body of this death.'

Just a Morsel of the Real

I feel myself slipping into a funk, my mind is heavy with thoughts, reminiscing, reliving and second-guessing. I read part of a journal from 1992, it wasn't much different from one of my recent posts. It wasn't as pensive and whiny, rather it was raw and primordial but the same old person shone through. This isn't a phase I am going through, I've just come up again briefly for air before I am plunged beneath the waves again, delightfully drowning in delusion. Up the clarity that comes with that air both revives and tortures because at once I sense the real hope of escape but also the futility of my efforts--I am conscious but powerless, a throbbing heart trapped within the flesh of a corpse.

I am caught in one huge cycle of hope, disappointment, rage and exhaustion and it would seem that Christianity is just a part of that cycle. I cannot fill the void, the lonely emptiness I feel. I am weighed down by it. Every way out turns out to be another way back into the depression, but each time it is much deeper and more despairing because I know that there is one less route of escape than I originally thought.

I just want to figure out how it is that I got here. I wish that I could remember how long time was so that I could have some sense of the effort and energy it took me to get to the present. That journey is all but lost among the mangled parts of a once elegance sculpture. Maybe that is the definition of brokenness; however, it could also be an accurate, albeit stark, description of existence--not a sickness, as such, though it appears that way to some, but rather an immutable condition.

I want to be drawn out of this. My life sickens me, no, it is my perception of my life that sickens me. I long for something greater to hold onto but I must live authentically even if that means wallowing in the filth of domesticity. If it is not real, then I want not part of it. It is true that I have been searching for meaning and perhaps relying on means that were not meant that need. But is Christianity just another veneer that will be unable to support the full weight of meaning? I have toyed with the notion of mystery in faith but even the most faithful have some sense of the object of their faith and though it may not be defined as certainty it must be palpable--perhaps just an aftertaste without the meal. I know that I cannot accomplish this myself; even the greatest person of faith cannot go on completed starved, they must taste a just morsel of the real.

Uncertain About Certainty

Maybe its not truth I am after but rather certainty. What's the difference? Truth is an object while certainty is a feeling. Of course it would seem obvious that as the veracity of a claim increases the certainty associated with believing that claim would also increase. However, I am not so sure that this is the case. Often the most fervent defenders of an ideology are those who fear that its weakness will be revealed the most. No one vehemently argues for obvious, it is only on issues where doubt may arise, that we find those using the offensive as their best method for defending their position which they fear could not stand on its own.

Now then, is it faith which is the opposite of doubt or is certainty the more appropriate antonym? It has been said that as faith increases so does certainty but this seems counterintuitive for if one is certain what need is there for faith? It seems more likely that certainty is the opposite of doubt and that faith is required in part because of the likelihood of doubt rather than the prevalence of certainty. If this is the case, and I am still not certain that it is, then how has certainty creep so insidiously into the community of faith? Why has certainty become the litmus test for faith? What possible place could hope have in an economy that trades in certainty exclusively? Could it be that certainty is a mask that hides deeply rooted doubt and with it immutable pride that prevents the wearer from crying out, 'help my unbelief'?

Those who struggle to believe are trampled on their way to the altar by those who rush ahead to proclaim their creeds in hopes that the sheer volume of their outbursts will silence the torrent of unbelief within them. I continue to give myself that litmus test, and each time I fail because the concept of God in His cosmic relationship with humanity becomes more complex and Christ's sacrifice although a simple act of sacrifice and love reveals the inner thoughts of the Almighty which my mind cannot hope to comprehend let alone have the audacity to be certain of in its finitude.

A Walk In the Wilderness

My recent encounter with the past has nearly convinced me of something that came into my mind only weeks earlier. I promised myself that if I ever felt as if I was in danger of falling back into the old life I would contact the only person who could truly remind me of why it was I left it in the first place. He never had any real stake in my life or I in his. We simply wanted to know the true, or at least what was false and contradictory. To this end we were wholly committed and it did not matter how far or fast either one of us walked from the faith of our youth, the other would not stretch out his hand to slow the momentum. In fact, we cherished this very characteristic of our relationship.

Periodically we would run through a list of outrageous offenses and blasphemies in order to test whether or not we would relent and break our solemn oath to each other—that the best argument always wins. Loyalty, perhaps not, but it was a type of honor among thieves that we shared. And it is clear to me that after my encounter with those who have never dared to step outside the faith, that their perspective will always be limited. Their question to me will always be, ‘when will you return?’ rather than, ‘what have you seen?’

After listening to Keith Green’s song about the prodigal son I decided to reread the parable myself. In the song, Keith does not mention the older son that faithfully stayed behind, but it is his reaction that sheds the most light on the story’s meaning. The eldest son is justifiable angry at all that has been lavished on his wayward brother. But listen to what the father says when the eldest laments that he was never been given even a small goat for a party, “but you have been with me always,” as if to point out to him that this is so much more than any one celebration. The parable does not capture the eldest son’s response to this, but it is clear from his initial reaction that he did not think it was enough. Perhaps the cliché that one does not know what one has until it is gone is as true of faith as it is of love and companionship.

The message of the prodigal son is not that God welcomes sinners, anyone who thinks the message is that simple does not understand the often hidden complexity of the parables. The true message is that those who consider themselves to be faithful and committed often risk losing a real sense of value of where they are. They believe that they have validated their salvation but they need to receive again an epiphany of their own brokenness. Obviously, it is difficult for me to be away from home, but it has given me a greater appreciation for it since I’ve been gone.

I remember remarking to Frank when he told me that I took the easy way out by leaving the faith that when he made a choice, no matter how it turned out, he could attribute the outcome to God’s sanctioning or God’s chastening of his action. However, when I made a choice, I had not such confidence, not such basis on which to move forward, the responsibility for every step I took was mine and mine alone and worse, no matter where I turned, the choice only amounted to greater or lesser degrees of meaninglessness. He felt he was moving toward something greater than himself while I always felt as if I was just grabbing enough air for my next breath. I need another perspective, a walk in the wilderness, but I am not sure that I am ready to face the Devil’s Advocate.

Turning Over Some Tables

There are times when I can clearly see Christ's face, gentle and luminous, yet even with that clarity it is always surrounded by a thick gray mist that is impenetrable. It is the origin and composition of this haze that alludes me. I was asked, rather presumptuously, by a faith member, "if God is here," he marked the air with the slide of his hand, "where are you?" It did not take me long to expose the absurdity of the question. Not only does it assume that I know where God is but it also proposes that God is in a linear relationship with me as if He is somewhere else and I am moving towards Him as my knowledge of Him gets greater.

This is why I believe, at least in part, that the haze is other people's practice of Christianity and not the completed work of Christ. When I am alone with my thoughts, pondering on the enormity of the problem in comparison to my being, it is there that I see Him most clearly. Perhaps I am closer to the realization that closeness to God is more a function of pride than it is of faith. Even Paul who had an encounter with Christ acknowledged that we see through a glass darkly. It is when we convince ourselves that we are able to wipe that glass clean and see God, that confidence replaces humility.

I am afraid that some have been deceived by the cult of personal power and affect. They are so eager to rush into ministry when both Christ and Paul took time in the desert. Paul who saw Christ, and Christ who was Himself the Son of God both stepped out to ponder the call and if it took Christ 40 days of intense introspection and temptation to prepare Him for three and a half years of ministry, how much longer should it take those who are not as sensitive to the Holy Spirit to minister for a lifetime? Some have confused action with intentionality, success with desire, networking with a genuine impact on another person's life and worse, they have exchanged humility for personal recognition. It does not matter what you have accomplished, it only matters what you are willing to accomplish for Christ--and that cannot be captured on any resume or any webpage.

Faith is a commodity which is bought and sold at a premium. Spiritual knowledge is packaged up and traded to those too lazy or too consumed by their own plans to acquire it themselves through prayer and fasting. It is no better than the indulgences sold by the Church, the same indulgences that spurred Martin Luther to protest, creating a ripple that soon turned into a tidal wave that crashed across Catholic Europe.

One day of prayer and fasting, scheduled in amongst more temporal activities is a sham, an affront to those who laid the foundations of this faith by willingly being enslaved to God's plan. Prayer is not a spiritual workout, performed dutifully every morning and sometimes at night when we have indulged too much in sin. Prayer is an unceasing lifestyle. How can a person called to the highest of callings, given the words of life, having tasted the sweetest nectar of God's boundless love live any longer in the mundane? How can anything less than total submission to God suffice? Humility, compassion and brokenness, these are the commodities of the Kingdom; don't let an outsider, a Philistine, a donkey have to remind you of that. It may be a harsh criticism, but it is truly meant in love.