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.