1,000 reasons to quit, and 1 to keep going

Well, friends, I am a bit at a loss for what to say. I feel that I ought to check in, lest you fear that I have dropped off the map again. Oddly enough, it's a well-grounded fear, because in many ways I feel that I have. It's all very well to wax poetic on Christmas and even the Feasts of Circumcision and Epiphany, but at some point you have to hit ground again, and take a good look around at the scenery. Like Dante the Pilgrim in The Divine Comedy, I find myself lost, wandering in a dark wood. These days the trees make me claustrophobic, each one represents a question I can't answer, a fear that I can't chase away with candles or tea or a bigger nightlight. I feel frozen, bound by secrets and choking on the weight of everything I can't say.

But it's okay. It's really okay. As long as I have sufficient busyness, entertainment, and the sweet succor of shallow living, I'll be just fine.

This, sadly, I am beginning to discover, is actually not the case. I will not be fine. I think after 22 years, I have finally reached the limit of my ability to "bounce back." I can't continue to take refuge in fantasies about my life and well-being. I can't simply keep a stiff upper lip and pretend like everything is okay until I somehow hallucinate that this is actually the case.

So, instead of those less than palatable options, I am going away for a while. At least I will if anything in my life ever comes together and there is actually a God who cares enough to keep me from going over the edge. I am looking for a monastery, of all things, to tuck myself away in and work some things out, the most basic things about my continued existence in the universe. This departure has nothing to do with comfort or idle philosophy. This is about salvation in its most basic form. This is me posing the question of whether it is possible to live well and peacefully in the world. I will put myself in a tower, guarded by all of my dragons, and wait to see if God will come and save me.

This metaphor is pretty, but on second thought, I think it's too passive to really suit. What I've been waiting for is a steel cage match, me and God wrestling in the wilderness, a fight to the finish over who gets the final say over the nature of Things. Pity the poor unfortunate who comes as a Rescuer and has to stay as a combatant. Or, if that seems irreverant, pity me instead. What will I do, voluntarily shutting myself up with a bible, one of the only books I know of that I would rather throw across the room than read, and a steady, seven-times-daily diet of prayer, an activity that commonly makes me feel like my chest is going to implode? I don't want to fight any more, really. I feel like it wouldn't be fair of me to not at least give this a shot, rather than just pouting and refusing to cooperate. That's not really why, though. I've reached the point where I can't really fight any more, not for myself. So here I am, too weak to fight, too angry to surrender. O yes, I think I am the one to be pitied.

There is little now in which I find real, sustainable hope. But there is this one piece of wisdom from a sister and a saint, which I tuck away like a red flower in an inner pocket. I will carry it with me as long as I can.

"We have this hope in Jesus,
that all shall be well,
and all shall be well,
and all manner of things shall be well."