Attempted explanations

I suppose when i write bitter, depressed dirges and then say i'm "doing better" it helps to say HOW i am doing better.The trouble is, i understand well enough what plunged me into it, but what lifted me up is a little harder to nail down. Well, not quite true... i know what, or i must say WHO it was, i just don't know how to explain it, can't make my experience of God make sense to anybody else, and don't like the way it sounds when i try. But deep down, i think, i know it was God who met and helped me. And it irks me to even write it- i'm not sure why, possibly because of the incredible triteness with which many toss around phrases like " God met me and helped me" Nevertheless, as far as i can tell, that is the essence of what i experienced, and i've been doing this too long to try to disguise it with a bunch of vague, speculative nonsense. I guess it comes down to how we choose to see things. I could easily say i just "felt better" after a while- when the pain had run its course, i let things go and adopted a healthier outlook. I could even say " i found comfort in my faith, in the familiarity of its rituals and reassurances" in the same way that some drag God out of a dusty box in the attic only when they need to deal with death, loss, grieving or anything else that they would otherwise not be able to asign any positive meaning to. But again, in some interior, incommunicable place, i know such explainations do not do the situation, or God, for that matter, any justice. For me, at least, they do not really describe what went on. For my "sudden upturn" followed acts of confession and repentance- confession, because i had finally been honest with one i loved about many lies and misdeeds, and repentance because, seeing the damage it had done, i finally truly regretted what i had become. But it was more than that. For a long time, in my doubts, in the contadictions of my life- i had put God away from me. I suppose, in a way, seeing the ridiculousness in the church, the seemingly brianwashed, rigid and untested belief in many christians, seeing the uniformity with which they were mocked outside their safe little circles and their inability to perceive the reasons for this, i began to feel a little better than them, began to believe that i say more, saw clearer, that i was a little too smart for "God" or at least, the "simple " God i assumed them to believe in. That feeling, never fully owned or chosen ( which would have required a courage of conviction ) produced a "practical agnosticism" ( to borrow a phrase) which had me offering occaisonal lip service to God, but generally keeping him at a distance, not willing to depend on him. Of course there were ups and downs in this process, lapses where i ran back to the safety of simple, prescribed beleifs and certainties, and other times where i seemed ready to concede that all of this assumption of God and his benevolence was baseless, ready to admit that which had hitherto guided and shaped a large portion of my life was " meaningless, a chasing after the wind"

But there i was, faced with a number of unpleasant realities. I had lied, cheated, hurt, wasted, acted in blatant selfishness. True, the hollow shell of faith i was not willing to completely discard had not kept me from being like this, and many who believe do worse-far worse. But i was was standing aloof, sitting in judgement of God and faith, and of others who did see " simple certainties", as if i was above these things. Who was i to judge? My own behavior was not consistent with my morality, the values i said i held. But could i adopt a view that lying, cheating, wasting and hurting did not matter? Could i trumpet them as virtues- as excercise of my freedom, my individuality?I could- but i would lose all ability to change, and any reason to, save in those instances where such things did not serve my interests. And ...i'd be a really miserable person nobody would want to be around.

But did any of that really go through my head? i doubt it. At the time, i was just alone. I had, as far as i then knew, lost or irreprably damaged the most important human relationship in my life, lost that person's respect, lost my own self-respect, alienated and grown apart from other significant relationships in my single minded, stubborn pursuit of that relationship, and, somehwere in the process almost completely lost my faith in God. I was alone- alone with myself, and the self i saw was ugly, bitter, cold and empty.

And i COULD say that in that loneliness -unwilling to face its implications- I ran back to the comfort of the idea of God. And i suppose some will view it that way, regardless of anything else i try to say about it. And...hell, let them.

But run to Him i did, and, wonder of wonders, he was there- not a blank wall, not a cold silence, but warmth and comfort, and assurance of love. I suppose it could be that in my need i dropped my doubts and reservations and it SEEMED like he was there, and i WANTED assurance of love ....But i've wanted and needed many times, and i haven't ever been able to make him jump out of the hat at my command. Maybe He really WAS there all along, waiting, while i doubted his existence, while i doubted the character of someone i wasn't sure existed(!), while i stopped worrying about his existence and just ignored him, while i did what i felt like and tried to convince myself i was free, all the while feeling more and more chained up, tied to my weakness, unable to quite reach what i wanted to do and be. Maybe my frustration with myself, my realization of the utter ugliness of my heart and behavior with him expelled from it, maybe that was the repentance, the turning from trust in myself and admitting my need for him. Maybe i had to truly admit my need, that i wasn't enough on my own, not good enough , not strong enough, maybe that acknowledgement of failure was what he needed to step in...Though i did, in that state, offer him an explicit invitation to reinvolve himself in my life. I did, as one would with a person one had treated in that manner, apologize for ignoring him and doubting his character.
In doing so i chose to see things through that lens again, as you can't adress meaningful conversation to someone you don't think exists. All i can say is, he met me there. I experienced God again- i experienced him communicating to me in that subtle, quiet way. Despite my emotional upheaval over all that had gone on in my life, despite still grieving for the relationship, about which i was still in no way reassured, i felt that sense of peace ( for lack of a better word) that sense of things being right with the world, or at least with my world, that i had felt before at my "conversion" and at a very few other times since. Actually, i'm not sure it is a feeling, but an awareness of a change of state, like liquid to solid, or the like. You don't always notice when it leaves, except long after the fact, and then you wonder if you ever had it, or only remember things as somehow "righter" before. You may not really feel that it was gone until it comes back....like not realizing how hungry you were until a nice, steaming meal is placed before you, or something like that. Something clicked back into place. Perhaps it is beyond accurate description, but it is a sensation, or an an experience, that i recognize, and it's asociation in my past has been with affirmation that i am on the right track, like finding a path after wandering in the forest- you don't know where you are going, but you are going SOMEWHERE.
This- my surrender in my little war with God- was the genisis of my "upturn". Whether or not it makes sense to me or anybody else, whether the experience is "true" or "real" or not ( and What, exactly would words like "true" and "real" mean if there were no God, no absolutes?) God is part of who i am- i cannot escape him. However my life on earth will play out, whatever i will chose to do with what i have ( or what i have been given), he will be part of it- he is part of the make up of who i am, we are intertwined, God and I and I and God- so that we cannot be separated or i become untrue to myself, a half person with the rest of me supressed, striving to break free and be allowed to live. Others may be able to exist, and be noble, and have purpose, and be triumphantly THEMSELVES without him- i am in no position to know if they can or not. i know that i cannot. Accepting this fact has been the foundation of the "getting on with things" that has been my life for the past few weeks.

maybe it's not all QUITE so bad....

Ok, I know those were apallingly depressing and bleak, and it's been a while since I've posted, so people could think I'm in really rough shape. Those two posts, i should asure you, represent a low point that i have since substantially ascended from. I was greiving for the loss of a relationship, and for the loss of some associated dreams, and dealing with the fallout from some ugly personal failings. While things are not "back to normal"( thankfully- "normal" for me has not been are real swell place) I am doing better. My additude has been helpfully adjusted, i've been encouraged and reminded of some of what i have to be thankfully for by the wise, compassionate concern of good friends near and far, and the relationship in question, while certainly changed, probably for the best, is not as utterly destroyed as i thought it might have been. There is grace even for my stupidity and selfishness, and as i finally come back to a place where i can no longer pretend i have my life figured out and under control, i find God is not so distant, the God i knew has been quietly reminding me of his presence.

I can say quite a bit more, but I am out of time...so stay tuned for some slightly more cheerful stuff.