Day 11: The Back of Your Head

You wandered through my dreams again last night, silent as you often are, watching me from a distance. I noticed you every time, for it was only in my dreams that you look at me at all, anymore. When I was able to see you in the real world, I saw only the back of your head, trying as hard as you could not to look at me, not to face me again. Why? I do not know.

When did I stop seeing God in your eyes? You used to look at me, peering past the facades I might have worn into the weak and the vulnerable. What you saw there might have frightened you. But you seemed to love me anyway.

Through that gaze, I began to understand what God must be seeing. Looking deep into my soul, you stared me dead in the face and embraced the strange and weary brokenness. I spent so much time constructing my outer shell, but you reached beyond and into the very heart of who I am. I shared my darkness. You did not fix it or ignore it. You embraced me within it.

You claimed I did the same for you. I held you in my ignorance, not understanding how to fix your problems, so I simply listened. I tried to love you with all of my might, and you let me into your darkness, too. Within that darkness, I saw the love of God shining through--redemption and salvation, worked out in fear and trembling. Our shared vulnerability seemed to be bringing me closer to the very heart of God. Her love so often was shining in your eyes.

Those eyes don’t ever seem to land on me anymore. I thought I caught them the other night in a dream, looking at me once again. For a moment, there was peace. But when I caught them in real life on rare occasions, the light I sought was not there--only my own reflection, shrouded in darkness.

Even if my soul could have found rest in our shared home, I could not have stayed. That home seemed an empty temple, where an oracle had lost her power. Once God spoke to me through the girl I loved, but that girl is gone, and God seems now to be silent.

I suppose I could enter into some bad theology about how I had set you up as an idol in my mind, replacing God with you. But I always recognized the profound difference. My love for you began and ended as a wish for your betterment, which is how I could console myself when you left. But you were not God; simply a broken vessel which He used on occasion to reach me in the midst of my darkness. “I have sinned” is a sort of half-reflective answer, really an excuse as a way to blame myself for something beyond my control.

We often like to wrestle such control away from God, making ourselves the victims of our crimes. That is not to deny my responsibility for what happened to bring about this end. But I do acknowledge that I do not understand what or why it occurred. There is not a simple answer I can point to, some excuse that I can ‘learn from’ only to repeat again, because the root of the problem does not lie therein.

There are a plethora of other bad theologies I could cast upon God, as if this is some cosmic test to prove whether or not I am devoted enough for His calling. If I complete the seven tasks set before me, then I will be rewarded with the perfect life. Kill the lion, capture the boar, steal some apples. Except, of course, this story must be Christianized: the lion is all the things I idolize, the boar is my sinful nature, the apples some romantic reversal of Eden where everything turns out right in the end. That’s how the Christian journey works, right?

Since I idolized you, the love you gave to me was never from God. That’s why it was so easy to throw away.

But I know that isn’t the case, because in order to get over all of this, you had to make me into a monster. I became your lion to slay, your boar to capture, your apples to steal only to crush and spit out. Then God will really love you. I was an evil to be rejected, and now life will come.

Just like the rock, I was cast behind your back, never to see your face again. You look only in dreams, chancing glances when you think I cannot detect you. I stand waiting and hoping that once, just once, you might turn to me and see me for who I am, not the monster you have made me out to be.

When did I stop seeing God through you, and why? Perhaps the Christian story is one of people constantly seeking out the good in suffering. But that does not mean that the suffering does not happen. I stood on the verge of immeasurable joy with you by side, a stairway to happiness on one side, and a steep drop into a canyon of brokenness on the other. Sharing our true selves had brought us to that point.

In the end, I fell into that canyon, and began to run away from the cliff as quickly as I could with my many wounds. My healing has forced me to turn around, and I have begun to climb that mountain again, this time alone. It is a lonely climb, I will admit, and I much preferred it with you by my side. But the road to joy is a long one, and ultimately I must travel it, at least for a little while, with only myself and my God.

Hopefully, one day, I might get by with a little help from my friends.

Day 11: Eighteen hundred and seventy-five miles to home. Maybe only a few more to me.

Day 10: Just Past the Point of No Return

I awoke this morning late in the day, my body unusually tired from the night before. I had finished a long stretch of riding after saying goodbye to my friend Mordechai the night before, and had struck the hundred mile mark before deciding to call it a night. The sun warmed me with her friendly rays, but the wind competed with her affections, leaving me to cuddle into my blankets all the more.

“Just call me,” he said the last time we talked, “anywhere within a hundred miles, and I’ll come get you.” I knew he was mostly joking about the specific distance. Surely, if I went just one more mile, I could still have my rescuer come and save me from my decision. But still. Asking someone to come a hundred miles.

I had come a long way, but maybe this was time to turn back. Waco has plenty to offer, even if I did not go back to Baylor for a semester. Maybe I would just hang around and annoy my friends, or get a job working with the homeless. I could busy myself pretty readily. I am good at that. I always have been.

But why would I be doing all that? Would I just be waiting the semester out, until the summer came, and then waiting out the summer, until the fall came again? Always putting off what I need to be happy, as if I can obtain happiness if I just... try... harder...

Patience is the virtue of the investment theory of happiness. Patience, because happiness is fleeting, and only for a moment, so not worth pursuing at all. But that happiness and what I am experiencing now are different, in some way. As I ride, it hurts, but I am free. I am alive. I am happy.

Not the sort of happiness that comes from sitting with an old friend or having a laugh with some new ones, but much more like that than the sordid happiness that arises from winning a level of some phone game or successfully answering all of the emails in your inbox. Those in the latter half really seem to me now to just be distractions from this other happiness. Perhaps I am not really making that much progress towards my goal, but the process of getting there has been so much more satisfying than I thought possible.

The idea that my worthiness, and thus happiness, depends upon my accomplishments has plagued my entire existence. If I invest now in the future me, then I will be happy in the future--but my future me is often so busy investing in his own ‘future me’ that he forgets to be happy when he deserves it. As Michael Oakeshott says, “The future is the Moloch to which the present is sacrificed.” If we cannot turn back on our lives and point to specific items in which to take pride, then we deem our lives not worth living.

What of the simple farmer, who lives his entire life simply providing for his family? Does he live a life utterly devoid of meaning, just because his was not a life with a thousand mountains of glory? No. Perhaps he even lives a better life than people like me who measure themselves by their accomplishments. My worth can only ever equal the sum of all I have done, and when compared to anyone that history remembers, my story is less than insignificant-- it is paltry in the pantry of world goods.

The farmer, though, can turn to his fields and say, “In you, I have found meaning. The ground under my feet needed to be tilled, and so I tilled it. In the steady tilling of the field, I discovered the way in which God gently kneads my soul, working in me so that I may be tender enough for seed to grow. Then the ground needed planting, and so I planted. In the steady dropping of seeds, I discovered the way in which God drops tiny, almost meager scraps into our lives, that grow into the most meaningful of experiences. Then the crops needed watering, and so I watered them. In the steady watering of the crops, I discovered how God will give us just what we need to grow, in the manner in which God calls us.

“And I did not just live when the harvest came in. My life was there in the tilling, to be celebrated because I am alive. My life was there in the planting, to be celebrated because I am bringing in new life. My life was there in the watering, to be celebrated because even with all I could do, I remained dependent on the mercy of God for every day.”

What lie has infected my soul so as to turn me from this simple truth? Why have I surrendered the happiness that could be mine in each day, in order to obtain some vague happiness in the future? Why am I so afraid to leave it behind, and to embrace happiness every day?

My foot finally pressed down on the pedal before me, and I began my journey once again. My goal lies before me, spread out emotionally ad infinitum. But now, I lie past the point of no return. I only pray that I will not turn back.

Almost as a test to my devotion to my newfound appreciation for happiness, God began to set the sun in the most beautiful way, between two distant hills, just seven miles into my journey. I pulled to the side of the road, and put down my bike, knowing that though I had given up accomplishing my specific goal, that here was a moment for happiness. I sat in the dirt, pulled out my dear friend Rosie, and began to play a song as my friend the sun went to sleep.

Day 10: Nineteen hundred and eighty-six miles to home. Maybe only a few more to me.

Day 9: A Dog Not Unlike My Own

I rode today with the sun on my back, heading west in the afternoon hours. I had spent the day much like my other days, reading and reflecting on whatever came to mind. It is a beautifully simple existence, dependent only on riding, and thinking, and wondering with other minds on those same thoughts.

I happened to be passing by a large field on my right, that seemed to be left open for a new plant in the spring. Rows and rows of dirt mounds spread out, as far as your eye could gaze. When driving in a car as a child, I would revel in the moments when they all seem to form one being, so that instead of one long chain, they were simply dots in front of me.

There was a farm in the distance, from whence one small dot seemed to be coming towards me. I slowed down just a bit, to watch as the far-off figure approached. It bounded quickly, taking the rows seamlessly, as if its entire life was devoted to such athleticism. As it grew larger, I could make out the general figure of a dog of about medium height and long black hair. I was struck by how similar the dog looked to my own Esther.

I rolled to a stop, and looked down on this foreign dog. He jumped up on the fence, and barked at me gently. It certainly wasn’t Esther’s growl, which sounds more like she’s trying to say “I love you,” than that she is trying to intimidate you. He looked at me, not as an enemy, but not yet as a friend. I looked back at him, and wondered if he understood my smile as a measure of affection. I stared at him for quite some time, admiring what a beautiful animal was before me.

His thick black fur covered his body in an appropriate coat for the cold winter, even if it lasted in Texas for little more than a few weeks. His big brown eyes seemed so capable and ready for love, but his face knew better than to give it so freely. I thought when I first saw him that perhaps his ear was folded backwards oddly, but I realized quickly that it was cut off, the scar long healed over. I wonder what could have caused it.

After several minutes of staring at him, I decided that his owners might think it odd if I did not continue on my way. Contented with the few minutes I had to spend with such a beautiful creature, I began to peddle on my way. As I went, he began to follow me, at the same pace. I laughed, and peddled a little faster. He continued to follow, matching my speed. Faster and faster, he continued on, keeping even with me. His tongue blew about wildly as he went, and his expression seemed to me to be one of happiness -- eyes wide, wind in his face, nothing stopping him from experiencing life.

I thought back to my own Esther, as she would run and run around our back yard. Our acre or two of open land was never enough for her, and she would always go as far as we would allow. Her path never made much sense, always twisting around, and back, and then over again. She just ran and ran for the joy of running--much like my new friend beside me was doing.

I rode alongside him for what seemed like only a few minutes, but what quickly turned out to be two miles. Suddenly, his fence had reached its end, and I continued to ride on for a short distance. But as I went, he began to howl out a cry for my return. I stopped once again, and looked back on him. His ears were turned down, just like my Esther, when she knew that I was leaving without her again.

Turning around, I came to the edge of the fence and stuck my hand through to pet his head. He responded happily, licking my hand, and then letting me tousle his fur back and forth. I reached for his collar, and pulling it forward, read his name. “Hello, Mordy,” I whispered to my new friend. Leaning into my signs of affection, he recognized his name, and his ears rose in response. I laughed at his silly, almost sarcastically quizzical expression.

I pushed his head back and forth playfully, and his long tongue came out again to lick my face in either a disgusting form of retaliation or an adorably mislead plea for mercy. He dropped to his side, revealing his vulnerable underbelly. I began to rub his tummy as he desired.

As I did, I uncovered a thin red scar along his side, with another near it that looked like it must have been left by a tool that was not medical. One of his rib bones seemed to have been broken and healed without being set, because it bulged out of his side unnaturally far.

I wondered what could have caused these strange wounds--a missing ear, a strange scar, a broken rib cage. I looked down at Mordy, who seemed to trust me despite all of these things. I could never know what caused all of his pain, but he came to love me enough in this short time to share them with me anyway. His vulnerability allowed him to get the deep joy of a belly rub, even if he had to expose his weakest point and all underneath it.

The dog must have known when he saw me that I am just another passing person. I am not a solution to his problems, and I had no reason to think that his current owners were the ones who had done this to him. I couldn’t heal him, or even love him for more than just a little while. But he was willing to be vulnerable with me and love me anyway. He traveled with me for the short time he got, and when it ended, he would not be sad for the friend he lost, but happy for the joy he had received while he could receive it.

Day 9: Eighteen hundred and ninety-three miles to home. Maybe, with Mordechai’s help, only a few more to me.

Day 8: My Demon's Name

My old friend came to visit me once again today. He came while I was riding along, thinking about nothing particular at all beyond the beauty of the leaves on the trees. I suppose I may have been thinking about how the leaves had yet to die, telling myself some optimistic story about their coming into life, and surviving past the odds. I stopped, feeling his presence nearby. Perhaps those trees have survived for now, but for what? he seemed to ask. Just a stretched-out subsistence in the cold until they too pass away.

I turned to face him, the demon that crowds my mind. I greeted him as I often do, knowing the power he will hold over me. I could battle for my own consciousness, or I could submit to his devilish power once again. My weapon quickly came to hand, Rosie singing her sweet tune to cheer me. Rather than attack, he simply smiled, and waited.

No, no. Move along, dear demon. I am content now. I am content here. Do not cross that line in the sand, demon. Rosie’s music will keep you away. She is my friend. We will win this fight together.

The spirit before me only grew in strength as I began to sing. I could see him, and I stood my ground. It seemed as though his darkness began to be released from underneath his feet, reaching out to me with a red aura that speaks to the malice in his heart. Rosie fought tooth and nail, constantly in battle. The darkness stayed on its side of the line, with Rosie and I on the other, hoping that line would not break.

Thoughts, like a crowded circus tent, erupted in my mind in amazement, confusion, and disarray. My brain wandered everywhere at once, gathering little as it explored a thousand small worries and then a thousand more. As my mind began to wander, Rosie’s song became weaker. Soon, I could not speak. The words dried on my tongue, and would not be released for all the water in heaven and on earth.

The darkness came closer, until it surrounded me. The demon laughed, as I began to kneel before him. I felt my spirit torn from my flesh, and the darkness began to overwhelm me. I watched as the demon took who I am and put that soul in a cage, not to be released until he had had his way with my body.

Suddenly, he overwhelmed me. I faced the world alone, and all of the love I had within me was gone. I cared for nothing, and the only emotions I could experience were the numbness that comes after death, and the deep fear of what that demon might do to the soul still locked in that cage. I looked to the world and nothing was beautiful. Nothing was good. Nothing was worthwhile. Blinded by this darkness, everything in life that made it worth living was suddenly gone. And here I stood, left alone, my only companion the darkness all around.

I wish that there were words for the fear present in that moment. I knew that I am in control of my mind, even if the darkness surrounds me. It is still me there, though my spirit seems to have stolen from me. Everything is just covered in that darkness, as if I had somehow survived the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and could only examine the encrusted remains of the city I had once loved. It is sadness. But it is so much more than sadness.

This demon has never delighted in causing me to take action. I am not sure if his brothers and sisters are better trained in the art of destruction, or if the one who haunts me is just particularly sadistic. He delights in watching me attempt to function. Perhaps he keeps a tally of all the times I have avoided answering how I am doing, for fear of revealing that he is present. Or of all the times when someone has offered to help, and I have turned them down because I know it will pass, eventually. Or watching as the people with whom I finally share the secret give up trying to help at all.

Perhaps the greatest evil is that his brothers and sisters seem to plague us all, in different ways. So many of us feel the darkness, but they draw the shroud so deeply over our faces that no one can see one another clearly enough to detect the black eyes they leave. How dispensable our bodies are to these intruders! Thrown off of buildings and out of moving cars, swinging from nooses and painting the walls in crimson. Over and over, they overwhelm and consume us.

Now he laughs, thinking that he has me once again. But inside my cage, I am now the one laughing. He thinks he waited long enough, but I can wait longer. When released from this cage, I will be the one who rips the veil in two and declares to the world:

BEHOLD, THIS, MY DEMON: HIS NAME IS DEPRESSION.

I will do it. I will face the world, and I will stand, proud, against his darkness as it approaches. I will sing with Rosie loudly, and join the chorus of voices of those who have heard my song and tear off their own veils. Together, we can win.

But the demon laughs again. Sure. His only reply.

And I know in my heart that he is right, once again. I have been given the chance, again and again to expose his violence. To tell the world of my abuser. To declare him dead and gone in my life. But I have submitted, over and over again, because he is so powerful.

So, I become numb. I wait him out, return my soul to my body, and once again, I do nothing.

Day 8: Nineteen hundred and six miles to home. How many left to find me? I don’t really know.

Day 7: The In-Between Times

You know the aching moments after you ask someone on a date? You just managed to work up the courage to make yourself vulnerable to their power, and it feels as though the whole world hangs in the balance. It really isn’t that big of a deal, most of the time, whether the other person says yes or no. Rejection is just a natural part of life, and one we all need to learn to deal with in one way or another. The anxiety is in the waiting.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Your heartbeat lunges ahead at three, four times the tick, tock, tick, waiting for an answer, any answer at all. You feel relieved when they finally say something, not because they necessarily said yes, but just because there is some resolution to what feels like a slow march to the guillotine.

It’s even worse by phone. What might really only be a minute or two is suddenly stretched out, feeling like hours of searching for an answer. You check the screen every few moments, wondering if you have somehow managed to ruin everything. Civilization will be falling apart now that you admit you want to spend more time with someone.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock. It continues on indefinitely, until finally they respond and mention that they’ve just gotten out of the shower, which they conveniently decided to take at the worst possible time for you, ever. What if a meteorite had struck the earth right at the moment, and you never got to know what they said, because they had to take a shower?

My life kind of feels like that moment right now. The in-between time, just waiting for God to text back and tell me she’s too busy to hang out on Saturday. Or really, for God to text back to me at all. She seems to keep her phone on silent these days.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Round goes the clock, hoping one day for the Rock to start talking to me again to give me some direction.

My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by my phone ringing in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw the picture of my friend Kelly smiling at me. After quickly getting off the road, I answered the phone with a grin. “Hey Kelly,” I said, genuinely happy to be hearing from her. “You never call me,” I chuckle, “What’s the emergency?”

“Micah, where did you go?” came her reply, without the same happiness. Slowly, realization came over me. I had been told by so many people not to go that I stopped telling people. Somehow, I had managed not to tell Kelly.

I lost any ability to speak with confidence. “I just... went.” I had to say it twice before the words were audible.

“Where are you?” she asked, not betraying any emotion in her voice.

I questioned for a moment if I should answer honestly. On the one hand, this was Kelly. The girl who I could trust with the strangest thoughts running through my brain at all times. She understood my mind, often in ways I did not. Our friendship, and our trust, meant the world to me. I couldn’t just lie to her.

But on the other hand, she might try to come with me. I love her as deeply as friends do, but leaving her education would be a bad decision right now. She didn’t need to leave. But she might if I had asked. Maybe even if I didn’t ask.

“Somewhere between Iredell and Hico.”

She was silent for awhile. “Are you really doing this?”

“I suppose so,” I chuckled.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice finally broke, and her distress became evident. Now it was my turn to be silent. I looked down at my shoes, covered in dirt. I shuffled my feet, unsure of how to respond.

“Who told you?” I asked after a long pause.

She laughed into the phone. “Is that really what matters? You go and ditch me and don’t even let me know?”

“I had to go,” I muttered, unable to really articulate what I was trying to say. “I have to find my way home.”

A long pause interrupted again. The pauses were nothing new, because our conversations were often filled with moments of contemplation, when one of us would be taken aback by the new way of seeing something the other revealed. We would breath into this new paradigm, and try to understand. I felt her doing that now. “I would have told you to go,” she said, finally.

My heart broke a little as she said it. My other friends were hurt when I left, but those closest to me had had the chance to share one last hug. Except for Kelly. Why didn’t I tell her?

Because if I had, I wouldn’t have gone. I would have wanted to stay and talk with her for hours, exploring the depths of everything I was feeling, and I never would have left. The promise of a new intellectual adventure with her would tempt me to stay, living into a complacency that was life-giving, yes, but not to the fullness for which I was seeking.

“I love you, my friend,” I whispered after long enough, trying to look through her new paradigm. Tick, tock.

“I love you too, Micah,” she responded, and then pausing. Tick, tock. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to beat your ass.”

I smiled, knowing that she was smiling back at me with that sweet smirk of hers. “I know.” I asked her why she called, and she began to talk just like we always did. I imagined myself sitting with her in a hidden booth at the old dining hall, like we used to. It was always a Friday around two, so most people were gone or left us alone. I tried to eat healthier on Fridays, so I would have some bland, dry salad that would take me years to chew. She would always finish the food on her tiny plate so quickly that I felt like a tortoise showing up to a hare’s carrot eating contest. But the conversation was always worth the eating embarrassments. Our thoughts would wander through what it means to love, and what that means for theology, and settle back down on how to love our pesky roommates.

The conversation went on for hours, as it always did. She asked about the trip, and how I was feeling. I asked about school, and what she was doing to really live while in school. Gradually we wandered as usual onto the topic of a loving God. She reminded me of my own conviction that God loves us even when we don’t feel God doing so, but that God will only pursue us as much as we can handle. When we finally said goodbye, it was only because my phone was on less than ten percent battery, and I needed it alive in case of an emergency.

As we said goodbye, she told me once again that she wanted to beat me up for not even inviting her along. I apologized, but after a pause, she threw the apology back in my face. In one of her silly voices, she just replied, “Micah, you gotta do what you gotta do.”

I rode on from that place, feeling as if I had sat on holy ground. I suppose the tick, tock, tick, tock, was over. God has spoken through my dear friend, only so much as I was able to handle. Maybe with God, there is no in-between time--just the time between when you want to hear it, and when you are willing to hear it.

As it turns out, God texted back. Saturday doesn’t look very good, but she’s totally free on Sunday.

Day 7: Nineteen hundred and sixteen miles to home. Maybe only a few more to me.

Day 6: Dear Jehovah-Shalom

Dear Jehovah-Shalom,

I can’t seem to get my body to stop shaking. My gut keeps spasming, as if I am about to be sick. My hands are unsteady, and I cannot see straight.

As you know, of course, I was riding along the road at my usual speed, trying to continue on my way home. Out of nowhere, a truck came upon alongside me, and I pulled farther right so that they could pass. Rather than giving me space to continue on my way, the driver of the large, black truck pulled closer to me. I pulled off further, and he slowed to my speed, rolling down the window as he did so. “Get off the road, hippie motherfu--”  he screamed over the roar of his large engine, and, so caught off guard, I pushed down hard on my brakes as fast as possible. I flipped over my front wheel, luckily landing on my backpack. Thanks, I suppose, for watching out for me a little bit.

Much more than my few scars, I am left just so... terrified. The truck headed off in the same direction I am going, and I wonder if he’s coming back for me. How many more slurs could he throw? He must have been drunk, but what’s stopping him from doing it again? He must have been drunk. And maybe next time, what if he pulls over faster? Maybe he has a gun.

Oh God, God of peace. Wash over me now, for I am so afraid. I know we haven’t been on the best of terms lately, but I promise you, I am trying to do your will. I just can’t seem to hear you anymore. I need your peace. I am left weak, and scared, and trembling before you.

Is that what we’re supposed to do? Is this how we work out our salvation, in the midst of fear and trembling? What does salvation require? Let me say the magic words, Lord, and then just fix everything. Transform me without struggling with guilt, without working on healing, God. Just make it easy.

No? Nothing? Why isn’t your Spirit descending to come and take away my fear?

Am I just too much of a sinner?

I have spent the last year in penance, Lord, for the brokenness endured with and render unto Cassie. Every time I seemed to heal a little bit more, and I felt that my weight had been lifted, I would just begin to get lonely. 2015 was the year of fifteen unstable relationships, all but one ending just the others: She would become dependent, I would realize I could only hurt her, and I would end it. I felt like a bomb with a lit fuse, but I had no idea how long the fuse would be.

I begged you for forgiveness, God. I asked over and over for healing, and that those I had left behind might be made whole. I pray now for reconciliation, and that each one of them can find what they’re looking for. We were all struggling towards happiness, and wandered into one each other’s lives. Then I departed before they were ready, leaving them spinning and me with the weight of their pain on my shoulders.

Let me give it up, Lord. Take away from me the burden of my sins. I know that the list is long, and I do not even know of all the ways I have hurt those around me. How many broken people can one broken soul create?

I thought I was healed. I was ready to be alone. I felt your peace for that week or so. And then I fell into another relationship. But I was happy then, too. It lasted a little while longer, and I fell in love. I thought you were there, in the midst of that love. And you probably were, I suppose. Why didn’t I feel complete then?

That ended, too, without much of a warning. Like the sands on the shore, one storm wiped it all away, and I was left more wounded than I had been since Cassie. But, why? Why did it happen? Is it because I never really dealt with the pain from Cassie anyway?

What did I do?

What did I do to be nearly run off the road by the drunk, angry driver?

Some part of me continues to cry out that I am just a sinner, and that I deserve everything that has come to me. But God, the book I believe to be your word declares that I can lay down my sins before you. Is there still some deep karmic power, outside of your control? Or is this all part of my punishment?

I do not know what sins I have committed, Lord. I do not know who I have broken nor to what extent their heart lies in ruins. For all the sins I do not know, forgive me. For all of the sins I am committing now, forgive me. I would repent if I could name them all. Please, take me out of this purgatorio, out of this hell lying before me!

I want to know your presence, God. And so I’m sitting here in the cold, trying to read the Bible from the dim light of my phone, wrapped in the prayer shawl your people in Oregon gave to me. It is here that I last felt you move, and it is here to where I must run when it feels as though you are missing. Dismiss this distance, Jehovah, and bring me your Shalom.

Let me know the truth of the Psalmist when she declares,

"I sought the Lord, and he answered me,

and delivered me from all my fears.

Look to him, and be radiant;

so your faces shall never be ashamed.

This poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord,

and was saved from every trouble.

The angel of the Lord encamps

around those who fear him, and delivers them.

O taste and see that the Lord is good;

happy are those who take refuge in him."

Amen.

Day 6: Nineteen hundred and twenty-eight miles to home. Maybe only a few more to me.

Day 5: Burying a Friend

I wish I could talk to you again.

I miss when I would walk into your room, plop down on your bed, and finally take off the oppressive tie around my neck. It felt like a noose that only your presence could loosen. A lot of things felt like a noose, at times. We would just sit, and talk for hours. And talk about real things, too. Not just this small talk stuff that I am forced into with most of my interactions. We delved deep behind everything, searching the corners of our minds for new ideas.

And you thought so much like me, too. It was scary, really, the way our minds seemed to sync up. You often found the most beautiful ways to say what I could not formulate into words, and you would joke that I was psychic for saying what you tried to say just before you could say it. We challenged each other in our biases, for me to view the world a little differently, and for you to see the world as a little bit better.

We shared a passion for justice, and your heart, that sweet heart, drew me to you. I could never get over the way you smiled at me when I ranted, sometimes not understanding, but listening anyway. I know you must’ve really loved me because you would put up with my strange tangents about technical things that the average person would spend their entire life without ever thinking. And I loved to hear of your passion for people. I could listen to you talk about them for year, and I treasure every minute of those four years I got to listen.

But the silence was equally sweet. There was a peace there, where I could truly rest. I took off all of my many hats, and threw them on the messy floor with all the other lost artifacts. Somewhere on that floor was a box with all the love notes I wrote to you. I still have those you gave to me, somewhere in an envelope. Maybe I’ll read them again one day.

We tried to be friends, for a little while. I think we both knew that you can’t really be friends with someone you loved so deeply. Things became strained. That probably hurt the worst. Hoping against hope that somehow, I hadn’t lost everything I loved about you, and seeing it quickly slip away. Maybe the girl who listened to me would still talk to me. Maybe that girl would let me listen.

When communication was cut off, I spiralled. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t even like myself very much without you. I loved me when I loved you. I think I did life right then. But alone?

Then you went off and made a lot of decisions I couldn’t condone. I made a bunch of stupid decisions I couldn’t condone. And our relationship was over, without any possibility for reconciliation. I felt like I was burying a friend that day. Shovelling the dirt into the coffin myself, until I decided to fall into the pit as well. The man still shovelling was someone else. Someone darker, older, a little more broken. Someone I really didn’t like.

I felt like I died when I stopped shovelling, and that I was now someone new entirely. Ironically enough, what I had feared so much came to be reality. Two bodies, laying next to one another, taken from me by some mysterious power of life I do not understand. God? If so, why not just take me then?

But I didn’t die then. I am the man standing here, and somewhere, on the other side of the world, you were burying my body in your own way. I wonder if the tears came to you in the same way they did to me. Perhaps you had to tell yourself some lie, just like I had to do. Some lie that let that body be one you do not recognize, or at least the living ghost as some other being.

Oh, the lies I have had to tell myself to hate you. I convinced myself you were evil, that you had set it all up to make me fall in love with you just to take it all from me. But I knew your heart, and I couldn’t believe you would do something like that. I convinced myself your friends manipulated you, turned you against me. But I knew you were stronger than that, and that you loved me too deeply. I convinced myself you were crazy, or deeply in need, and comforted myself with that. To whatever extent these were true, I made them so much larger in my mind. I just couldn’t hate you.

I am not content to lie to myself any more. I loved you, with all of my heart. And for a time, that was what was meant to be. Today, it is no longer.

I have long since abandoned the shovel for a better pursuit. I am done burying friends. Now, I’m on a bike, trying to find myself.

Goodbye,

You once-loved-one,

Gone to the world of fond memories

And woe-begotten roads

I hope to pass once again,

One day.

Our time was fleeting,

Like all things,

But like the stars in their course,

Worth following while lost

Upon the shifting sands.

Thank you

For the beauty you dispersed

Upon my path as I go,

And I hope you might remember

The favor as returned.

If nay, I pray that one day,

God might let me see you again,

To bring for you a smile once more.

Day 5: Nineteen hundred and thirty-nine miles to go. Maybe only a few more to me.