Paradox

Should I be honest? After all, I don't actually know who is out there reading, and why should I be sharing my thoughts and struggles with nameless faceless people. Not that you are all without identity - family, fellow students (past and present), friends of old and friends of new. People who know me and love me. Perhaps you read my words, as I read yours, because you have a genuine interest in me, because my words can be interesting or thought provoking, because a snapshot picture in my life gives you a different interest, insight or thought about your own. Maybe it's a spread out form of community - opportunity to be challenged, or simply to see the best way to pray for a friend.

A fellow student found me sitting in a dark hallway of the empty, after-hours College building last evening, weeping, but he refused to leave me there. Peeling me off the floor, he told me firmly that I shouldn't be alone, took me off, plied me with cups of tea, and listened to me talk. For hours. What a sacrifice of friendship - Christian love - community, but he didn't seem to think of it as sacrifice. It was merely a matter of course.

This evening in choir a gentleman came in late - he hasn't been in rehearsals since some time before Christmas. His own life and that of his family has been tough for the last six months or so, but when he saw me during the break he stopped and sat down. "You're still here! What's going on?" And for a few short minutes he actually listened, something clicked, I thought he might actually understand, but the break ended and the opportunity was gone.

Sometimes it bewilders me how two people can look at the same situation, event or series of events and see something entirely different. While I dread something, another in exactly the same situation looks forward to enjoying it. Why does the thought of something that excites her make me cringe. How differently we feel! How can I cross the gap and learn to see things through her eyes?

Those of you who have been reading my posts for some time might perhaps recall a few posts late last autumn dealing with my interest in a young man. Even in the face of a polite 'no thank you' that interest will persist. There are days I despise myself. "It's sweet," says one friend, but I can't see it that way. I don't know how to see it. I don't know how to understand it. I don't know how to accept it. I don't understand why I should. He is still there. I am still here. The distance between us might as well be an ocean, when will I see a sign that it will ever be otherwise - with him or any other?

Today I received an email from the son of the church secretary at the church where I preached two days ago. My mother gave me your information . . . she says you are a . . . very able preacher. . . I am the pulpit secretary for my church . . . would you come and preach? Surely I ought to be thrilled, or at least pleased, or at least complimented. This is good - isn't it? Yet something in me objects, violently, angrily. I don't need something else to deal with, something else to worry about, something else draining my reserves of strength - reserves that are already virtually dry. Sanity totters on the bring . . .

Hence me sitting alone in the dark College building. Crying. Praying. Seeking God. Found by his servant. Yet today I am still a mess, still angry with myself, still frightened. Frightened out of my wits. Terrified. . . and hurting. I never believed I could feel this much pain and still be alive. Not just alive, thriving, growing, changing, learning, becoming. A peace that does not take away the pain.

And somewhere in there I have a vague recollection: I'm 'working' on a PhD. I have assignments - deadlines - things that must be done. They will be done. I know that, but to know and to see are not the same things, and this suspense. . . there simply aren't words. I have used up hours worth only to end up speechless. The depth and weight of that suspense, of living in this place, of the places of utter terror in the unfathomed parts of my soul . . . but even under that - deeper, higher, wider - there is peace, beyond understanding, beyond description, beyond explanation.