We must then dig deeply in Christ. He is like a rich mine with many pockets containing treasures: however deep we dig we will never find their end or their limit. In every pocket new seams of fresh riches are discovered on all sides...The soul that longs for divine wisdom chooses first, and in truth, to enter the thicket of the cross. (st john of the cross)
Back up.
For months now I've been on the run. Hiding, dodging, nervously laughing my way out of reality, broken dreams, uncertainty. It's comfortable here in the land of apathy and fear and self-doubt. I don't have to look at any bills, any rejection letters, the tough questions that come at me from all directions. It was easy to fill my life with distractions: TV, internet, shopping, eating, taking unnecessary mini-vacations. I'm good at it.
But doing this has its price. Constructing defenses like mine will keep out the hurt, the pain of dealing with the loss of the life you once imagined for yourself; it will also keep out everything else. Like love, hope, joy, faith, God. Suffering hurts, numbness doesn't. And if you're not careful, fear will take over.
And it did. But grace sticks, and God never lets go.
I was watching Glee the other day. It was their sectionals episode and all the characters are struggling with their futures. Follow your passion, the hard thing, but the thing you were put on this earth to do. Or do what's easier, what someone else wants you to do, maybe what's more acceptable. But doing that, choosing the latter, will slowly kill your joy. It will take away your hope and make you miserable. I know. I've been there. So many times, in fact, I can't even remember an alternative.
Now, I'm a sensitive person, so, naturally, I started crying. I missed that. Joy that is so big you are glowing from it. So full of it that you look cheesy and spontaneously burst into song. Those corny kids on Glee, you can tell they love what they do. Even if you don't follow Lea Michele on Twitter, you can just tell. It shows.
I couldn't quite put my prayers into words that night, but I think Jesus gets the point. I miss Him; I miss me.
The next day I cracked open my old Liturgy of the Hours set. The reading for that day's Office was from St. John of the Cross. He wrote that suffering was the narrow path, the only way to Christ, to truth, to life. I thought again of Glee. How many times were those actors and dancers rejected before they made it? How often do they have to get up while it's still dark out and stretch and do vocal exercises and do photo shoots?
But when you are in the crux of His purpose for you, doing the very thing that every fiber of your being calls out for, does it really matter? I don't know, but I think the answer's no. Not really, anyway.
He says we must choose to suffer, and choose this "in truth". I can't do that if I'm lying to myself.
I felt light flood my soul. The beginnings of growth, inching steadily closer to wisdom, to Him. They say you must lose your life to find it. Right now, in this moment, which is all I really have anyway, this is what I choose. It is hard, but it's a start.
Amen!
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