Part 072/22/2009 8:12:39 PM Journal Entry I remain depressed—sad, just very, very sad. In trying to figure out if I feel I’m not working (as opposed to others), it becomes increasingly more difficult to separate how I’m feeling from what I know to be intellectually true. Do I feel I’m not working? I’ve been here so often I now know it will pass. Yet, still I must feel. I can’t skip over this just because I know what’s going on (because I understand the process). I ache. Oh, how I ache. And I have no idea why. Does it, I wonder, have more to do with ordination that I suspect? Right now, I have no clue how the world and I fit together—what will be my job, my place in the world. But a job doesn’t give me a place in the world. I have a place in the world apart from a job. Here again, like the marriage system, maybe I could see how ordination didn’t determine me, but am having trouble separating myself from the system of vocation. I can give up ordination as a construct as long as there’s something to take its place. But—apart from vocation—how do I define my place in the world? Or how about my understanding/wisdom/discernment? Do I see that as defining me? Rather than having discernment, do I see myself as a discerning person? All these are possibilities, but haven’t yet hit home. I think it does have something to do with ordination/pastor. I can now look at marriage and see myself as complete apart from that system, but I’m having trouble when it comes to ordination. If I leave the ordained ministry, I think I will feel somehow less, diminished, lightweight, insubstantial. So if I recognize this, why doesn’t it make a difference? I’m so tired I can’t think. Journal Entry A curiosity question. I wonder if my struggle with weight is tied in any way to transition, for this transition has been intense over the years. As I let go of more constructs that used to define me, I realize the journey towards these losses is the feeling of being diminished, unsubstantial. Have I countered that with weight gain? Journal Entry I’m obviously still working through something. What I saw—a self separate from the system of marriage and the system of vocation—wasn’t the end; I don’t feel I’ve completely resolved what’s bothering me. I guess this is one of those fertile periods when a lot of stuff comes together at once. I remain depressed, longing, etc., ready to cry, tired, feeling a distance from people. I recognize the signs; I just don’t know what they target. Journal Entry I’m not sleeping well at all, and I can’t determine whether it’s because I’m working through something or hot flashes, or both. One wakes me up, the other keeps me awake. I do feel tired. And by evening I just want to curl up somewhere and sleep. I do know there’s something to be processed but am at the ‘I have no clue’ stage. For now, the task is to endure, not shut out the process, and wait. And, of course, keep going. Life is a series of deaths, a continual dying and letting go so that there may be life. When God asks us to give up something, he’s not asking us not to care. We must, in fact, embrace the pain of loss and mourn. We don’t carelessly shed what has been and get on with life as though what has been doesn’t matter. It costs us, it costs dearly. Yet, to deny that cost is to make the giving up more costly still. Journal Entry It’s early morning and I sit outside, in the woods, at the Confirmation Retreat. It’s hard in the midst of such intensity and level of activity to sense the presence of God—or maybe I should say, to hear as I usually hear. God certainly is here with us. There’s just a lot of noise and little time for quiet. I see and hear the geese flying, the birds are singing, and the sun is coming up. I remember, yet again, how much I love and miss the woods…the smells, the sounds. It’s alive with sounds. Almost too noisy to hear God speak. Isn’t that something? I really have learned to appreciate silence. Perhaps this is distracting because it’s different. Yesterday as I walked within the hospital, I again mourned that I might no longer minister. Then I realized, God’s not calling me away from ministry, just a certain function within a certain system. I am still me no matter where I am or what I’m doing. Even in death, do I entirely cease to exist? Even when ‘me’, whatever that finally is, is held in the hands of the eternal God? As long as God exists, I exist, because he brought me into being and has made me his own. Even if I die—completely die—I exist because my future is already guaranteed. I never completely go out of existence because I’m held in the mind of God. God remembers; he creates. It’s not that I’m worth remembering. It’s just that that’s who God is. He chooses to love us and remember us. That’s how I exist. In the being of God. Everything else right now is construct, in a certain sense…from the perspective of our human understanding. But in actuality, something of God exists in it all because the creative work of the Holy Spirit exists backward and forward through time. Nothing is ever lost that God brings into being through us and among us, because God remembers. I think God wants me to write about construct, and about his creative, redeeming activity through it all. About his word of hope that can’t be silenced by or within any construct, and that we are never to hold others in contempt because God’s creative Spirit is as much at work among others as ourselves. There is no construct that is so strong it prevails against the Holy Spirit. We must allow people’s faith to be sufficient for them at the same time we walk together on a journey of continuing discovery, and each one of us must be open to learning and being taught by all people within all constructs. This is a gift of this life’s journey…the capacity to learn from one another, delight in one another. I sit here and listen to the noise of the woods, and I realize even as it’s not perfect silence, God works. The thoughts come in startling ways. But I miss the physical-ness of his presence, if I can call it that, which comes through so strongly in silence. It just reminds me again and again how much we need quiet time with God.
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