Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Talking like lions... sacrificing like lambs...

(It's a blue album kind of day.)

I'm going to ramble for a while here; don't expect a clear thread.

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I'm impatient with progress. I'm impatient with the necessity of personal change. My attitude is the childish "now or never" instead of the mature "eventually."

I hate "eventually." It's a misty word, foggy, half-seen and elusive. It's not a solid word.

I like the certainty of "now." I like the definitive nature of "never."

I despise waiting.

I don't even know what I'm supposed to be waiting for. For years, I've felt that I'm nearing this magical corner that I will turn, and in my turning "become." Become whatever it is I'm supposed to be. Become better than myself. Grow up. Mature.

Years have passed, and no such magical corner has been found. I've turned ordinary corners, walked down common paths, made decisions, stuck with some and gave up on others.

I feel like my life is slipping away while I'm waiting for a mythical sense of completion. Not "completeness" in any kind of spiritual way. I mean more, a sense of self-satisfied and peaceful achievement, whether it be a healthy romantic relationship or a new level of personal awareness. I've taken steps (more to the latter than the former). I've pulled a few things together. But I still feel like a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. The borders are done, and a few floating patches of color are there, but everything else is a blank jumble.

How can I invite anyone else into my jumble? It's unthinkable and unfair, but I want to. One of my strongest desires at this point in my life is to return to that point of emotional intimacy with another person, that feeling of loving and being loved that only the one-on-one of romantic love can provide. Perhaps I'm wrong for wanting it so much. But the Christian rhetoric of "contenting yourself wholly in the Lord" isn't going far with me right now. I'm still following Christ and I'm still learning, but the way I'm feeling, I believe one of the truest statements of God is one of the first ones recorded. "It's not good for [Dave] to be alone."

Somewhere in my mind, there's the thought that I am alone because I'm not ready. That somehow I haven't learned my lesson. That I have to turn another corner in my personal growth before I'll be "ready" to date again. I don't know where this idea is coming from, but it feels like I'm having to work out some sort of unspecified penance for my previous faults. And I'm tired of penance. At the end of my last relationship, I was a crappy boyfriend. I've admitted this, I've accepted it, and I'm learned from it. And in my next relationship, I'll make plenty of mistakes; some old, some new. There's no way to avoid that. But it's idiocy to think that by cloistering myself, I'll attain some sort of zen-like perfection in the relationship department. I don't know where this idea is coming from, but there it is.

I'm ready to start making some stupid mistakes. I'm tired, so damned tired of calculating my risks. I'll take some ugly rejections, a whole hatful, just for the opportunity to break up this friggin monotony. I'm so incredibly sick that NOTHING IS GOING ON with me. My personal life has been stuck in a self-imposed doldrum. My sails are hanging limp; a symbolic joke on me. The seas are deadly still. There is no motion. There is no regress, yes; but no progress either. I'm getting nowhere.

I wrapped up my hesitation to ask out a cool, sweet, cute girl, in the spin of "waiting on God's will" and "not feeling like the right time." I was trying to be honest. But was I being honest with myself? Is God waiting for me to meet him halfway? To buy a ticket, so to speak? I'm so petrified of moving on my own, of making a choice, that I pray, "God, move me, so I don't have to take responsibility for moving"? Because that could be the answer. God could be waiting for me to actually step into a Jordan river. If the waters don't recede, then it wasn't my Jordan. Or maybe it was. Maybe God is waiting for me to crap out in a couple more relationships before taking me where he wants me to go. Maybe I'm just full of crap.

I'm almost at the point where I want to step out of God's will, just to feel his disciplining hand as he moves me back. Just to know he's there. Like the rebellious child who disobeys, who reaps the punishment, to get any attention. It's blasphemous to imply that the Lord God doesn't pay attention, doesn't speak, because I know He does. His mercies are everlasting. But there are times, there are moments, when I start breathing psalm 22 through clenched jaws.

so this is me, God. crying out from a dead calm sea. asking for a little more direction, even in the form of discipline.

that prayer should scare me more than it does. but turmoil is movement. bring on the rain.

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