I watched a turtle try to cross the road. To make a tedious and tragic story short, the turtle's journey, while not cut short, was redirected, ending in a total about-face. Wouldn't it have been more merciful to have simply ended the journey there? To have crushed it or flipped it upside-down, eaten it or something like that? Rather than to spin it about when it had nearly crossed the entire span of the road so that, believing it had at long last reached the other side, continued on in utter ignorance of the fact that it was back where it had begun! How absurd!

Last month, through a series of events and thoughts I cannot even recall now with clarity or certainty that they even occurred, I decided to return to school. Five years ago, I swore I was done. Done with dreaming, done with aspiring, done with all of it. For five years, I was true to the vow and never once wavered. I was never given cause to waver. But then, for some hideous, indefinite and cruel reason I changed my mind. I lost my job. I hated it anyway, and they hated me, but I lost it just the same and have been unable for the last month and a half to find another. I am living off of my mother. I am 32 and living off of my mom.

This time it was going to be different. I would study my you-know-what off, nothing else mattered but doing well and getting it over with. I would do my best. What could go wrong if I did my best? I had my first exam last week. I got my grade back yesterday. A "D".

And now what do I do? I can withdraw, but there will be no refund. I have no job, no prospects, no future, nothing. I have nothing. I gave what little I had up for more failure. I have no idea what to do. I am ashamed and embarrassed. I have no one to to turn to, nowhere to go, nothing to do. I am trapped inside this house, inside this town, inside my own failure of a life with nowhere to go and nothing to do! I don't know what to do. I feel that God has abandoned me, that He abandoned me a long time ago. I don't resent Him. It's not like I deserved the company. But I thought that...I was trying. I really was trying. I thought that, even if this wasn't the path (again), that my hard work would be rewarded with more than a "D". It's like a slap in the face.

"You fool! Didn't you get it the last time? What will it take for you to get it through your head that you aren't any good? You can't do this! Stop trying! How many times will take for you to figure it out, stupid!"

There is no place for me.

4/21/17

Is this really my life? Lonely, solitary, monotonous?
I have been advised, "Let God row the boat". This advice is of little comfort to me, for what's the use of allowing God to row the boat if I have never left the shore? I am standing upon the banks of some body of water, watching other boats sail, row, drift beyond the horizon. I stand here, thinking of whether I shall eat carbohydrates tomorrow or nothing at all. Do I go to work tomorrow? If not, how shall I occupy my time?
I go to my email inbox to find it empty. I search for someone to whom I can write, and find no one. I think, "Sunday night I shall be alone.". I'd like to do something, but can think of nothing to do and no one with whom to do it. "How many sleeping pills do I have? I'll go to bed early".
No book holds my interest. Poems are banal, sentimental, ridiculous. Television and film are redundant, tedious, egocentric, blind.
"What do you read my lord?"
"Words, words words."
Food is also troublesome and unoriginal. "Nothing tastes".
Ideas, opinions, ideals--all meaningless.
History. Repetitious. 

מָרוּד

"I do not understand how anyone can live without one small place of enchantment to turn to."

-  Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings -

"What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?"   

-  Henry David Thoreau -

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” 

-C.S. Lewis-

I'm tired of this society, this earth where no one is satisfied with himself and so finds it necessary to be dissatisfied with everyone else. Where everyone is self-seeking, even and especially those self-proclaimed philanthropists, those physicians of mankind's temporal maladies. Where even the air we breathe and surround ourselves with does us harm.

I am tired of having no home, of no comfortable place. Of bearing a body that is forever aching and sore, a mind always restless and imperfectly thinking, a heart that is torn between being too malleable or too hard. 

I am tired of bearing with people who are insincere, illogical, demanding, belittling, and selfish. I am tired of witnessing the abuse exacted and suffered by others. I am tired of the uselessness, of the waste of space, the empty, incessant words.

You Can't Go Home Again

I arrived on American soil late Monday night. The feelings of reverse culture shock have been almost proverbial and barely worth relating. I have done my best not to allow things to get away from me, while at the same time the desperate urge to preserve all that I have experienced, seen, heard, learned about myself, the world, and God has not faltered. I have had so much to write about, and yet because of the sheer volume, I have had nothing to write about.

All this to say that I am home, that is, that I have returned to the land of my terrestrial birth. And yet, I am not home. That is to say, this place, this particular longitude and latitude, has never been my home. But once a resident has been away for a time--and that time need not be long--he discovers things about himself, about the place he called home in light of all the places that had once been (and may perhaps continue to be) strange to him, and about elsewhere that make it impossible for him to see "home" the same way. One truly cannot go home again, for reasons both good and bad. Home as it was will never again, even though a physical departure from it is not necessary. All one must really do is grow up. But leaving does seem to accelerate the process by which we begin to notice differences, changes, shortcomings, things we long for or detest that are either no more or are different in relation to our perception and experience of them.

My greatest fear is not that I will unable to return to life as usual. My greatest fear is not that I will be unable to relate to people here. My greatest fear is not that I will forget anything or everything that has transpired over the course of these three months. No, my greatest fear is that I will return to life as usual, that I will look upon this place as alien, and that, while remembering lessons and revelations, will choose to ignore them. I do not want things to be the same as they were. I do not want to be the same person I was. I do not want to distance myself from life or from God.  I want to continue to grow in the Light, to seek Him with all my heart, to be alone with Him, to serve Him, and love Him. I want to enjoy living and to do so diligently. I want to share whatever I have to share and to be alive, not as those who have not known the Truth are alive.

I have discovered many things, but my competence in the execution or understanding is only at the most elementary level. I am like one who has discovered music--that it exists--but cannot yet play with authority or finesse. I have just discovered the world of mathematics, of science. I am like one blind who has just seen the blue sky, the white of clouds, the green of spring, but is as yet unaware of what I am looking at or of how I am looking at it. All I can do is see, but nothing more. The window has been cracked open just a little more and I can see beyond where I could see before, though it be not far beyond.

I can understand more deeply what it means to die to the world, to old ways, to compromises, to things that are so unimportant, but for which so many lose their lives. I have understood what it is to run away, to be gathered back and disciplined, only to be forgiven and comforted the very moment following repentance. I have had but a glimpse of what it is to be totally dependent upon God.

It is difficult to come back, although I suppose it is incorrect to look at it that way. I am not coming back, that is, I am not regressing (although I certainly have that option). There is so much to say, and yet perhaps it cannot or should not be said.

“Something has spoken to me in the night...and told me that I shall die, I know not where. Saying: "[Death is] to lose the earth you know for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth.” 

― Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again--

Balm of Gilead

"He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed."  

(Isaiah 53:3-6)

Nepal: Land That Took My Breath Away...Literally

Nepal: land of the Himalayas, mo-mos, torturously slow internet, and doggedly determined street salesmen. Stepping out of the plane and into shiver-inducing 75-degree weather, I had almost decided then and there that the transition from Southeast Asia to Nepal was going to be a piece of cake. Almost.

24 hours and five scheduled power outages, one ordeal ncessitating the slicing through of airline-placed zip ties on my suitcase with the top of a can of tuna inadvertently placed in my carry-on bag (hey, God's plan may seem whacky at times, but it works!); being bodily shoved, pushed, and prodded by passersby, rickshaws, and taxis every time I ventured outside; and three encounters with undeniably insulting Nepalese men later, I sort of kind of reconsidered my perception.

Nepal Facts:

1) It is a fact widely acknowledged by those who find breathing here to be somewhat of a challenge, that out of 180 countries, Nepal ranks as the world's 2nd worst for air pollution. I am in agreement with this fact, though even if I were not, I am positive that it would continue to be true. Breathing here has become burdensome and does not occur unaccompanied by productive coughing.

2) In addition to air pollution, noise pollution is particularly severe, particularly in Kathmandu, particularly in the tourist district of Thamel, particularly just below my window, particularly in the wee hours of the morning. The honking of one's horn is more readily executed than greeting someone with, say, one's voice or the wave of a hand. A horn honks every 0.3 seconds in Kathmandu, but just in case you were about to lose your mind, be aware that every time a horn honks, a person doesn't die.

3) There are mountains here. Really, there are. But, given fact #1, you can't see them, so mind your step or you may very well run into one.

4) To avoid overloading the generators (or generator; I haven't counted them yet), routine power outages occur across the country several times a day. I say 'routine', because allegedly there is a schedule by which the people of Nepal abide. I attempted to do so, once, but I think I must not have this whole telling time, arithmetic thing down yet, which does make things somewhat inconvenient when one is ascending six flights of stairs at eight in the evening, because the power was not supposed to shut off until nine-thirty and one's flashlight just happened to run out of battery charge. It's all right, though. At least I, I mean "one" wasn't descending the stairs, because that would have made things downright dangerous.

5) Cats have tails here!


Now, before you jump to the conclusion that Nepal is not my favorite country in the world, please note that I have only listed a very few facts that, though terribly true, are not omnipotent when it comes to influencing my verdict. I shall reserve that until the end of the trip.

Nepal Observations:

1) The air pollution is somewhat masked by the burning of incense by almost every shopkeeper and home in Kathmandu.
2) Instead of the tuk tuks that populate the streets of Cambodia, bicycle-conducted, flower-adorned rickshaws make their treacherous way through the narrow streets of Kathmandu.

3) There are no fruit stands here, or really any food stalls at all. Coffee shops abound, advertising organic coffee, banana lassi, and German breads

4) Dogs sport Tikas (red powdered dye spread along their foreheads), but are just as moth-eaten and people-wary as anywhere else.

5) Hinduism here is not like the Hinduism on Pearl Street. It involves centuries of implantation, national identity, and the permeation of every aspect of life. The 20-something westerners who wander the streets here outwardly displaying their adoption of the religion are identical to the ones seen on Pearl Street, however.

6) The conserving of energy and natural resources in the United States is an absolute joke compared to here, where energy, fuel, and resources are not shut off because of conservation; they're shut off because they've run out!

7)  I have not seen a single traffic light or sign in this entire city, which isn't surprising, for I highly doubt they would be acknowledge. The streets are too narrow to accommodate more than one lane, let alone sidewalks, and yet, somehow pedestrians, bicycles, motorbikes, taxis, vans, trucks, and school buses all manage to get where they need to go with nary a scratch.

8) Sidewalks really are a luxury item, sort of like sun roofs and shih-tzus.

9) I have yet to see a Yeti!

Roots

"So their root will become like rot and their blossom will blow away like dust; for they have rejected the Law of the Lord..." (Isaiah 5:24)