Journal of an Awakening

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My brother Ben just came in from outside and showed me a battered, dirty diver's watch, asking me if I recognized it. It took me a second, but I recognized it as a watch I had worn a while back. It was still working. I was at that point trying to politely entertain an interruption I didn't want. Then he pulled something else out and asked me if I recognized that. I looked at what he had pulled out, at first not recognizing it and then not believing what I saw.

It was my high school class ring.

I had worn it on the band of that watch for a time, and when a pin came loose and the watch fell off, the ring was lost with it. I looked all over the house for it, and today found out why I hadn't located it -- it was outside, next to the garage. This happened at least a year ago, and I was sad to see it go. My high school was very important to me, a formative influence, and I did not get rings for any of the three institutions of higher learning I attended. Having it back reminded me on a little level of the parable of the lost coin (Luke 15:8-9, NASB):

Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully untill she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, "Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost!

I took Ben to celebrate with me at The Popcorn Shop. The Popcorn Shop is a converted alleyway between two brick buildings, and has a wall lined with glass containers of all different kinds of candy, ranging in price from $1.00 to 1¢. It is the sort of place children's dreams are made of. It is one of those places that is not polished and commercial in veneer, business as it may be, but instead has something that a child would find magical. It was good to take Ben there and spend some time talking with him, although I was cold. When I looked up the parable, I appreciated experientially Jesus's explanation (Luke 15:10, NASB):

In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

After that, we went bowling, which was nice. I got my first strike in a while, followed by a spare; my total score was 66 for one of the games. During part of that, I began to realize something about myself. I have been an intense and passionate person; for an e-mail address, I chose nimbus(@ameritech.net), and in role play have spent a fair amount of time playing a character named Nimbus. 'Nimbus' is Latin for 'storm'. Some people might have chosen the name Nimbus in a negative sense -- with connotations of being dark, forboding, and destructive -- but I chose it in a positive sense. From childhood I have loved being out in a storm, and I especially cherished the warm, wet rainstorms in Malaysia, and so I chose the name Nimbus in an entirely positive sense: it has a meaning of wild goodness, of energy, of life-giving water pouring out of Heaven, of play. Even the darkness I never associated with evil or forboding, but with colors that are rich, deep, and alive, and of the same sort of beauty I wrote of in describing the chapel.

Now, I am starting to feel, perhaps to become, something like the peace after a storm, when everything is still and fresh.

Possibly related to this, in a negative manner, is something else I have realized. For at least a few months, I have felt broken, in a sense similar to how a torturer breaks a man. It is not separately articulated in Less-Wild Lovers: Standing at the Crossroads of Desire, but it does seem to be related to (for example) how the article talks about people who have heard the Message of the Arrows giving up on being part of a romance of epic proportions. It is more than a breaking of will. It is a breaking of dreams.

It seems to have occurred through a couple of things. One of them, but a lesser and indirect one, has been being unemployed in the areas I would like to be working in: something that would be intensive in mathematics and computer science (two disciplines that are intermingled), work that would involve heavy brainpower and allow my own particular combination of abilities to shine. Another more severe one is having nothing to do for much of my time -- and more severe still, and related to it, a loss of creativity and general dullness. Having a lot of time on my hands would have been a good thing if I had creativity to think of things to do, and now I am enjoying the time much more because I can work on projects.

Those projects are not just pass-time (and I have started not to write down theological insights if I would just be writing them to amuse myself), nor even just work, but Work. I'm not sure how to concisely describe it... 'work' is a dreary, menial, meaningless job that is taken in order to obtain money. 'Work' is spiritually ennobling activity that may not be immediately pleasant (such as an assistant in a hospital wiping patients' butts), but which a person connects with, has a relation to human dignity (and Mother Theresa's dignity was helped and not hindered by cleaning festering sores), and is done for the sake of getting work done. It may be paid or unpaid, and may occur in a number of contexts, both formal and institutionalized, and informal. At least in this country, people doing Work for their jobs are often making less than they could be making if they were to do whatever work paid the most money. My father is an associate professor of computer science and a top-notch information technology worker, and supports our family at a reasonable level; we have everything we need and a few things we don't. He enjoys the contact with people and the opportunity to share the joy of his discipline with others. If he wanted money, he could fairly easily pursue consulting work and charge justified fees that would earn enough money to make us all miserable. I'm glad he has chosen his Work as a professor.

I was doing work but not Work, and... my father used the word 'submerged' in reference to how I was doing. These things -- lots of time that I was unable to Work in, loss of my creativity and perhaps other cherished faculties, and a general narcosis-like state that could be described as dullness, being submerged, or a haze -- seem to have been what caused a brokenness. Out of the Message of the Arrows came, not so much a defense of wearing a false self, but a weary brokenness that would not throw my whole self into things.

I was in my room wondering today, why God is giving me what seem like a lot of little things, but not some of the bigger things I want -- among them a computer science job that I can Work in. As I was writing, I realized that maybe I'm not ready for that, that maybe he has to heal me first. A Bible story may be taken as an illustration (Luke 5:17-26, NAB):

One day as Jesus was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem, and the power of the Lord was with him for healing. And some men brought on a stretcher a man who was paralyzed; they were trying to bring him and set [him] in his presence. But not finding a way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on the stretcher through the tiles into the middle in front of Jesus. When he saw their faith, he said, "As for you, your sins are forgiven." Then the scribes and Pharisees began to ask themselves, "Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who but God alone can forgive sins?" Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them in reply, "What are you thinking in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, `Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, `Rise and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"--he said to the man who was paralyzed, "I say to you, rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home." He stood up immediately before them, picked up what he had been lying on, and went home, glorifying God. Then astonishment seized them all and they glorified God, and, struck with awe, they sayd, "We have seen incredible things today."

Jesus did care about the invalid's body, and did eventually heal it. But he put first things first, and beforehand gave him something of infinitely greater value: he healed the man's relationship with God. My sins are forgiven, but there are other wounds I bear that need to be healed, perhaps before I will be ready to get a job where I will really be exercising the talents God has given me.

I realized as I was writing the past few paragraphs that, since the night at the railroad tracks, I have not felt like saying, "I give up," meaning a giving up on life (although I am not clear, besides suicide, on how exactly one might go about doing that). I had felt like that often before then. This doesn't mean that I'm healed, but it probably does mean that healing is at work.

There is a possibility for one information technology job that has come across my door, a webmastering position at two hours a week. It's not exactly what I would have envisioned (I would have thought of something half-time in programming), but it would be a good first step as well as my present job in manual labor half time to get into information technology work -- and a good prospect at learning how to webmaster. I would like this possibility to become a reality, but strangely I am not clinging to it. I am a little better able to let God work with me, putting first things first and healing my broken spirit first, and let him work at whatever pace he chooses.

God's way is not to delete evil, but take it and redeem it, producing something even better than things were before. Heaven will not simply be Eden restored; it will be something better, far better. We will share in the divine nature. In the Gospels, a woman's bad reputation and many sins were taken and made not only into a restored person but a beautiful story (Mark 14:3-9, NASB):

And while He was in Bethany at the home of Simon the leper, and reclining at the table, there came a woman with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume of pure nard; and she broke the vial and poured it over His head.

But some were indignantly remarking to one another, "Why has this perfume been wasted? For this perfume might have been sold for over three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor." And they were scolding her.

But Jesus said, "Let her alone; why do you bother her? She has done a good deed to Me. For the poor you always have with you, and whenever you wish, you can do them good; but you do not always have Me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for the burial. And truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, that also which this woman has done will be spoken in memory of her."

Perhaps Nimbus becoming Pax (and the fruit of the Spirit is peace) may how my brokenness is being redeemed. Perhaps my passion is coming back, albeit in a sublimated form. I don't know. But I am trying to open my heart to the wind's free play.

When I met with Robin to see if I could learn anything from his being close with God, he was talking about how the intimacy was God's pure gift, and not anything he'd done. He commented that he'd been lax in discipline, and hadn't been reading the Bible much -- just been close to God.

That surprised me a bit, as we both know the value of discipline -- and he clarified later that he was not meaning to disparage Bible reading at all. But there is something in that. I think I understood it a little better today, when I realized that I hadn't been reading the Bible much for the past few days, and been no less close to God. It's hard to put into words why -- an approximation would be to say that God is in control, and he will orchestrate things as he chooses.

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