I May Be Drowning

Why am I here?
The Fear of the Lord.
Why am I doing all this?
The Fear of the Lord.
What is the point?
The Fear of the Lord.

My motivation has reached an all-time low. I'm not itching for this term to end. I'm not eagerly awaiting a bright tomorrow. My motivation is not at an all-time low in terms of school work, or other responsibilities. My motivation is at an all-time low to wake up, to breathe, to eat, to do anything but sit on my couch and wait for the next batch of comics to come in from the library, or the next bunch of podcasts to come in from my iTunes. I've lost touch with my drive. I can't remember my purpose. I can't remember why.

The Fear of the Lord.
The Fear of the Lord.
The Fear of the Lord.

I cannot do this alone, and yet I segregate myself. I can't do this alone, and yet I make the conscious decision to be forever Other. I cannot do this alone, and yet instead of calling out to those nearby who are more than willing to offer a helping hand, I hide in my escapist worlds of fantasy, comedy, and madness confused for clarity.

I want to improve. I want to climb out of this trench, but I've dug so deep that I don't think I can do it on my own.

The snow is coming down pretty hard now. I doubt any of it will stick. Soon, I will walk out into the horizontal flakes (the wind blows pretty hard down by the tracks). Soon, I will try to push through the cold. Soon, I will reach out for help from the invisible community that I know is there. Soon, I will force myself to recall the reason.

The Fear of the Lord.

I'm Not Drowning

This morning, the Lord sent to me a humming bird, a robin, and a woodpecker. This morning, the Lord sent to me sunshine and a pot of coffee. This morning, the Lord sent to me a podcast.

I wonder what Noah, standing in his floating barn, thought when he opened up the window and released the dove. I wonder if he chose the dove because it was his favorite, or because it was his least. Perhaps it was a win-win situation for the smelly man. If it comes back with that olive leaf, hooray, the Lord our God has not forsaken us. If it does not come back, hooray, we're free of that winged rat, as are our descendants.

I wonder as I stand next to Noah and reach my hand out the window, is that another raindrop? It's been storming 40 days. I wouldn't be surprised, and you know how Seattle's weather goes.

I remember fresh air, land, trees, and faces of those I knew before the deluge. I know my world will be completely changed once I step from this meta-historical time capsule. And this makes me afraid.

The walls of this Ark are lined with books written by men long-dead with large beards. Noah himself steps back into his, and I am left alone in my floating library. I wonder if I kept the right ones. Too much Marx? Not enough Freud? Why oh why did I not bring with me a dove? 4 more months till judgement day.

This morning, the Lord sent to me a humming bird, a robin, and a woodpecker. This morning, the Lord sent to me a dove.



Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Empathy

The other night, I was at a party and I overheard some people talking about a friend of mine. "I don't understand that person." They said, "Eventually it's just hard to empathize with them." The tone of the conversation was almost one of exasperation, or perhaps what is left behind when exasperations cease. It was... dismissive, and understandably so. When we cannot relate to another human being, we have a very hard time keeping up relationship with them. Outside the boundaries of empathetic relationship, all human interaction is reduced to theatre. When we stop caring for the actor, we merely watch to see what their ridiculous character will do.

I was thinking about this yesterday as I walked aimlessly around Queen Anne. This person they were talking about is a friend of mine, and I don't use that word lightly. I understand why they're hard to empathize with, they're kinda weird, and I like that about them (to anybody reading this, don't worry, it's not you). The thing that was bothering me was that, while at this party, other friends of mine were so dismissive of this person who I value, and worry about, and pray for.

"It's a problem of the inherent value of humanity!" the eternally indignant ideologue within me cried, "If we only valued one-another and related to one another with true love, this kind of thing would never happen!"

"The problem is human limits." the newfound apophatic mystic mused, "We cannot fully empathize with everyone we come in contact with. We can only contain so much in our social world, we have to make cuts somewhere and somehow. But why do we do it with disdain?"

"The issue here is our societies' inherent selfish individualism and continued turn towards isolation." The dying sociologist rasped through clenched teeth, "if people fail the tests to be allowed in the ingroup we must force them to the outgroup. This process is made much easier if we demonize the individual in question."

And then it hit me like a brick to the sternum. I won't say it was the voice of God, but I will say that it wasn't my idea.

"You do the same thing."

I saw a parade of faces float through my mind, each one with a red mark on their forehead where I had stamped them, or had I wounded them? Each one I had tried to empathize with, had tried to have good relationship, had tried to love. But, somehow it got too hard. Either by distance, by the natural change that comes from growing up, or by some traumatic moment that ended our friendship, I stopped empathizing. I chose to stop empathizing. The actors I once valued, worried about, prayed for, became nothing more than characters that pranced about on the stage. Not to mention the many many people who I never even attempted to know.

How could I have done this? The ideologue was shocked into silence, the mystic shamed began to mumble the Jesus Prayer, and the sociologist smugly turned on his deathbed and smiled.

Then, another realization.

God never does this. The situation I found myself in at that party, of overhearing a friend referred to in such a dismissive manner, this is the situation that God is placed in every single time we pray. We humans are mysteries to one another (which makes me wonder why it's so hard for us to understand God as mysterious as well), but we are not mysterious to God. If you've ever been privy to a secret that explains why Person X did what they did, and Person Y rips them apart in your presence, but you don't say anything because this is something that Person X needs to tell Person Y themself, then you have the smallest bit of empathy with God.

God is not dismissive of any of his children, nor does he disown. God stands steadfast outside of our little group-making and play-watching, and embraces every actor. God remains backstage, uninterested in the comedy or tragedy of the night, and he heals.

A few different philosophers and writers have mentioned that empathy is a true test of humanity. Human beings, and human beings alone, can feel another entity's pain (for an example watch Blade Runner or read the book). Perhaps, in this we are not identifying the cognitive process that makes us Homo sapiens but rather a spiritual indicator of the image of God.