The Fog

I'm hanging out on the deck on this foggy day via the sliding glass door of our living room.

Jeremiah & Sandra Cronk, my companions this morning.

The fog of this day is apt.  It feels like my head, like my soul.  And like my reading.  

Jeremiah is all over the place.  He gets me...or I get him.  In chapter 20, he gets beaten and put in the stocks by the priest Pashur.  And yet, he still prophesies against him the next day.  And then he goes to God and says, in sum: 1) You have deceived me.  2) I am reviled because of my faithfulness to you. 3) You are with me, fighting for me. 4) My enemies will get what is coming to them. 5) You are to be praised because you rescue the needy. 5) I wish I had never been born.

Clear as mud, all that. It resonates within me, making me feel less crazy, while at the same time, I want to scream, "Which is it?  God helps or God abandons?  God soothes or God humiliates?!  This is worth it or this is terrible, horrible, no good, very bad??!"

No more clarity comes from reading Sandra's chapter four on contemplation.  

She assures me that so much of what I am currently living is all part and partial to the dark night journey.  Even as that brings some comfort, some reference for This Present Darkness, I still am fighting the tremendous urge to throw the book across the room as I read.

Jeremiah demonstrates that we speak up against the corrupt leaders regardless of the consequences, that feeling alone in our fight does not make it wrong.  But he's still not thrilled about the outcomes of obeying. 

Sandra tells me that emptiness, absence, darkness are all normal here.  That this is leading to a new, deeper, and greater experience of God and of love.  If that's the case, I have barely begun this journey, as I am nowhere near feeling closer to God or connected to love.

I spoke in my last post of the meaninglessness.  This is one of the most excruciating parts of this journey, whatever this is.  I want meaning, perhaps more than anything else.  I want metaphor.  I want to believe this is all pointing towards something and building towards something.  I need meaning in this life like I need air.

So to have that stripped away, I feel like I have jumped from--no, no, been pushed out of--the airplane and the rip cord for the parachute is not working.  I am free falling.

The natural human tendency is to grasp for anything, any handhold.  I'm watching myself doing that.  Grasping for meaning.  Grasping for puzzle pieces to cram into the unfinished picture, willing it to be complete and coherent.  Grasping for pillars to hold up 44 years of life and prove me right and worthy.

One of the most deeply unsettling parts of the summer crises (previous post) for me was the visit of a contractor early in the process. At that point, I didn't know how to communicate with contractors, and so I set no parameters for our conversation. (I quickly learned this was needed.)  

What I should have done was explain that 1) we are not wealthy and not intending to fix every problem and remodel the entire house and 2) we need you to tell us the bare minimum we can do to appease the fire insurance.

Without these parameters in place, he just told us every single thing that he saw that was wrong.  All the siding (rather than being repaired and painted) needed to be replaced.  There were leaks that had led to flooring issues.  The deck, my beloved deck, was in many places barely hanging on by a bolt.  By the end of the tour, he had terrified us that the repair work needed was, he wouldn't say $200,000, but definitely over $100,000. 

We lost about two nights' sleep.  We were in no position to pay for or get financing for that kind of projection of repairs.  We were still waiting on quotes from the other contractor, so didn't know how to gauge his estimates. (Ultimately, though still an expensive venture, nowhere near his estimates...and they had no problem repairing & painting rather than replacing the siding.) I slowly realized my error in not setting parameters for the work.  We slowly put two & two together and realized that his assessments were inaccurate and there was a good chance he just didn't want the job, so he overdramatized it.

Okay, so that's how the business goes. We're smarter now. But that's two nights of sleep we'll also never get back.

And the fact that the bliss of my happy place--this deck--was irretrievably shattered.  It felt like this terrible metaphor for all of life, that my one happy place was exposed as tenuous and could collapse at any moment.

So it's not just been, to be honest, the workmen busy out here that has kept me from sitting out here and writing.  It's also the crestfallen soul that can't even relax and trust in this place.

It's the why bother.  It's the poised for disappointment.  It's the this too will fall apart and be taken from me at some unceremonious moment, like so much else has been, especially recently.

The fog swirls in my head and my heart.  Life is so much harder than I ever imagined it to be.  I feel like life has been sandpaper that has rubbed all of my skin off and I am still somehow supposed to function, just walking around with exposed muscle, vein, and bone.  And other people's only recourse is to either try to stick a bandaid on me (not helpful in any way) or to say, "Yes, this is all totally normal."

I live in this confusion.  I withdraw from others because they really make it so much worse, wanting me to ask less and struggle less and smile more, or to somehow still navigate the grocery store and soccer practice while my soul is in agony.

Sandra says all this stripping and darkness will lead to depth and clarity.

It's not like I have any choice in the matter; this confusion is my current reality. But I guess that gives me hope.  Clarity, if it's really coming from this, would be a welcome relief.  As Nightbirde says, "Don't you want to see what happens if you don't give up?"

In better moments, I am at least a little curious. So there's that.