Chapter 41 With a Bent Toward Something

The rain is coming down and there’s a crazy bird out there, alone, singing with some sick joy in the night. It’s Monday for God’s sake.

It’s freezing and wet, and not at all late summer to me. I open up the windows anyway because I’m hot. I’m always hot.

I hear that train again, way off, warning at its crossings. It’s heading toward a place, with a plan, with a bent toward something. If you want to hear it, you can, if you listen through the din, or above it; or maybe feel the ground shake. You’d have to get close enough, but it’s enough to just believe it.

Cars are driving by and their wheels slap and splash against the slick black road, and I sit and wonder about the adventure I’ve missed, while I’ve tossed and turned; while I’ve made excuses and invited someone else to take my burden.

But rest assured, I still point others back to where I last saw Him.

This is not some pity party where I invite friends to an intervention, to enter into some crisis of faith. I know what I believe. I know what I’m missing.

It could be that I need to write again, if only as a way to worship, to smoke out these vices masquerading as security blankets.

I’m not good as a drifter. I float between bad and worse; I succumb to some form of an unmotivated lifestyle that is fueled by bouts of addiction and colored with tinges of gray. It has its own trajectory, careening toward a fraction that has regrettably reduced itself, again, and again; maybe even lower than its lowest common denominator.

And so it begins again. This is me crawling back out of a mess of my own making.

It is not a proud moment to have accepted something of a Holy assignment, to recognize it, to achieve it, to acknowledge it is bigger and beyond me, but then, to step aside.

Some may say that’s wonderful, a special something to point back toward, to know and to cherish and to appreciate; a legacy perhaps, but it doesn't last. It is there that I've wallowed in a wretched place, one of nonsense and folly; of temporary blitzes of euphoria bridging a gap to nothingness.

Yes, nothingness is a place to visit; it is a destination on a spiritual map. I’ve been there.

In fact, it is from there that I write this letter to you, whoever you are; whoever may still be reading. And my prayer is that you would somehow discern the clarity amidst the fog. That these ramblings would find a place of comfort in your living room, on your train, at your job.

You see, it's never been uncomfortable enough. This cross I carried for him then was still light and convenient and, mostly splinter free. And then I put it down when it became too heavy. I pick it up from time to time, and I give a little here and there to this day, and that day; to challenge the guilt I endure for the week or the month I do nothing.

I did not stop believing in the One I chose to follow. He is ever real and breathing and doing. But I am not doing. I am merely a spectator, or worse yet, a player at half time who has feigned some injury, pulled some coach aside to plead my case, my useless case for why I'm not fit for the second half.

Surely he'll listen, he can see I'm beat up, muddy, a deplorable mess.

I know I need to get back at it. There is much work to be done. I need to be heading toward some place, with a plan, with a bent toward something; anything but this. The ground is shaking if I put my ear to it, if I stand still. If I move closer.

It’s not enough for me to just believe it.