Dog and Lamb

God I am broken and my heart is heavy. I have lost what little joy I had. I am the lost lamb and the sheep dog at the same time.

I saw you point so I ran. I didn't know why, but I always want to go where you point so I went. Then I crested a hill and could not see anything. I could not see you. I looked around. I didn't know where to go. I yelled for you. In the distance I thought I heard your whistle. But I couldn't tell where. I yelled again and your whistle was fainter, but I thought it was the signal to go on. Maybe I would find what you sent me for.

The way has gotten rocky and cold, wet and dark. I cannot see the sun. I cannot hear you. I yell and yell.

When I can't see you, I listen for your whistle or the thumping of your staff on the ground. But I can't see anything. I can't hear anything.

I don't know where to go or what to do, so I will find a sheltered place and wait. It's too dark to see. I am cold and lost and hungry, but I will wait for you to find me, to carry me home.

Have I failed? I want to say I acted in faith, but a voice inside says, "did you?" I would not blame someone else in this case, but I want to blame myself. So I will not listen to this voice. I don't want to hear it any more. Even if I am at fault, don't I also receive forgiveness?

I hear the scratching and clawing of beasts around the crevice of rock I crawled in. It is cold but dry and the crawling things that live here do not bite. They have let me in. But the beasts can smell me. I can smell them. I have fought them before. I have been brave when you were coming, when you sent me. But I am too cold and sick. I hurt in many places and I can't see in this dark. They keep reaching for me, but they haven't found me yet. When light comes, I will try to find my way back to where I last heard you. If the beasts don't get me first. But even that seems better than this cold lonely dark.

Left and lost continued

I'm really attempting to change my thinking, and the last post seems full of a lot of focus on the negative while filtering the positive. So here is my ungainly attempt to alter my focus.

It isn't all bad. Pay is good, all three of us are working.

Medical is insanely cheap and good quality. In fact it's so cheap I feel like the rich guy who balks at prices. What they call expensive is still a quarter of what I'd pay even with insurance in the US.

People have helped us whenever we really need it, sometimes going out of their way significantly, like finding us this house. Which while very old and below standard for most US houses is crazy cheap with a very sweet and kind landlord who lives right next door.

Work is super easy.

Nature is beautiful and easily accessible here. Fences are pretty much unheard of, even for dogs.

There are lots of artisan type places with handmade goods, specialty foods, etc. Including the best real Italian pizza I've ever had.

Crime is negligible. Our door doesn't even have a lock from the inside and stores leave stock out all night. People abhor violence here for the most part and even fights are tame compared to the US.

People are super polite, even if this is one of the ruder areas of the country. Even the tough guy says thanks and excusie me if he goes ahead of you at the checkout line. Store staff are helpful and actially try to get things right.

There are a couple of bright-spot people I really am glad to know here.

We don't have to travel far for anything. A long way off is a 20 minute car ride, and an hour is  something of day trip. You never get stuck in massive inching backups which were my daily commute for so many years.

So I guess this kind of works.

Left and lost

I hear a lot about not being afraid to leave your comfort zone, about taking radical leaps of faith. Well, I tried to do that, and so far it has been entirely no picnic. I've been washed by doubts and fears, had difficulties thrown in at every turn, none of them severe enough to stop it from happening, just enough to make me sick and miserable. And I've seen no fruit from it whatsoever. I have no idea what I'm doing here, if I should have come, if or what I'm supposed to do. I receive absolutely zero consolations or guidance during prayer. And yet it's not as if there is anything really stopping us from being here, in fact that part just keep easily sailing along. The only part is I don't want to be here.

I have analyzed it up and down in so many ways, I'm not going to rehash it here. But I'm now faced with a decision to commit to not only the year I already contracted, but an additional year. So 5 months in, I have to decide about the next 20 months. The first 5 have been on a whole pretty difficult. I have even had to finally see a doctor about symptoms and get counseling for the stress. There are still so many things thst need doing to make life comfortable.

And that word comes out with a bad taste, but I invite you and the part of myself that hates the word to try this. See what it does to you to leave the life everyone says you should work for to come where you can barely communicate, hardly read, no one you work for really wants you or needs you around, though they keep requiring you to make a show of it by simply standing beside them for hours each day, saying nothing, doing nothing, but not able to do anything else more productive, and then trudge home on foot in the dark and increasing cold in a place where rain is literally the norm, to a house that has substandard everything, including literal mud walls and doors that don't seal without even the technology of a fire place to heat it. Where you keep getting sick from contact with kids and people who don't understand basic hygiene and think that keeping rooms at equal temp with the near freezing outside is healthy in some way. With a teen who really wanted to come but blames you for every instance that doesn't meet her expectations.

So what am I doing here? Am I in the wilderness on the way to the promised land? Am I drowning in the waves I tried to walk on? Did I just misinderstand everything? Am I Jonah in the whale right now, running from my purpose to find what I thought was better? I have prayed and prayed that I won't have to make these decisions any more. And yet here I am faced with another one. Anxiety attacks are becoming my norm as one after another challenge presents with no sign of abating. And tomorrow I am meeting someone who wants to try to convince me to stay. Which, if it were to work out, I estimate would cost me several thousand dollars more to accomplish.

If there's some thing I'm supposed to learn here, someone please tell me. If there's some direction I can't see, what is it? Because right now I can't stop counting the days until I can return to the place I have roots, which I also hate for other reasons, and pick up the pieces of a life, all the while doubting if some breakthrough isn't just around the bend.

I can't make this decision.

God in the toilet

So I live in a part of the world where some toilets don't have seats...we refer to them as squatters, which tells you what you need to know.  So I went into the only toilet in my workplace and thought, "oh crap!" Literally, someone had missed.  Not terribly, but enough to be very apparent.  I was wracked about what to do.  This is the only toilet for men.  If someone comes in and sees me leave, they'll assume I did it because I'm foreign and people assume we can't do this stuff right.

Maybe I could slip out quickly before anyone noticed, but if they came in and waited, I'd be screwed.  If that happens, I'd have to point it out and say it wasn't me, which would look the more suspicious, so I'd be forced into an uncomfortable examination of the evidence to prove it wasn't me..."it isn't fresh, see".  But then it might be worse if they just saw me leave because then I'd not be able to explain at all and they'd just assume, and there would be this background buzz that I could never be certain wasn't because they thought I was foul or incompetent...or incontinent, as the case may be.  Even if it was just in my own head, I'd continually be wondering if that wasn't what they were thinking.  And the culprit would certainly not downplay the assumption that it was the foreigner, if he didn't actively promote it, should it come up...or down as it were.

Maybe I could climb out the window and slip back in another way...but no, the office windows looked out on the same courtyard right beside that window along with other windows all around the court, and the foreigner climbing out the window would definitely be noticed.  So that was out.

Cleaning products were in the closet right beside me, but again, what if someone came in and saw me digging through that closet...I'd be forced to explain, and there we go back into scenario 1.

All of this of course happened in milliseconds.  That was when I looked around and noticed there was a toilet brush in the stall...why?...who cares!  It was there!  God bless it and God bless me, I was saved by a common $1.00 toilet brush!  I fired up the flush and scrub that thing like my life depended on it...well at least my reputation...which was already in doubt after a medicine reaction made me nearly pass out for a moment a few weeks ago. It passed quickly, but nonetheless, I was forced to be carried through the facility on a stretcher despite my constant pleas that I was quite capable of walking.

But merciful God, thank you for that toilet brush.  This is a silly story, though every word of it is true.  And honestly, it reveals a vanity in me, which though common, is no less a vanity.  But I am thankful for the small mercy.

One thing is certain: toilet brushes have now become a symbol of God's grace and provision.  I'll never look at them the same way again.

New World

I have not posted in a while because I moved around the world. Yes literally, I'm now in a timezone 13 hours from my previous. This move has not been easy and I was reluctant to do it. But here we are. Now it's about survivng, adapting, thriving. Which is doubtful right now. These kind of challenges are highly emotional and bring out underlying issues.

So why did I do it? Simply, I wanted to get out of the boat. I wanted to walk on the waves. Secondly, I wanted to change the story of the rich young ruler. I didn't want to look back on my life and know that when told what I needed to be perfect, I went away sad. No I literally gave most everything away and gave up my life for this purpose.

And it's kicking my butt. Work is pointless. I get paid well to do basically nothing and am treated politley as if I'm in the way most of the time or given zilly llittle things just so I don't totally do nothing. Sounds good? Yeah, try it awhile. Nowhere to hang your hat. Nothing to get up for in the morning. Then there's family. We are much more in each others' space here and I am so far the only one with a schedule to force me out. So when I get home there's two bored people starving for attention I don't have to give. Problems to solve, fears to assuage. My teen is the worst. Needier than when an infant, fully capable of stepping out more, but too scared to do it. And when I push him out of the nest she flies into a rage at me.

Then there's the worst part, our apartment, provided by my employer in an old wooden structure with upstairs neighbors that are extremely loud on the floor, like hours of pounding, dropping, falling. I don't even really know if they are that loud in terms of decibels. Objective evidence is hard to get, but in any case, I find myself getting more and more agitated as it goes on. Some noises send me over the edge and I break something or scream, or collapse into full panic attack. I shake, sweat, heart pounds. I thought I might have some latent PTSD. But the  I read about misophonia, which is a neurological condition that causes these same reactions. Just perfect. Another rare and unheard of illness to confirm, cope with, and explain for the rest of my life. But it matches my history. I have always been very sensitive to overhead house noises and bass through walls. Like, if a neighbor has a stereo on, I have paced the floor for hours fighting the urge to go beat their door in and destroy the infernal machine. Now I'm trapped inside the machine and I can't take it.

I have started counseling and the therapist is recommending a psychiatrist...good luck way out here on the edge of the world. I talked to my employer and for cultural reasons I completely don't understand we can't get the people to be quiet. Though they may not physically be Bable to be quiet enough if I really do have a condition. So their idea to move us to a free standing quiet house is probably best. God, I'm hoping.

I even asked them if it would be easier just to let me go and I'd go home. But they didn't want to do that. We have a lead on a house, so please soon!

I don't know what I'm doing. I can't analyze or fix myself and I need lots of help to live here. I can completely understand why Peter feared and began to sink. I'm going down fast and can only say, "Lord, help me". You see there's no solid ground out here. It isn't all bad. There are points of grace and light, even some angels that don't know it. But this is hard to do.

Mindscape

Today my son asked me a thought provoking question. As any reader of this blog knows, I am a naturally dark and therefore often angry person. But he is just getting to the age to see that. So as I mentioned some of my negative perceptions of things, he observed that I frequently see things like that and asked what the world must look like from inside my head.

While many may find this disheartening, I am so aware of this fact about myself that I did not run from it, but replied, "It's pretty dark in here."  The question stuck with me though; how do I express it to people? What does the world look like to me? Some may paint in pictures, but I am much more capable in words, so I will try.

Like anyone, my internal landscape is varied and changes in its own seasons and weathers.  And while I am in any one of those, it necessarily colors what the others look like. So the best I can give is the current conditions and climate with your understanding that it is not always so and may be themed quite differently at another juncture.

The skies here are often grey. Clouds roll thick and mists are common, ranging to dense fogs. The terrain is rugged with crags and sharp edged stones all around. Near peaks obscure large areas of vision. Air ranges in the hot humid arena but frequently dips into chilling cold.

Never far away is the barren windswept tableland of the tough-minded where no hint of green softness breaks the flat desolation until the sky meets it. Here are the hermits and ascetics, ever trying to rid themselves of the stains and distractions of the world while ever becoming harsher and more stone-like in their bearing for all their intention toward good.

Near there is the dense Mirkwood frought with demons and every kind of rending, demoralizing creature that feasts on the despair and self-loathing of its victims. They often range outside their haunts seeking to trick, trap or drag me into their lairs. But their favorite tactic is to build paths that innocenty wend through pleasanter lands until they unexpectedly end in the terrible mirk such that the unwary traveler will suddenly find himself in their clutches.

But it isn't all that bad. Sun does shine from time to time and I encounter delicate grottos of lush moss trickling with water and speckled with shimmering flowers and dappled light. I have seen vast deep oceans as slick as glass and raging like titans. Rain is often refreshing and mercifully frequent. And there are springs in the most unlikely places; some the tiniest bubbling, others strong enough to feed streams that water green vales under clear gentle skies. Here is where I most often have four legs and a cold nose. Here is where the Shepherd lives. Though he is always about in the harsher lands where I am on two feet and never far when I try to find him, or he needs to find me.

So this is the briefest sketch of my internal continent that shapes me, colors my actions and responses, and governs my decisions and opinions. I hope it sheds some light into who I am and why I am the way I am.

Fear

What is fear?  We all feel it, but what is it?  A feeling?  More than a feeling, it can have physical manifestations that grow beyond what we can control.  We have a hard time getting rid of it, so we avoid it, disguise it, find ways to convince ourselves it isn't fear.

Fear has to do with threat.  This can be very credible, but most often is not.  We perceive a threat rather than register a real one.  Is it possible to live without fear?  Many would say no.  But I believe it's possible.

Fear has to do with perception, and threat.  Perception is easily altered.  Threat can only be dispelled in terms of consequence.  If the threat is empty, it ceases to be a threat.  What consequences? Pain of some kind and death.  These are really the only two.

Death is not a fear for me.  It truly isn't.  I know that in death I will move beyond hurt.  I will find peace.  For long reasons I don't want to argue right now I am convinced of this.  And if I'm wrong the only other possibility is that I cease to exist...which still places me beyond the reach of harm.  If there is no life beyond death, then what's the point anyway.  So no fear there.

But pain is more difficult.  Physical pain can be intense prior to death.  Emotional and mental pain can be debilitating.  Yes, pain is what I fear at the root of all fears.

I need a way to lift above or beyond pain.  I can't do this in myself.  But God promises I will not be given more than I can bear.  He says he keeps the steadfast in peace.  He says he works for my good.  The problem is if I believe it.

Yes, the root of fear is distrust.  Can I trust God to lead me?  Can I trust him to help me avoid pain?  Do I need to experience pain so I can cease to fear it?  Do I need to experience a place where my perception of safety and control are obliterated so I can trust more?

Why can I dive into the ocean, climb a mountain, run through the wilderness fearing nothing, but can't shake my trepidation at what lies ahead?  Is this fear or prescient warning?  If I'm wrong what happens?  Something for my good.  If I'm right what happens?  Something good.  Can I trust this?  I want to trust this.  I want to see it more than anything.  I want to walk on the water.  I want to tred the storm, face the lions, the flames, the giants with no fear.

God can I do this?  Please give me a sign and the ability to understand it.  Knock me on my butt with it because I'm dense.  I want you.  I don't want to fail.  I'm about to free fall and God I hope you're there again.