Categories: life
Date: 03 August 2008 13:39:42
Back from the Hunter Valley, and feeling rather refreshed. It is either a sign of a great trip, or a sign of my insanity, that as I made my way back [a different way, but I drove along roads I had driven yesterday], I commented to myself, "Oh...that car is still there."; "Interesting...that van is still parked askew there."; "Oh, that dead kangaroo is still there." It was then I realised that I had only travelled along there yesterday: but it truly, truly, felt like several days if not a week ago. I did not cram things in or do a great deal [in fact I did less than I anticipated in my blog below], but I felt as if I were away for more than two days. I think insanity is not so much creeping in as ringing a loud bell announcing its arrival.
But more about the weekend away in the days to come. Before I left, as is my usual daily routine, I read through a number of blogs. One that hit me particularly hard was this one of Tractor Girl's -- whom, by the way, I had the great pleasure of meeting last November. What particularly hit me, and hit home, were her comments in paragraph 6 about conversations with friends outside the church. While, due to me being rather more open than I feel I can be here [and probably more open than I would've been comfortable with had I thought it through] in another on-line place, some of you may know the issue I particularly struggle with; unlike the strong woman who is Tractor Girl I am keeping it to myself here -- for now. I do admit, however, feeling exactly the same as she does when it comes to friends and work colleagues outside the church.
Most of the time.
I say that as there have been times I have thrown caution to the wind and, in the presence of friends, and even friends' friends, let myself go; yet, at other times, particularly at work, I cannot even begin to go there. And it is, as Tractor Girl wrote so wisely, "I fear their reaction towards my faith" far more than than any reaction to the issue. Those there know me as "the Christian" [some even "the Orthodox Christian"]; I know they do have some strange thoughts about why I am in the Church and consider my beliefs -- we often talk about it -- a bit naïve at times ["Someone raised from the dead? Pull the other one!"; "Miracles? You believe that?"; "You think the bread and wine become Body and Blood? Really?" -- I do know many Christians out there may think similar to my colleagues on that last one! :); and so on...], but I do seriously dread to think what they would make of me should I spill all.
The poem Tractor Girl mentioned, Riddles by Peterson Toscano, with its imagery of a wardrobe on my back is one I can readily identify with -- and particularly the "half-in half-out" metaphor. I am known, and loved, thanks be to God!, by some; I am loved, but not known, by others. And it is hard to know that those you love, and who love, may not know the full, the real, you.
As well as the present, there is, always, the past. This issue [sorry to keep referring to it as such...words fail] had a huge impact on me, particularly before I acknowledged it, and particularly in my university years. I am still friends, great friends, he is my best friend even, with one person who I, truly, put through absolute hell with my juvenile and inexcusable behaviour: I did not know why I was thinking what I was, or saying what I said, but it was out before I could think and it seemed to make sense in the warped brain, and warped reality, I had. Thanks be to God he was there, and is there, for me. People often ask would you change anything from your past if you could; I tend to think, "No, it is what has made me" -- but I often think I should've left uni for a year or two, and hopefully have grown in that time, and realised what I didn't then. But, we can't.
However, one other person, a friend of the friend above, I fear I can never have any proper relationship with -- for a number of reasons. We did hang around, but I doubt we had whatever could be called a true friendship -- close acquaintances perhaps. Like my other friend, this person was there for me and helped as best he could. However, given what was being helped were reactions rather than the underlying root cause -- which I did not become aware of until several years later [I really was naïve -- stupid even] -- one could not expect much progress to be made. One reason I doubt I can ever have any normal relationship with him is that I have placed him on a pedestal that stands higher than any skyscraper; I am an idolater -- I worship the ground he walks on. When we get together, rarely as the friend above is now overseas so I really only see this person when my friend visits home, I am afraid of him -- seriously. I am scared to speak to him. I do not know what to say. No doubt this is as I have him on a pedestal, but it is also as I cannot admit to him, or do not know if I should, the reason why I acted like a prize fool. And, thus, I cannot move on.
Thus my wardrobe remains; and while it does, my relationships, my views of others, my moving forward, are all impeded: and yet the solution, to cast it off, as with those in C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce who could not move on, is such a frightening prospect that I feel "Purgatory" will remain with me for some time: and it is of my own making.
I am not meaning this to sound like a sob story; I brought this on myself, and I need to deal with it. By the grace and love of the ever-blessed and ever-praised Trinity I pray I can -- in some way. And my thanks to Tractor Girl for helping me put in words what I struggled to vocalise -- and even what I struggled with in thinking in logical and clear terms.