"Sometimes it seems pure natural to trust,
And trust right largely, grandly, infinitely,
Daring the splendor of the giver's part;
At other times, the whole earth is but dust,
The sky is dust, yea, dust the human heart:
Then art thou nowhere, there is no room for thee
In the great dust-heap of eternity.
But why should it be possible to mistrust--
Nor possible only, but its opposite hard?
Why should not man believe because he must--
By sight's compulsion? Why should he be scarred
With conflict? worn with doubting fine and long?
No man is fit for heaven's musician throng
Who has not tuned an instrument all shook and jarred.
Therefore, O Lord, when all things common seem,
When all is dust, and self the center clod,
When grandeur is a hopeless, foolish dream,
And anxious care more reasonable than God--
Out of the ashes I will call to thee--
In spite of dead distrust call earnestly:
O thou who livest, call, then answer dying me."
-from September 29, 30, 31 of Diary of an Old Soul by George MacDonald.
So, what to say?
I have lived that dead-distrust for almost a week. i have lived in that dust-heap, tasting the dust of it all in the grit on my tongue and feeling the center-clod disintegrate within me. I have felt the hotness of anger, and the dull chilled ache of that same anger spent. I have chosen to reject and to alienate myself in sin over and again, despising the dust I find within and continuing to recycle it. I have been tempted to walk away from all of this, as if I had the courage for that. I have despised the dorms and seen in them a symbol for a grand mistake. As in, what the hell did I choose this for? and do I believe any of this shit anyway?
And so...?
...the colours are subtle out towards the horizon to the west, the mottled pattern that the clouds and blue sky make is beautiful, Sufjan is currently 'shaking the dirt from his sandals as he runs' and I feel like i've returned to the land of the living, scarred perhaps, hopefully so. I feel the slow, tentative return of enough strength to trust, to believe in this stuff. Maybe it trickled in as I drove home from dropping my parents off at the airport this morning, watching the sun rise while listening to Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama. "Battered and torn / still I can see the light / tattered and worn / but I must kneel to fight"
After all, wasn't this the point, to have more required of me than ever before? Why should I be concerned that I feel like dumping it all in the river, washing my hands in the eddy pool and walking off to climb the ridge alone? So I try again to choose the greater courage and I call, in spite of dead distrust, call earnestly....and wait.
The closing psalm prayer of today's entry from Webber's The Book of Daily Prayer is mightily apropos. From Psalm 78 it says,
'Even though he struck the rock so that water gushed out
and torrents overflowed,
can he also give bread,
or provide meat for his people?'
ahh...that's the question, isn't it?
