a fool

reading?

Daily writing prompt

What is your favorite form of physical exercise?

Is reading a form of exercise?

Otherwise, it is a nice walk along the beach. I used to walk every day, but not so much anymore! As some would say (me!), “there are too many people out there”.

silence

Daily writing prompt

What’s something you believe everyone should know.

View all responses

To sit in silence without needing outside stimulation or other people. It can be for 10 minutes or five during the day. Sit outside and enjoy the sun, or just listen to the rain. Without a goal, a product, or an end, simply sit in silence and be “me.”

so …

So I have been feeling super crap. A depressive episode, on top of a lot of change and a surprise meeting, has made life almost unbearable. I spoke with my counsellor yesterday, and that has most certainly helped. (Not least because he offered spiritual advice.) Honestly, I had enough yesterday morning and was ready to pack my bags.

Life is never rosy for me, nor do I expect it to be. I have made huge mistakes in my life. I have hurt, and continue to hurt, people that I love. People are not a “means to an end” – even my own mental health. I am a sinner. Everything in my life reminds me that I cannot do it without Jesus.

I cannot expect other people to change to suit me. I must change. Jesus is present in the moment not to judge but to be chosen. Every moment, “Do you turn to Christ?”.

What is happiness? Any day in which I make it to the end. Solitude comes with great risks, above all, the risk of self-indulgence. Perhaps I am simply selfish and not depressed—someone did once say that to me. Yet, I also recognise that the desert is a place of battle. I have an icon of St John the Baptist that reminds me of the cost.

So what now? Wait! Grrrrr?!?!?! Not easy. Wait for Jesus. And hand it all to him. Be present to Jesus in the now and not the possible future – or the painful past. Allow my pain to connect me to Jesus on the cross. Pray!

Anyway …

I am not well

I am not well; I could have built the Pyramids with the effort it takes me to cling on to life and reason.
Franz Kafka, Letters to Felice

… becoming free

If the monastic ideal is to attain a creative spiritual freedom, if the monastic ideal realizes that freedom is attainable only in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and if the monastic ideal asserts that to become a slave to God is ontologically and existentially the path to becoming free, the path in which humanity fully becomes human precisely because the created existence of humanity is contingent upon God, is by itself bordered on both sides by non-existence, then is such an ideal Christian? Is such an ideal Biblical—New Testamental? (The Byzantine, Ascetic and Spiritual Fathers)
Sánchez-Escobar, Ángel F.. ON ASCESIS AND HESYCHASM, AND THE CHURCH FATHERS (Books on Christian Orthodoxy) (p. 47)

duty

Duty becomes duty by being referred to God, but in the duty itself I do not enter into relation to God. For instance, it is a duty to love one’s neighbor. It is a duty by its being referred to God, but in the duty I do not enter into a relation to God but to the neighbor I love.
Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling

Jesus calls me to love my neighbour, but that love of neighbour is not my relationship with Jesus. It is my relationship with my neighbour. If I love my neighbour (who, like me, is a sinner in need of Jesus) only because Jesus says so, what does that say about my understanding of my neighbour? Anyway …

online food shopping

What could you try for the first time?

I could try online grocery shopping—and I did yesterday! So, I do not need to leave The Anchorage (enclosure) at all this week. I have used an online store for books, but this is my first food order.

This week, I am aiming for solitude and silence—a new year, a new start. Perhaps that is what I am really trying for the first time: be a recluse without excuses.

two years

Today is my second anniversary in The Anchorage. Much has changed, and much has stayed the same. I thought that the opening song from Spongebob Squarepants is an appropriate thing to share today.

I have no deep insights or epiphanies. My life has evolved (as it should), and I have become clearer about where I am going. I cried for the first time here last week.

An oddball is a person who refuses to accept abstract norms as universal. And I guess I am an oddball. To be honest, that often really hurts. It is nice to be understood by someone and to offer your heart to someone. The life lesson of the last two years is “set your eyes on Jesus.” I have questions that return. And I have no answers. But answers are overrated. Perhaps a line from Thomas Merton will sum up:

I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.