Advent Journal: How Lonely One Becomes in Victory

1

There was a sense that something big was going to happen, something important. Maybe even something miraculous.

I was going to do this big thing, or the big thing was going to happen to me. Somehow I was integral to it. Its effects were going to be transformative, world-changing, definitely for the better. People would be glad I was alive.

And so I waited. And waited.

And waited.

2

I can’t sleep. The usual tricks don’t work so I’m up and about in the middle of the night. Not it’s two, now it’s three, now it’s half past. Trying to be quiet and failing. Trying to avoid the Byzantine spiritual inquiry, the endless psychological excavation. I was determined to be a subject, not an object, and I won certain early conflicts in that struggle, never realizing how lonely one becomes in victory.

Conflict entails loneliness. You can’t go to war without making holes in your life, some of which you will learn too late cannot be filled. I was a fighter early because I had to be and later, when I tried later to transform myself into a lover, certain habits and scars lingered as impediments.

Life gets dark, then darker. We are none of us excepted.

3

A long time ago four a.m. became holy to me. I don’t know why. I was always alone at that hour, usually outdoors with the dogs, and whatever was missing was either unnecessary or easily recoverable. Not missing at all? Prayer flowed and when it didn’t the Lord was forgiving. Who needs to talk when you can listen? But now four a.m. finds me mute, distracted, unsure. I asked for too much without knowing what I wanted, and this is what happened. I don’t know where to lay my head. Wouldn’t lay it anyway?

Well, something deeply wrong crying out for healing anyway. Something deeply healing saying don’t deny what’s wrong?

4

“You have to do this part alone.” Who taught me that? Who taught them? I learned the lesson so well it generalized recklessly. “You’ll be doing all of this alone.” What God would insist on such a penance? What kind of creature would consent to it? My life recedes now in images, like Polaroids skimming off the table in an unexpected breeze. Who left the window open? Who stacked the photographs just so? What did they mean by “this part” and why – at such a late and getting later juncture – am I still unable to answer these questions?

5

Oh but then I go outside with my coffee. Crunchy snow, gusting breath. The river a low murmur beyond the pasture. The waning moon blurred by clouds, yellowish and dim. Thank Christ for Advent at four a.m. on the seventh of December. The beauty of it – the here-and-nowness of it – is a familiar gift, a practical blessing. My lungs open to the world and something inside settles. “There’s another way,” you whisper, from that bower in my chest you share with Jesus. You’re right, of course, and I know you’re right. I know where to find you and how to close my eyes.

I stay outside a moment or two longer, though. A gift to us? What else could the world be for? You don’t find Jesus; Jesus finds you. Nor can you be estranged again. Love is here; this is love.

I want to do something with my hands – or open my mouth to sing maybe – but the stillness and silence reflect God better than I can. Become less. Less and less. Even without me what is sacred continues. I’m like a child in his father’s house, playing hide and seek. Now you see me, now you don’t. Now I do. Now I am, again.