Normally when I take to this blog, I keep it very spiritual. I certainly do comment about events in my life, especially if that event helps in my spiritual growth and understanding, and other times I do my best to sound a bit theological as if I knew what I was talking about. I would like to think, however, that I do very little talking about my life as it is (it truly is boring anyhow, more so since I started this) and more about my soul and my spirit. I may fail this time.
I have to admit that this calender year has been the most challenging to me in many, even as world events and forces beyond my control put me in some difficult circumstances from time to time. I think I can honestly say that the only other year that was as tough physically and spiritually for me as an adult was 2000, the year my mother died. The next year, 2001, was one mistake right after another for me. Sure, I had some fun and felt some relief, especially physically, but I made too many mistakes that year, and some of them still have ripple effects to this day.
It all started last year, December 16 in fact, when I severely dislocated my elbow with several other fractures to the arm. On December 24, I had surgery on that elbow, and spent the night in the hospital. I started physical therapy the week after I got the cast off of my arm, I still have yet to get back 50% of what a normal person can do with an arm. The good news is that if this were 1914 instead of 2014, I wouldn't even have THAT much use of the arm. Glory to God for All Things!
The last few weeks have been miserable also; I can not shake a sinus infection! For some reason, this thing is hanging on for what seems an eternity! Two weeks of antibiotics may be helping, but I sure have lost a lot of energy in this time. Worse, it has severely and negatively effected my daily prayers; I am worse than inattentive. I am lax! Everything is disrupted by this, even fasting, as I have not even attempted to fast yet.
I have not played guitar at all this year....at least not in the guitar player sense. I can barely hold a pick, and strumming is clunky and self muting. I really do want to play guitar again, but that is my will. I have thought that somewhere in all this, God has opened a door for me to walk through, but all I do lately is blindly bump into walls. Since I seem to be too busy playing spiritual human pinball instead of focusing on what I am supposed to learn here, I feel a darkness settling in that is rather unsettling. That can not be good, at least until I find that door.
Have there been bright moments? Sure. This past August, my favorite band that still has all of its original members alive and playing performed their first full length concert in over twenty years! Of course I went, and was very blessed to have met some great people, as well as the treatment by the band I was given that was quite humbling. There was a time there when many people thought that I was instrumental in the concert happening. I refuse that idea; the desire on the part of both the fans and the band was always there. All I did was ask permission to open my big mouth, and got it. From that act has flowed many, many blessings that I can never be grateful enough for.
I think I have also learned my place in the church. It is not on the altar at all. Yes, I was studying to be a deacon, but then the elbow interfered. I missed many classes, and the ones I did attend I could not take notes at, as well as the fact I could not get comfortable in the classroom. Now, I see my place in the choir, as the one thing I have done all of my life that makes me feel better than anything is singing. I can usually do it well, and I know it is a gift from God, a gift I have abused in the past, but I hope to have a few years ahead of me to make up for. So it might be very unlikely that I will ever help a priest on the altar again. Those lucky priests! Again, Glory to God for All Things!
As I reflect on the last twelve months, and as I look ahead (the doctor has said I need more surgery, and God be willing I will live to get it) I have to take time and reflect on some of our saints and what they have had to live through in their lives. Was the life of St Seraphim of Sarov any more difficult than mine? A man who was beaten, robbed, permanently disfigured, yet spent many nights in prayer regardless of his discomfort? What about St Xenia of St. Petersberg, who was a young widow that gave away all she had, save for a few clothes, and willingly spent many hours wandering the streets of the city at night, in the cold, wind and snow, praying and doing things to help others while always being scorned and ridiculed? What about St Maximos the Confessor, a man who had his tongue cut out so he could no longer preach and his hand cut off so he could no longer write? Do my sufferings even come close to that? Do they come close to any other saint in the Orthodox Church?
Perhaps I could write more often in this blog; writing IS why I started this. Maybe that is something I am supposed to be doing. My problem with that idea is the fear of leading anyone onto the wrong path. As I have acknowledged a year of mistakes, so must I acknowledge that I can still make them, and in some small ways this year, indeed I have. I could not bear the thought of giving someone a wrong instruction on the faith, or in anything else really, and that is why I try to keep this blog less instructional and more conversational. It is also why I write infrequently. In the words of Kris Kristofferson "So many wrong directions on that lonely way back home". I have walked some, and I do not want to lead anyone to them.
Looking ahead, I see struggles. Looking back, I see the struggles I have survived so far. Through it all, it has been the Love of God, manifested in His only Begotten Son, that has been the most constant source of hope through my life. All I can do is hope for the darkness I sense to be illuminated by every prayer of thanks I offer, should my offering be worthy. Somehow, I have a sense I need to work on making such offerings worthy.
Glory To God For All Things!
