Loneliness

It's a struggle that has plagued me for longer than I can recall, this feeling of being unknown and alone...and essentially unloved. The pain of loneliness can be so great because even the love that you may genuinely receive from others becomes tainted with the concept that you are not fully loved, loved for who you are, because you are not fully known and if you were then you would not be loved.

It's a battle that rages within my heart, within my inner self. You can't argue with your loneliness and rationally explain it away, though understanding it can play a significant role in learning to face it and walk through it.

My great spiritual guide as of late, Henri Nouwen, shares some profound thoughts relating to this when he was going through a time of serious self-doubt and depression due to the loss of an incredibly significant relationship in his life. I'm not usually a fan of quoting other people extensively but I could never hope to express his insight in a way that would come close to his own words.

This is, in essence, what I am walking through and these are the words that speak to me. They are words of life that God has generously offered me in the midst of such deep and yet necessary pain, and for such a gift I am deeply grateful.

"When you experience the deep pain of loneliness, it is understandable that your thoughts go out to the person who was able totake that loneliness away, even if only for a moment. When, underneath all the praise and acclaim, you feel a huge absence that makes everything look useless, your heart wants only one thing - to be with the person who once was able to dispel these frightful emotions. But it is the absence itself, the emptiness within you, that you have to be willing to experience, no the one who could temporarily take it away.

It is not easy to stay with your loneliness. The temptation is to nurse your pain or to escape into fantasies about people who will take it away. But when you can acknowledge your loneliness in a safe, contained place, you make your pain available for God's healing.

God does not want your loneliness; God wants to touch you in a way that permanently fulfills your deepest need. It is important that you dare to stay with your pain and allow it to be there. You have to own your loneliness and trust that it will not always be there. The pain you suffer now is meant to put you in touch with the place where you most need healing, your very heart. The person who was able to touch that place has revealed to you your pearl of great price.

It is understandable that everything you did, are doing, or plan to do seems completely meaningless compared with that pearl. That pearl is the experience of being fully loved. When you experience deep loneliness, you are willing to give up everything in exchange for healing. But no human being can heal that pain. Still, people will be sent to you to mediate God's healing, and they will be able to offer you the deep sense of belonging that you desire and that gives meaning to all you do.

Dare to stay with your pain, and trust in God's promise to you."

If I recited that to myself every day, I would, no doubt, be far more grounded, encouraged, and prepared to live my life in the face of this pain.

I pray that you would be blessed by these words of Henri as well.

Love & Intimacy pt.2

Somewhere along the line I came to both underestimate and overestimate the potential of human relationship.

I underestimated it in the sense that I could never have imagined the depths of my being that another person could touch and reveal to me through the gift of love.

I overestimated it in the sense that as much as another person can offer, they can never offer the deepest love that I need.

Both of those realities seem to intertwine in some strange way that I don't yet fully understand. To have someone guide you to the darkest and most intimate caverns of your heart is an incredible and miraculous journey. Yet when you reach the door to center of your being and your guide is unable to walk with you any further it becomes terrifying.

How can you continue on your own when you've needed someone to get this far? How can you now be expected to move forward alone? It seems unfair and unreasonable at first glance, unless it was a test of strength but I don't believe that it is. It is simply a part of our humanity being created as unique individuals. No one has the key to your center but you and only you can walk through into it. This is where we meet the Transcendent Reality, the creator and lover of all that we are.

This is where God dwells within us.

To enter our center means leaving all others behind. We must leave behind all the love and intimacy that we have been offered. Why? Because its only a partial expression of the love and intimacy for which we truly yearn. God desires to give us these gifts in their fullness, but we cannot receive them if our hands are full. We must learn to let go.

This is where the risk and fear is found. To let go means that we may lose all that we had. How can we be sure that when we enter our inner chamber we will really receive the gifts we have been promised?

We can't be.

It is a risk.

And so our heavenly Father/Mother waits for us and gently whispers to us, as one would comfort a frightened child to assure them that they need not be afraid. To enter our deepest self is, in fact, the safest place of all.

Love & Intimacy pt.1

In the scorching heat of the desert sun, as your parched throat cries out for relief, coming across a deep well of water seems like the most amazing and blessed gift that you could ever be given! You drink and drink and drink, savouring every drop that kisses your lips. But as you continue drawing the water from the unseen depths you begin to notice that there is a bit less in the bucket than the last time, and the next time there is even less.

It appears that there isn't enough water replenishing the well to meet the demands of your unquenchable thirst.

The never-ending heat offers no reprieve and you feel mocked and scorned. Yes, you were miraculously provided with water, the very thing you were desperately longing for, but it only served to prolong the inevitable ending you were trying to escape. You were fooled into thinking that there was a chance to survive and now it feels as if you are being taunted for your misplaced hope.

How did you end up in the desert anyway? Wrong turn? I suppose it doesn't matter since it doesn't seem hopeful that you're going to last much longer. Death may appear certain but you still have a choice to make. Are you going to simply lie down next to this well, this symbol of hope, content to face your end alone and defeated? Or are you going to gather what's left of your strength and continue on in hopes of finding the source of this well? After all, a well must be fed by something greater. Its water must come from somewhere...but where? And how will you ever find it?

So the question remains: what are you prepared to do?

"...Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again...'Please, sir,' the woman said, 'give me this water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again...'"

Identity

For a long time I've allowed the external world to define my identity, what it means to be a 'Matthew Kent' of the times.

Whether it has been the influence of the media, the expectations of others, my thoughts about what the expectations of others might be, how a 'good' person is supposed to act, or whatever else, I've allowed those things to define me.

Well, that's not exactly true. It's not that I've let those things define me as much as I've let them be a sort of measuring stick with which to measure myself. It's like all of these things that I should be are used to discern whether or not I'm actually measuring up, if I'm enough of a 'Matthew Kent' to pass inspection.

What I'm beginning to see more clearly is that discovering who I really am is not the issue. I know who I am, as much as I can at the moment. Yes, I think our identities are shaped as we progress through life and they are formed and revealed as time moves on. The fact remains that I know who I am as much as I am able to at this moment.

That's not the real problem.

The problem is not in figuring out who I am as much as being able to accept who I am. I have strengths and weaknesses, gifts and struggles, victories and vices and all of those things fit into my identity in some way. That doesn't mean I am unable to learn and grow and change but that can only really happen when I find my home in my own skin. I often see myself only as valuable as the qualities I possess that are similar to positive ones found in others.

If I act generously I compare my generosity to so-and-so, who is obviously more generous, and so I fall short. If I act compassionately I compare myself to someone else, who I will also see as being far more compassionate, and so I fall short. The same goes for an act of kindness, patience, or vulnerability. Anything good I have to offer seems only to be a shadow of what those around me carry with them all the time.

This is clearly neither a healthy nor accurate way of perceiving myself.

I am who I am and as much as I feel inadequate and redundant at times I am irreplaceable. When I can begin to truly live this out then I will be able to truly give without expectation. I will be able to offer love to those around me without clinging to them in hopes of finding safety in becoming who they desire me to be, well intentioned or not.

The gnawing loneliness I have within me seems to be rooted in the fact that I don't feel loved and accepted by the one person who I should be able to count on to offer it beyond anyone else...myself.

Excuse me, I have something to say.

Over seven months.

A lot can happen in seven months.

A lot has happened in seven months.

Things have changed.

I've changed.

Life doesn't always turn out how we expect, how we hope it should.

That is unchanging.

I'm headed into a new place and I'm not entirely sure what that looks like. I just know that I'm heading home. It'll be a long journey, one filled with more pain than I would ever wish to endure, and yet I'm realizing that it's a journey I must take. I've been looking for a long time, trying to find the place where I am safe to just be. It wasn't where I thought it would be, not in the love of another, not anywhere in this world around me. It's beyond all of that, deep in my innermost being, the place I am most afraid to travel.

Truth be told, I scare myself. When I look down the shaft descending into the deepest recesses of my heart I become fearful. I don't know what's down there and for the most part I've been content not to find out. I've tried to find peace and meaning and life outside of myself, outside of my truest self. I so badly wanted to find it somewhere else, anywhere else! But it wasn't found in my abilities and strengths, not in my addictions and vices, not in my friends and family, and not even in the one place I truly hoped, the sacred intimacy shared with the one I loved.

I've exhausted all of my options, no place left to turn. This is one of those times in life where we have a significant choice to make. We can choose death and give up all hope, knowing that what we crave so badly will never be found in the things we strive for. Or we can choose...the other path. I don't want to say 'life' because we may not truly believe that life will be found, but it's a choice to take that final journey, to the place we've avoided at all costs, in the grasping hope that where it takes us will be the home we've been longing for.

It's deeply unsettling to know that there is no more hope for something else to come around that will satisfy the hunger in my soul. There is no thing, no person, no vocation, and no experience in this world that can offer that.

The path that led me to this discovery was an extremely painful one involving the loss of a relationship that offered me more love, acceptance and safety than I could have asked for and yet was not enough. It never could have been enough. And it never will be enough, not with anyone. Yes, the loss is great and the sorrow is overwhelming at times and yet I am grateful because this relationship showed me so much of the beauty and intimacy possible in this life and also of its ultimate inadequacy to meet my deepest needs.

And so I am left staring down into the abyss of myself, unsure of what I might find but knowing that it is a journey I must take for there is nowhere left to go but inwards. It's not a journey of self-involvement but a journey of self-discovery. Where this journey will take me I do not know, but I am sensing that it may also involve an outward journey, away from this place, away from what I've known and where I feel content to hold onto the comfort and safety that is so readily available. To be honest, it's quite terrifying and yet quite freeing at the same time.

I've also realized that this is a journey that is to be shared and so this is a place where I can offer my thoughts and questions and discoveries to those interested. It felt almost selfish in a way to keep these things to myself and though I can make no promises about what will emerge in this space my desire is that others will be able to see bits and pieces of their own stories and be reminded of our shared humanity, knowing that we have much more in common than we might first think.

This MUST be a bad dream...

I've been going through a pretty rough patch as of late. I've tried to think about what I feel motivated to share on this space and the answer is still out of my reach.

I stumbled upon [this] while looking for an ecouraging e-card for Kim, my wonderful partner. I had a strange feeling that she wouldn't appreciate most of the ones I looked at...

Seriously, though, you need to check that out. Terrible graphics and animation aside, those cards are almost too outrageous to even believe. Almost.

Sigh.

At first I thought it was a joke. Nope. My personal faves? 'Wives Submit' and 'Date Non Christians', but it's so hard to separate the terrible from the deplorable. The 'Marriage for Life' was the one that I can actually stand behind.

Is this what qualifies for apologetic outreach? Such a disappointment, not in the person, but in the religious culture that breads this absurdity.

There Gavin, now I wrote something new.

"Men are from Mars, Women are from...Mars" Duh

The concept of socialization is one that is quite mind-boggling to begin to unravel, not unlike the movie, “The Matrix”. When you’re so immersed in your conditioning it takes someone else to reach out and show you something different.

I have found myself to be much more acutely aware of the generalizations of the sexes that are made by both others and myself. It’s like my ears have been tuned into a frequency that I had been previously oblivious to. And why the difference? Why bother listening? In coming to understand a clearer picture of how women have been marginalized and segregated throughout history, and even in our present culture of the Western church, it grieves my heart.

Why do we always focus on the differences and ignore the far more impressive similarities?

One of the very few convictions I’ve had in my life regarding what I am to pursue has been about being in relationship, in friendship, with those rejected by others: the marginalized, the disenfranchised, the poor, those struggling with addictions and mental illness, homelessness, etc. So how do you think I would react upon being presented with the possibility that one entire half of our species has invisibly fallen under that category? I think in many ways that I’m still in shock.

Beyond the impact on women, there is the less visible impact on males, myself included. It is an incredible feeling to realize that, bundled up with the unfair gender roles placed on women, are unfair gender roles placed on men, albeit to less obvious oppression. I am told to be more emotional but expected to be 'strong' and less emotional. I am told to be relational and caring and yet prodded to be successful in work in order to 'provide' for my family. It's actually quite amusing when the string begins to unravel.

To me the answer seems to lie in the discovery and embrace of who we are as human beings before trying to discover the ‘correct’ gender roles of men and women. Breaking down the walls of gender for the sole purpose of reconstructing them in a ‘better’ way seems like a waste of time.

What does it mean to be a human being? That should be the real question that we pursue for ourselves and encourage others to follow.

Ah, I could say soooo much more at the moment but I am quite positive the vast majority of you would get really bored. But if anyone wants to hear more, just let me know;)