Work

“I have no fear of drowning

            It’s the breathing

                                                That’s taking all this work…”

“Why did you stop writing?”

It’s a good question. I haven’t posted on my blog for a while… I guess I’ve felt a little lost.

Let me expand on that a little. Things change from moment to moment, like storm clouds chasing clear patches on a bright-sunny-wet-and-wild day. One moment I feel that I have direction: I see signs I recognise; I catch a glimpse of a landmark in the distance; pieces of the puzzle fit together and the whole puzzle has meaning. Hope breaks like sunshine over my life.

I feel that I know where I am.

And I keep walking… and slowly the landmarks fade from view… and the signs become strange again. The pieces of the puzzle look as indecipherable as ever. And I don’t know where to go.

And I’ve been searching for so long. And I don’t have a clue what went wrong.

I get angry, and frustrated, depressed. Despair sets in – and motivation drains from my life… why move, if you don’t know how to reach your destination?

From moment to moment feelings of understanding have been replaced by confusion, and then understanding again. I fluctuate… because I’m not out of the woods yet.

I like to tell complete stories… they may not be entirely complete… but I like them to be coherent, to have some sort of internal rhyme and reason. And, to be honest, I don’t have that rhyme or reason at the moment. At the same time, nothing is settled. I don’t know what will happen next, and I worry that any report I make will be out-of-date by the time you all read it.

And yet… at the same time… I have too much to tell. Too much has been happening, and I despair of ever putting it down on paper.

Some of the stuff that has been happening is too sensitive for the internet… and is so central to my life that any telling of the events that have occurred without mentioning it feels empty to my own ears.

And so the events, and the surrounding milieu of thoughts and emotions, dreams, fears and hopes goes untold… except in person… in crowded coffee houses in the malls of Hong Kong… or late at night over Skype.

I had hoped that my last post “Hard Reset” would cure things. That it would give a vague enough encapsulation of events to allow me to move on with the blogging…

But it didn’t.

I feel like “Work” By Jars of Clay:

“Just in case

I will leave my things packed

So I can run away

I cannot trust these voices

I don’t have a lot of prospects that can give some kind of peace

There is nothing left to cling to that can bring me sweet release

I have no fear of drowning

It’s the breathing

That’s taking all this work

Do you know what I mean when I say

‘I don’t want to be alone’

Do you know what I mean when I say

‘I don’t want to be alone’

Empty spaces with shadows

Hit by streetlights

Warning signs and weight

Of tired conversations

In the absence of a shoulder, in the abscess of a thief

On the brink of this destruction, on the eve of bittersweet

Now all the demons look like prophets and I’m living out

Every word they speak, every word they speak…

I have no fear of drowning

It’s the breathing

That’s taking all this work

Do you know what I mean when I say

‘I don’t want to be alone’

Do you know what I mean when I say

‘I don’t want to be alone’”

I don’t regret that this is happening. I know that God is with me. I know that he’s using it to shape and mould me. I know that I’m making a difference.

But it is wearing me out.

I’m tired.

I’m hurting.

I want it to end.

And so I’m hanging on.

And while I’m hanging on… what I write is not fit for general consumption.

God is Good. And I hope for the dawn.