is the one you don't see coming, the one that kills a part of you you didn't expect to die. Perhaps you didn't even believe this part of you could die. It can come after a great tragedy, a great pain. Something earthshaking, so big that by sheer probability you don't expect anything else as dangerous to come around for a long time. This great tragedy threatens to knock you down, topple your walls. But it's obvious, you see it coming like a Tsunami- you feel the shock so you run even before the wave is visible- it can catch you. You seek High ground. Eventually the waves subside, leaving all kinds of damage and debris but you, your whole self, is still alive. Yet the water remains in low lying areas, it seeps down deep, into your foundations, slowing wearing at them, silently breaking you until one day, there is a noticeable crack, a frightening, seemingly irreparable gap. It's the silent aftermath, that gets in under your radar, and cracks your insides- the very basis of your being. And if your foundation is completely destroyed, your entire house eventually crumbles. This is the most dangerous death- dangerous because it's the most difficult to prevent and because of the area it targets, the most deadly.
Perhaps I've been slacking in updating on my 70 weeks lately because it's just a process of recalling unpleasantness, rehashing the battles I'm fighting, or the ways in which I feel dead. And I suppose I also feel the obligation to be somewhat positive in updating this- I don't want this blog to be a vent session, I want it to seriously explore theological and philosophical themes in a way that is constructive and somehow provokes the thoughts of people who read it. So, I had to wait until all my grumpiness turned into some actual deep and constructive thought in order to write to you. Needless to say, I'm a few weeks behind so I will be posting in rapid succession.
First off, it's no secret that my mother's medical issues have been impacting my 70 weeks, where I am spiritually, emotionally, etc. In addition, my work situation is stressful and I have been working in the same place for the length of time it takes most teachers to get burnt out (a year and a half to two years where I work is usually the point where you see most of even the most positive and dedicated teachers starting to get tired and fed up- some amazing people never show the signs, but unfortunately, I'm not one of them). Here's the thing- when work got stressful, I fought back, I was still pushing through being who I wanted to be- loving, working on how I was viewing people and interacting in the environment around me. When things suddenly looked really terrible with my mother medically, I cried and had to battle with it, but the evil was so recognizable that I fought back. I was diligent in prayer, God gave me peace, I was ok or at least more ok than I should have been and in fact, doing great spiritually. "Wow, I thought, I must be super strong, I made it through this." But then, the evil didn't go away, bad things kept happening, work remained stressful, my mother's health continued to deteriorate, and last week, I found out she now has cancer in her one remaining lung in addition to her brain.
Heh. Evil is so tricky like that. First, it doesn't just come and go- it stays, it's a persistent, nasty thing. And not only does it stay, it goes underground, quiet, so you don't notice it, you let your guard down and just when you do, it slips in. And not only does it do that, it gives you pride for thinking you've beaten it (even when you haven't) and now you've committed a sin! So now, evil is two fold in my life: 1) attacking me spiritually/emotionally 2) now a part of my behavior in the form of pride.
But it doesn't stop there. While it silently attacks, it slowly gets into your behavior further- pushing you to commit more sin and thus move further from God. It's attacks slowly, imperceptibly until suddenly you feel the weight of the world and you're exhausted. So you say, "my life is really tough right now, I'm exhausted, I need a break" and you cut yourself some slack. But not always in the good areas like giving yourself more time to pray, more sleep at night, healthier food. You give yourself less work and more time by doing fewer things for others, even giving your brain and spirit less work by stopping to continually strive in your everyday thoughts to love others, and hold sin (like pride, lust, and just hurtful thoughts) captive. Now, you have a disease- of exhaustion and pride- a vicious circle. Because you're exhausted, you allow sin to enter which makes you more exhausted, allowing more sin to enter, and on and on it goes until you realize you're burnt out from the passions you feel you have due to convictions from God and suddenly, you're just an exhausted, sinful, passionless mess that is pushed so far down, you're barely up to asking for (and sometimes even doubting the power of) redemption to help you out of this crater (and we know it could, the problem is asking for it and believing in it in order to receive it, which sin is so good at preventing you from doing because sin likes to stay, it hates being pushed away).
When I said dangerous, I was not kidding.
And so I was exhausted and burnt out with my work and life in general. And for me, being burnt out of my job feels like a personal sin. I spoke earlier about this "tsunami" being dangerous because of the place it targets- your foundations. And that is exactly what happened. My foundation is obviously my relationship with God but my relationship with God initially was founded in my work with children. I first came to know God almost through my call to work with kids. My relationship with and understanding of God has developed and He ultimately is my foundation, but my faith is still extremely linked to my calling and my work, in a way that can sometimes present problems.
But, I have always said that if I had any quality that made me a good teacher, it would be my love for kids and my passion for teaching, that anything else good spawned from that (and that love comes from God). I remember always scoffing at teachers who "burnt out" and I even remember proclaiming to someone defiantly, "I don't burn out."
So this evil, this exhaustion, this gradual, imperceptible growth of darkness inside me completely shook me when I realized it had targeted the very core of me- my passion for what I do, and thus threatening, not necessarily my faith, but how I live it out and thus my walk with God and everyone else around me. In short, I was not the person I wanted to be, was still struggling with my mother's medical issues, and even what I should do next year at work as the age of students I work with/the type of program I'm involved in will impact where I will go after I leave here, the type of job I'll get, and really how effective I will be wherever I am based on the type of experience I get. Needless to say, I was trying to pray about where I should go next year and after my 70 weeks while in the middle of a crises regarding what is at the heart of my 70 weeks: my calling, what I should be doing with it, how I should be executing it, and how I should be working toward glorifying God with it.
Of course, all of this clarity on the issue took a while to come, and it came from a lot of introspection and prayer. I spent a lot of the week completely drained and really at the end of my rope. Of all the things that have been happening in my life lately, nothing has thrown me off as much as suddenly realizing that I had "burnt out" because I simply can't be "burnt out"- were I to remain that way I would be an ineffective teacher, ineffective in my daily ministry with everyone around me, and continually growing more and more distant from God. Terrible things happening doesn't necessarily alter you at your core- this slow attack on my core was much worse, much harder even though you wouldn't guess it. Finally, at my wits end I went for healing prayer while at church, which is something I've never done. First of all, I may ask for prayers during "prayers of the people," but I've never gone with the intercessors for healing prayer because, well, I never really needed healing. Sure, I needed answers, comfort, many people in my life needed healing, but I was never sick to require that specific type of prayer. Last week, I felt like I was broken, I was spiritually sick, I didn't know what else to do. One of the intercessors, Lloyd, who is quite an old character- a Vietnam vet with a booming voice- said, well, more like yelled at me, "LOOK AT ME. I GIVE YOU MY LIGHT. I GIVE IT TO YOU. I GIVE IT TO YOU FREELY because I KNOW that He will give it BACK TO ME, HE WILL REPLENISH IT ENDLESSLY." And it was then I realized my problem.
I left church and went to Chauncy lake for the first time since fall. If you recall, Chauncy Lake is where I wrote the first pieces that have become the early posts of this blog. It is where I went last summer to walk and talk with God and really worked on my 70 DAYS of loving God properly. Since it was a warmer and sunny day that was approaching spring, I was able to finally go again. At first, I felt like I was in a graveyard. The trees, once green and luscious, were still bare bones, the blue of the sky still held the harsher hues of winter, and everything with littered with colorless leaves from the fall that had never blown away. They just remained like remnants of my usual hellish falls and winters.
But slowly, I let my heart soften, stopped talking and started listening, just feeling God's presence again like I had when I had walked here when it was warm, before everything fell apart. I thought about what Lloyd said and realized that I had been holding back my light- from co-workers, from students, from everyone I had been around. I was not making an effort to love them, to act in love toward them, to actively think and walk in Christ every day. And I had done it because I felt too tired and that I had felt that so much of my light had been drained by all the circumstances around me that maybe I felt I couldn't give it away, I didn't have enough. I had to selfishly hold the light that I had, keep it closed in inside. But a light hidden under a bowl goes out.
After much prayer it seemed that the cure of this exhaustion, this burn out, was more work, more effort to "walk the walk," stop slacking in an effort to live my life in Christ- the cure for this was more love. Love is a lot of work, but when it's Love that comes from God, it's light, both luminous and lacking in weight, and it's a renewable resource. Lloyd was right, God gives us light and love endlessly so we can give it away freely. And, I find, when we don't give it away freely, we ourselves are in chains.
No comments:
Post a Comment