All Week.

“Document 4.” 

Hm. Yet another document open on Word…maybe I’ll be able to finish my thoughts in this one….so frustrating. I’ve started saying so much, but haven’t finished any of it. Maybe because I’ve begun writing about anything and to anybody but You. Maybe. Fine, so here goes:

Dear God,

I know I’ve been running from You all week. I see it now. I read this book while I was gone and then and You said, “go home and rest in Me.” And so I had every intention of doing that. I was going to fast and “rest.” Instead what have I done? Read. A lot. Also a lot of paperwork, meetings, chiropractor…all of these things I wanted or needed to get done as soon as I got home. It’s been a productive week, sure, but “rest”? I think not.

I can hardly say the word “rest” without a measure of internal disgust—mostly with myself—because when I actually think about it I know very well what it means to physically rest but I have no f***ing idea what it means spiritually and frankly the word just invokes a sense of failure in me:

I suck at this.

But why have I been running from You? The Person, the Thing that fully, completely, and utterly understands me? I think I figured it out today. It’s because I’m afraid of what You’ll say to me. 

No, that’s not it. Not quite. It’s because I think I already know what You’re going to say to me. You know better than I even do what this whole thing is—indeed You made it happen—and I, in my vast wisdom, have the nerve to think I know what You’re going to say to me if I actually just lay at Your Feet and just “rest” (if I ever figure out what that means): I think You’re going to tell me to wait. And I don’t want to hear it.

I already know that, Lord. I have to wait. But YOU know I don’t wait well. I never have. Ever. 

In a perfect storm of the naturally impatient personality You gave me and probably the ADD that I just found out about I have never been a patient person. Little wonder I dread hearing the word “wait.” Little wonder I went running from You this week. I’m not making excuses, though.

But how judgmental of me, really. The irony of me assuming anything about You and judging what You’re going to do before You do anything at all. I don’t really know that’s what You want to say to me. Or maybe I’m also afraid that You won’t say anything at all and I’ll just be at Your Feet wondering what You’re thinking and if I just messed everything up. 

“Perfect love casts out fear.” Right. So none of this, therefore, is grounded in reality. The only thing I have to fear is my own humanity—that thing that is neither love nor perfect. That thing I want You to heal. 

What’s real is that You want me to show up. You’re always there, and You want me to be too. And for me, I want to do instead of be because I find “doing” something to be more tangible than being with You.

It reminds me of that café scene in that Godard movie…maybe if objects are what serve as links between subjects, allowing us to live together in association, then maybe I view doing something for You as more of a link to You than just being with You. I see a task as more as an “object” linking me to You than an ambiguous intangible. Maybe. 

But I need no tangible link to You. Actually, the questions and desire described in this scene—at least for me, it would seem—are answered in You. But to be fair, they are certainly not answered in my knowledge of You, it’s true. No, they are answered in my relationship--rather experience with You. Exactly, yeah, that thing I’ve been running from all week. It’s so crazy the more I live the more I know to the core of me that knowledge of You and a relationship with You are two UTTERLY different things. One is a starting point and the other is the consummation. Still doesn't stop me from fleeing every once in a while, huh?

But anyway, it’s funny because the whole problem that the scene describes, that language “divides as much as it unites” due to the hard (read: human) fact that we can never fully communicate our thoughts within a finite system such as language, is not even a thing with with You: You are not bound by language, nor any form whatsoever, in Your Knowledge and Understanding of Man--indeed, of me. Nothing I ever feel, think, know, or am will ever be outside the scope of expression in You. You don’t just “get it," You invented it. Godard whispers:

“Mais alors puisque la relation sociale est toujours ambiguë, puisque ma pensée divise autant qu’elle unit, puisque ma parole rapproche par ce qu’elle exprime et isole par ce qu’elle tait, puisqu’un immense fossé sépare la certitude objective que j’ai de moi même et la vérité objective que je suis pour les autres….”

God, this resonates so deeply for I know this all too well when it comes to the human relationship. So often I’ve mourned these barriers, wanting to understand the very essence of the person in front of me but held irrevocably at bay by the immutable constraints of the form that human relation requires. But You’re a completely different thing. You transcend this. And then he continues:

“Où commence, mais où commence quoi? Dieu créa les cieux et la terre bien sur, mais c’est un peu lâche et facile, on doit pouvoir dire mieux, dire que les limites du langage sont celles du monde, que les limites de mon langage sont celles de mon monde, et qu’en parlant je limite le monde, je le termine et que la mort un jour logique et mystérieux viendra abolir un jour cette limite et qu’il n’y aura ni question ni réponse….”

Oh dear God, I grieve an unfulfilled existence where it isn’t until death “arriving one mysterious and logical day,” where the relational limits of language are abolished. Sure, he says, God created the sky and the earth…but….” Ugh. “But?!” May I never live in that “but” that represents that terrifying idea that You’re totally removed from that which You created, that You were satisfied to just watch Your Magnum Opus unwind and unravel the very beauty and fulfillment for which You created it. 

Indeed, I grieve said existence because I shudder at how my person would react under such limits; so crushingly complete if I didn’t choose access to You, the only escape from them. These limits are the very nature of being human, their only relief being a Union with You. Dear God, if I already feel the weight of existence the way that I do, even with this escape, who would I be if I had not this respite? 

It’s strange, for while I am often humbled and in awe at the form, substance, and method in which these minds greater than mine pose these questions, Lord, the other part of me just wonders if I settle for a trite and simplistic answer to them in You. Like, sometimes I wonder if I just choose the easy way out and choose You. But then I remember the ink that I have spilled processing the life I have in You and the words “simple” and “easy” flee my vocabulary immediately. Maybe I’m more heart now than I am head and maybe I’m not as intelligent as I think I am (no, that part is definitely true), but I’m led back to Greg Boyd’s book on imagination: “Wondering if Christianity is real is not the same as wondering whether Christianity is true….Remember, it’s not what we believe intellectually that impacts us; it’s what we experience as real. ” Though, I would postulate that there must be a nexus. But I think there is: and I know this is real.

But anyway, if all this is true, and you are beyond the arguably beautiful but frustrating limits of language and communication through “objects” then why in my interaction, no...relationship with You do I limit myself to this idea of expression called language or what I perceive to be a more objective expression of doing for You—whatever that looks like (fasting, reading, even writing)—when all the while You’re just wanting me to move beyond. To be.

Oh.

DEAR GOD.

Is that what this is about?? Is that what “Rest” is? I already know the answer, but I still have to ask-- God: why couldn’t you JUST SAY SO?

So...

So...maybe Rest is actually being willing to move beyond the form and substance of language and “objectivity” (which is only an appealing mirage anyway) and learning to “communicate” with You in ways that my soul aches to they way this man sitting in a coffee shop aptly characterizes…

…and Rest means feeling liberated to be who I am and not feel constrained by form.

Oh. That’s what this week was about???

Again, I’m angry at myself. So “Rest” actually had nothing to do with the word “Wait” and this is what You were actually ironically waiting to tell me and I just wouldn’t let my fingers hit the keyboard to talk to You till now.

Oh....Forgive me, God. 

Oh Father, show me this Rest thing? Show up in my imagination, in my intuition and let’s go beyond any and all of these limiting forms I know (and have learned to navigate to varying degrees of success). If this is about something new for You and me, then I’m surprised to feel a sense of relief and not resentment. Wow, I had no idea all of this was going on in my subconscious.

Maybe Rest isn’t so dreadful, and maybe I'll learn its language someday. If it can even be called that...

Finally, I'm kind of speechless. Which, I suppose, is the point.

Post Script: Even though those of you reading this are so ridiculously few that this forum is hardly "public," and even though this letter to God is essentially a prayer, because I've chosen to make it public in the very technical sense the legal side of me feels that I must cite the sources to which I refer. That said, the film excerpt is HERE, all emphasis on the script is mine (and if anyone is actually reading this then I apologize for not translating the text); and the book by Gregory Boyd is called Seeing is Believing: Experiencing Jesus through Imaginative Prayer, Baker Books 2004. Also, the quote about "perfect love" comes from I John 4:18.