Healing and Hoping

 Jan - July 2025 Wandering Archive

Knights and Mustard Seeds

It may be some time before I walk again, I think. Yesterday I felt the beginnings of what I can only describe as a call to remain-- not in stillness, necessarily, and not in expectation, but for some particular purpose. I mentioned in an earlier entry that as I looked out over the horizon I was not called anywhere in particular, and that all I could see was the small village, but it seems now that I misinterpreted my lack of calling for a lack of familiarity of what it feels like to be called to sit. 

I saw nothing, except the village, and since visiting it twice now I find it more surely confirmed that God has brought me here and planted me in this little cabin for more reasons than letting me rest my feet for the summer. Modifications to the cabin will need to be made before winter-- such is the feeling I am getting now, though to hope for clarity on much else may still be a tall order. 

Forget what prompted the thoughts, but I have been thinking of late about Kierkegaard's two knights -- of Resignation and Faith, and which I might identify with, versus to which I might aspire. And I confess that they are both in me, but while I often act impulsively like the former, I find that prolonged walking has made me question the motives of the latter. If I understand correctly: to fight or sacrifice in the name of one's principles is simply a matter of fact to the Knight of Resignation. To do the right thing comes before love, glory, what-ifs, and any potentially selfish desire, including personal fulfillment and happiness. The Knight of Faith, however, is much more cheerfully-giving and striving, because there is a belief that all things will be well, in a way that stares in the face of even the most remote and absurd potentialities. In either case, the payoff is worth the cost, but one gives all to God with joy, and the other with trepidation. 

However, is the Knight of Faith sane to expect some reward or return? The quintessential example is Abraham, sacrificing Isaac. Was he thinking that God would save him at the last minute, or give him more children instead? Did he expect that God would send a lamb? Doubtful, in my mind. I imagine it was more like the broken and contrite heart that called to God that day. The heart that was breaking as God requested back what He had given, to test Abraham's faith that God was, in fact, the source and sovereign of all. We know the ending, but Abraham didn't-- up until he had the knife already above his only son's throat. 

...

There is a phrase I occasionally enjoy that says, "Courage is knowing it might hurt and doing it anyway. Stupidity is the same. That's why life is hard," and I confess that I wrestle with this concept in my life what seems to be a near comedic amount.

But while I bend my knee in resignation, I begin to see why the Knight of Faith is entrusted with the mustard seed, and why it is not only the greater calling, but the Christian one; the key to resurrection, not just an honourable death. The Knight of Resignation walks on with honor, but without expectation. He/She gives all to God, and expects nothing in return, and this is still holy, but the Knight of Faith gives all to God but knows how our God is the one that turns death to new life. 

The Knight of Faith may still weep, watching the sacrifices burn, because there is no guarantee, and there is no transaction being made, but still know that in God, all things are possible. It’s a trust so deep it looks like foolishness and nakedness, but keeps ones heart and hands open, so that God may yet place something in them; trusting in God's goodness, and allowing for resurrection, even as its time, date, and form may remain mysterious for an indeterminate span. 

 

Hang on, Little Tomato

I have been unwell for some days, but the miasma seems to be subsiding now. I am still weighted down by its after-effects.

If I can write coherently here, it will be the true test, and a blessing. 

God can carry everything, yes, I can give Him my everything, and I can even get absolution... but unlike Christ, my sacrifices do not absolve everyone. There will always be those I wish to save but cannot, hearts I wish to speak to, as God can, and chains I would break, or spirits I would call from their cages... And yet all I can ever do is hope that whatever I do, or fail to do, does not bring darkness into this world. I can hold a light, for those who seek it... and that is all. It is something, I suppose; something I will continue to strive to do, God willing. 

I don't doubt my abilities to hope, or my faith now, that God's hands are better than mine... but it does not change that the amount of trust in Him required for this surrender somehow never seems to be less than only-just surmountable when it comes to fates other than my own, and those my heart still breaks for.

I see now that in my Dream of Plenty I was mistaking myself for a being not unlike the gardener I met, and wondering about my relationship to him, but I was wrong-- I am simply one of the strange plants. 

I have spent the last week reeling and disoriented from what has been a slow reminder of, and surrender to, my own lack of control over my direction of growth, whether my motives be pure or imperfect; then compounded by the deep wound of having my taproot cut. The gardener's hands are adept and his choices deliberate, I am certain, but finding that new life floating above the ground and subsisting on the Spirit is an adaptation nonetheless. 

When I was walking, I felt agency, and basic purpose, but in the stillness my humanity speaks the loudest.

What fruits will come from this?

 

Return to Innocence

It is my hope that whoever has been walking with me has not seen me as someone to blindly follow behind, but as someone to walk beside. I try my hardest to speak only truths here as they seem revealed to me, but I find that the nature of walking and exploring, especially/largely on one's own, can sometimes be labyrinthine and all-too-subjective. Regardless, I am grateful for the company, even when it is silent.

This morning I was sitting with my eyes closed, trying to stop the spinning of thoughts that rumbled in the wake of this week's continued miasma effects. And I confess I played a silly game with myself to pass the time, wherein I imagined what it might be like to be myself suddenly waking up in my own body, with no thoughts or memory of any previous events, or what might exist outside of my immediate surroundings. I imagined what it would be like to take an objective tally of my needs, feelings, and objects I have otherwise more intentionally surrounded myself with. 

What I found was that as I sat and tried to evaluate my "self" based on my surroundings, rather than from the inside out, was that my surroundings (while made pleasant by care and deliberate choices of what to include, collect, or discard over several years) do not define me-- they simply reflect my intentions and the will I have over my space. I started writing down notes about how my space made me feel, and what this or that object, arrangement, or artifact might say about me, but found that while words like "soft" "warm" "gentle" came to mind most readily to describe the things, it contrasted with my knowledge of my experiences and even impulses that brought them there. I was also surprised at this, because I would not describe myself this way, because these sorts of traits are so deeply in the eye of the beholder, and frankly, it feels uncomfortable for me. What I did notice, however, or at least began to have my thoughts turned towards, is that for every human trait I have developed as part of my current character, good or bad, there has sprung from it ,through love and grace, something even more than its roots:

That resilience was born in the face of trial, but Hope was born by the arrival of a champion;

That strength was born of necessity against greater difficulties, but Gentleness from mercy toward the weak;

That safety was born from a shield, but Freedom is a gift wherein one might never worry about needing protection;

Vulnerability, in God, becomes Receptivity,

and resourcefulness is free to become Creativity. 

... Maybe suffering, therefore, when transfigured, becomes the path by which we are made childlike again; not in ignorance, but in faith.

  

Lying Fallow

As I woke up this morning, I found myself in familiar territory outside, but not inside. Outside I was safe, comfortable, and I was in my cabin, where I remember falling asleep. But now there is so much space in me... strange but somehow holy. The world feels spacious, and I feel small, like one would feel if they were standing in a home where all the inner walls were suddenly removed. Like an embryo I attach to a small portion of the womb, knowing that the space around me will eventually become small again, but until then, it is vast, somewhat frightening, but ultimately all for me.

I am... so small. But I have all I need now to begin unfolding. I have lived honestly, given openly, and I have followed what light I have managed to see, without bringing more darkness into this world. Every wound, in this name, has been worth it. Every self-mortification a casualty of war against all that I would never want to be, versus what I know I can be. 

Experience, and the welling in my soul, tells me that my discomfort will subside soon enough. 

I'm now sitting with myself in the beautiful summer sun and just wondering how long I will exist in the in-between this what-was and what-could-be. I yearn this moment not for depth or speech, but for quiet, undemanding company. There is no need for permission or validation, it simply is, I simply am, as a matter of fact, and I can spread roots, growing into and around my surroundings with the patient faith of one who is completely assured that they will grow in soil that was made for them, by One who knows their name... Therefore, by simply being, am I doing exactly what one is called to do?

...This is an absurd idea to me. A miracle of life. 

 

Things my heart used to know; things at yearns  to remember 

There is a song that summons me with whispers of things that are on the other side of the veil between the eternal and the limited. My heart recognises them, and reaches like a babe to its mother, even as it is close enough to caress my cheek, and far, far out of my reach... Things I've only felt for fleeting moments on earth, but know exist eternally, and have simply shone through like pinholes of light through fabric where the sun lies on the other side. 

A time before performance, when love was simply presence,

A time when the response to God's voice was fearless, and there was only joy,

A place called home, filled with song, laughter, and warmth, even as it allows one to expand with in it, too. 

The summons asks me to grow into not "how it is done" but "how would you do this, Theozete?" In return, my mind scrambles to accommodate the summons by devising how I might find groundedness and expression simultaneously, like a flower hanging from a cliffside, unfolding a living poem of God's small glories where few have otherwise dared or survived... But it is still illusive. Slippery. Am I meant to touch these thin places for long? Are these feelings made to be captured, or simply lived in when present, and revered when absent? What path leads up the mount, to where beauty, truth, and love meet in that awesome perfection that raises that hair on one's skin, and soul from the futility it is subjected to?

I don't know. 

But... What purpose would leaves have, if the radiance of the sun were not their goal? It must exist, for its call to exist, and pull so assuredly at my being. A place guarded by flaming sword from people like me, but not from who covers me and calls me in.