Day 8

Everything I do, I do for a reason.

Right now I am 1 minute and 5 seconds into Half Nelson. I paused it because I just got to thinking. I do things because they have to have a reason. I can't just be. I can't live in the being.

Half Nelson is a movie about addiction, which is one of my fields. So I'm watching the movie not for enjoyment but because I am educating myself on popular culture's take on addiction.

Now, I don't just work all of the time. I take times to play. But playing is deliberate too. I am playing. Not off to enjoy myself and live willy-nilly. But because I must rest and Sabbath and do that kind of thing.

If I'm not taking care of a responsibility then I am resting. It's like I can't stand just having fun--I constantly have to be productive.

Even as I am watching Half Nelson one of the reasons is so I can lift weights. No, it's not enough that I am watching a movie for a reason (instead of silly pleasure) but I'm doing it also so I can justify working out.

What is wrong with me?!

I think I am in some sort of existential crisis. Maybe as I am nearing graduation and trying to piece together my post-grad living (i.e., income) I am freaking out. I may not have experienced this after college because I was sooooo freaked out that I couldn't even experience being freaked out. I just ran home, declared myself lost, then tried to avoid reality for as long as I could (or basically 2.5 years until I entered grad school).

It just seems like every decision I make is so powerful. I have to read for class so I can pass the class and graduate. I have to read personally so I can either get closer to Jesus, instruct others on getting closer to Jesus, or because Jesus told me to. I have to read personally for my profession so that I can talk about dating and sexuality and anything else that I consider a hobby but is really something I want to be an expert in so I've set the bar and the expectations for myself so high that my neck is breaking from trying to look up to the stupid skinny piece of wood looming in the air above my head. I have to work so I can survive a bit. I have to pay my bills so I don't get evicted. I have to work out so my clothes fit. I have to eat so I don't starve or get delirious. I have to, I have to, I have to....

I am so overwhelmed.

There's much in my life that I enjoy. I enjoy reading and Jesus and eating and exercising and talking and praying and working and whatever. But where has the joy part of enjoy gone? I think I am feeling very alone. Partly because all of these decisions are all mine alone. I'm the one who has to do them, no one else can do them for me. And my friends are very good partners with me. So is God. But somehow I've put this veil on and gotten into a position where it's just me against the world.

Something's got to change. But what? But how?

Doing more clearly won't help. Though neither will doing less.

I guess it comes down to the doing--how I do it. Can I do by being?

A wise woman once spoke words over me. For a long time (even still until tonight) I thought they were, "Doing comes from being." But I was wrong. I just looked it up. Courtney Bacon said to me on January 23, 2009 (I wrote it in my vocational discernment journal) that from Psalm 46: "Being is becoming." 46:10: "Be still and know that I am God."

Maybe my "because"es need to change. I am doing such-and-such because... Maybe it's all because of God? Maybe because He loves me? I read because He gave me eyes to see, a mind to comprehend, and a passion to know (though lately Elijah has been making me see "knowing" in quite a different way). I eat because food tastes good and is nourishing. I exercise because I cherish the temple that God has given me. I teach because it is a gift of mine.

I have placed so much pressure on myself. It's as if I think that I am the one who causes the plants to grow. Wrong. I plant the seeds, water the ground, till the field, put fertilizer on the soil. But it is through God's miracle that growth happens.

And what if nothing grows? I cannot be homeless or destitute. Too many people love me. I love myself too much.

I've been taking all of this too seriously. And too blindly--thinking I am all alone.

I am the one who can remove the veil. I can be, and be loved.

But LORD, please help me.