Will I Follow Him?

My parish priest lent me a book, "Desire: The Journey We Must Take to Find the Life God Offers," written by John Eldredge. In the first chapter, he quotes someone who says, "When the desire is too much to bear, we often bury it beneath frenzied thoughts and activities or escape it by dulling our immediate consciousness of living. It is possible to run away from the desire for years, even decades, at a time, but we cannot eradicate it entirely. It keeps touching us in little glimpses and hints in our dreams, our hopes, our unguarded moments."

He also quotes C.S. Lewis: "I knew only too well how easily the longing accepts false objects and through what dark ways the pursuit of them leads us."

False objects, false desires...sometimes I feel like I know what he's talking about only too well. I tell myself every day that what I really want to do with my life is teach. I get enthusiastic about things, which helps other people get enthusiastic, too. I love sharing things with people, which is part of the reason I never shut up. I like helping people. When I talk about teaching, people tell me I'll be good at it.

I went to graduate school on the premise that I could be a CEGEP teacher if I get this degree. When I think about teaching, I believe that it could make me reasonably happy because it's a meaningful job and I should be reasonably proficient at it.

The problem is, I don't want to be a teacher in any all-consuming way. I know that even if I settle into it, it won't make me happy in the sense of being contented. That's part of the reason I hate graduate school - because I don't feel right about it, I don't feel that this is really where I'm supposed to be in my life. I was uncomfortable last year, and now the feeling is one that at times I can't stand. Of course, being assaulted in second year and becoming dependant on powerful psychiatric medications probably didn't help matters, but still.

The point is that even though I feel this way I'm still trapped, because there really isn't any other option available to me. Why drag yourself out of the rut you've settled for if there's nowhere else to go, right?

At another place in this same chapter, Eldredge talks about how important those moments in life are where things seem to fall into place. The most powerful of those moments for me was when I was a girl in the parking lot at church. I felt like, for one perfect moment, everything was as it should be, was perfectly clear and made perfect sense. The whole space was filled with bright, warm yellow light, and I felt so completely happy. It's a feeling that nothing else can compare to. (shall I compare thee to a summer's day?)

That was the day I believed I was going to be a priest. It was many, many years ago and the light often seems very far away. But I also understand Eldredge's point about the recurrence of a deep desire, because it has continued to torment me throughout my life. I say 'tormenting' because, like any impossible dream, it is a thing which cannot be grasped. Like any impossible dream, I both must learn to put it aside and don't want to let go of it.

My parish priest lent me the book because I was saying I felt arrogant I mean, what the hell, who do I think I am volunteering to preach and stuff? Why did I think I can do that? After the moment of inspiration is over, it feels like a pretty arrogant thing.

He told me that it wasn't, and that this kind of inexplicable desire needs to be trusted as coming from God, and I should just go for it.

On Sunday, he told the congregation that I'd be speaking this coming week, that I was 'sitting quietly over there,' and I started feeling really nervous and insecure, and I realized that, maybe, desire can sometimes feel like anything but.

An Upper Room

Tonight we’ll celebrate the washing of the feet and the institution of the Eucharist as we observe the Last Supper. It’s a pretty well-known and well-rehearsed event. The Twelve are hanging out with Jesus for dinner, and then Judas betrays him while he’s in the garden praying.

“Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel.”

I’ve celebrated this moment over and over again, pledging to keep vigil with Jesus by adoring the Blessed Sacrament. Not to mention the traditional hot-crossed buns served in the hall after the service.

Knowing what’s coming, Jesus gives us a Sacrament that can save us and bring us closer to him. About to become a curse himself, being hung on a tree, he gives us a memorial that will become one of the most contested foci of God’s power in all of Christian history.

“and for a sign that is spoken against.”

But today I find myself wondering about all the other disciples who aren’t recorded in the story. There were many more followers than just these twelve; the women who stood at the foot of the Cross come to mind. But only these twelve are in the story when we remember it. Maybe they were the only ones in the room, or maybe there were others there who were simply not part of the inner circle. Either way, what would it have felt like to be on the outside?

I imagine it would have felt pretty painful, this belonging-yet-not-belonging. There’s the jealousy: why them and not me? It’s not like I didn’t want to…why did Jesus choose to leave me out of the loop? There’s the hurt: why doesn’t he love me the way I love him? Why doesn’t he accept me the way I long to be accepted? Will I never really be a part of this group, this family?

“And a sword shall pierce through your own soul also.”

I know exactly what it feels like to be on the outside wanting to be on the inside. I know that sometimes it makes me cry: I cried over it last night, and it woke me up early this morning, actually. I know how longing for something that simply isn’t can be painful. And I wonder if any of Jesus’ followers felt the same way that night, when he was with his friends in an upper room.

Would that have made them weak? Does it make me weak? Or is it just part of what it means to be human?

Obviously, these few people, whether they existed or not, are not the point of the story. They’re not the point by any stretch of the imagination. Jesus chose only a few to be with him in that inner circle, and it had to do with the will of God. God chooses, and in the places we find ourselves we must be content to serve, even if those places leave us on the fringes, on the outside. It simply isn’t possible for everyone to fully belong.

I don’t think being content to serve from the edges where we find ourselves means purging our emotions and disappointment about it and pretending to be a happy-rainbow-butterfly all the time. I think what it means is that we must be willing to risk the hurt of wanting or loving something that isn’t right for us. It means feeling those difficult feelings for what they are, and crying our tears, and wishing that things were different…but still, while holding within us all those things, going to stand at the foot of the Cross anyway.

“that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.”

Rent-A-Ride

On Palm Sunday, there's one thing I always wonder about: who is that man with the donkey?

I mean, if some dude came up to me and said, "Hey, my master needs to borrow your ride," would I hand over the reigns without any hesitation? Would I think for a while and then hand them over anyway? Or would I laugh in the crazy-person's face and make sure the knot tying the donkey up was extra secure?

If I had a car, and someone I didn't know asked me to give them the keys so they could borrow it for a rowdy parade, would I do it?

That's certainly what the donkey man did.

Now I know the theory that Jesus set the whole thing up in advance, just like how he set up Passover digs using a man with a jug on his head. It's a good theory that the donkey man knew Jesus was going to borrow his donkey in advance. Maybe Jesus even paid for it. It's a good theory because Jesus wasn't leaving anything about this crucial time to chance.

But I still wonder about it.

What if the donkey man was really a stranger, the God-given fulfillment to a prophesy? The Virgin Mary fulfilled such a prophesy, and she had free choice about it, so it stands to reason the donkey man would have, too. Somehow, I don't envision the angel Gabriel appearing to him and saying, "Lo, there shall come unto thee a disciple whom thou knowest not, asking thee for the use of thy donkey, the foal of an ass; and thou shalt give him thy donkey, for on it shall be riding the Messiah, the Son of God."

Yet he decided to hand it over, whether for money or otherwise.

How well did he know Jesus, anyway, if he wasn't recognized? If he did agree to loan the donkey in return for a price, how could he have known he'd get it back? A donkey is really expensive - those things are a person's livelihood. I doubt Jesus could have afforded to buy one. Whether the man was getting paid for the loan or not, whether this was planned or spontaneous, he was taking an awful risk.

He must have had a great deal of trust in Jesus.

I wonder if I would have had the trust to hand over my donkey to him? I'm not sure. Although I've spent much of my life as a practicing Christian, I'd probably be so afraid of what might happen to it that I'd refuse. A donkey isn't something I could afford to lose. It makes me feel ashamed to admit it, but I know that it's true.

But that man, that man two-thousand years ago, handed his donkey over. I don't know what he was thinking or feeling. I don't know why he agreed. What I do know is that he, and so many others like him, made it possible for Jesus to do what he did. Their support in small yet tangible ways allowed Jesus to make his way into the city as the Messiah, allowed him to eat a meal with his disciples in an upper room, allowed him to be executed in the most brutal way the Romans could imagine.

Whatever his reasons for helping Jesus accomplish his Passion, the donkey man, and others like him, did so without understanding what it meant. He didn't know that this would be a burden so terrible Jesus would ask that it be taken from him. And he didn't know that Jesus' death and resurrection would be for the salvation of the world. He didn't understand or know what we understand and know, but he helped Jesus anyway, trusted him in ways that would be beyond most of us.

And we don't even know his name.