Excerpts

This notebook is full of searching and finding and looking and seeing--when was I ever so profound?

How is it that I used to know God so well and feel Him so intimately, yet now I can't remember the last time I felt the whisper of anything greater than myself inside me?

I did what I thought I should, I've surrounded myself with pictures and reminders of that holy place, assuming the peace and comfort it brought me would be remembered, but somewhere along the way I lost it.  I've been staring at this beautiful illumination for awhile now.

Be Still, let the Tide of Memories wash over you
Listen to the Whispers of the Saints
Feel the Breath of Wisdom refresh your mind
Return to the Place of Peace
your Holy Island

All this it exhorts me, and I've tried and tried to bring any or all of those things to fruition, but I don't know where my Holy Island is anymore.  Those remembered places, so dutifully copied down in this little grey book, don't resonate now.

One memory does, however.

It was the day of the Cuddy ducks on the ocean by Lindisfarne, a cold, grey day where the wind needled me and the light, icy rain hurt my face and eyes.  I was so--full that day, full with an angst I couldn't name and I didn't have cause for.  I set off alone and went deep into the nature preserve on the far side of the island, where I was whipped by razor-sharp sea grass and the wind was even worse.  I followed the crashing of the sea to a rise and sat and watched the ocean writhe and beat itself into oblivion agaisnt the rocks, and I remember trying to pray but not finding any of the right words to say.

I'm still sitting there now, being turned to numb stone by the freezing wind, watching the sea try mightily to devour the seaside and those hapless ducks, I'm sitting in a silence so resolute as to be belligerent, and where did my God go?  Where did my faith and intimacy and belief go?

When I was 16 I had my own issues to handle, still, but I hadn't lived through what I have now.  Somewhere, between the suicide of my friend's mother and going to Boston and losing my faith mentor and the disintegration of a three year romance and coming home again, I grew but my faith did not.  And now I sit in a pew on Sundays and enjoy saying the familiar words, but don't get any of that peace anymore.  God still exists, I suspect, but where he is in my life, I'm not sure, and I don't know how to go after him.  I don't know if I want to; maybe I'm scared of being disappointed and deepening this crisis of faith.

Oh, to be 16 and in that place again, where I could reconcile what didn't make sense to me with little difficulty.


Ultimately that day I spent on the dune was the same day I walked the Pilgrim's Way and reveled in the glory of companionship and faith.




I'd forgotten.

Kettering

I was 13 when we met, and I'd never pretend I knew you well.  You were a friend of a friend; we'd all talk sometimes after Film School Sunday mornings or we'd sit near one another at Selah Sunday nights.  I remember playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band together on game night, laughing and goofing off.  Later, when I dated your best friend, I remember visiting skeleton houses with you--we took turns pushing your wheelchair, and shouted down at you from half-finished windows.

And the hospital.  I visited you there.  What I remember best is the visceral shock I felt at seeing your laptop sitting innocently where your leg should have been.  And the quietness of the ride home after.

But while we were not good friends, while I never knew much about you or spent time alone with you, something about your life and death left an indelible mark on me that I haven't been able to shake.  I see hot air balloons and think of it, I hear certain songs and go back to that moment days before you left, when my mom said as gently as she could that you had the look, there was no coming back.  To the text I got at 3:00 on a normal afternoon, and the strange emptiness that followed.

Maybe it was that I was in my prime and felt myself invincible, yet watched you dwindle away, only a year older than me.  Maybe it was my overwhelming sensitivity to all kinds of injustice then, as I was mired in divorce and a new social climate.  More likely it was the first time I was ever faced with such an inescapably wrong outcome and reality.  Whatever the case, I haven't been able to escape your memory any more than I've been able to understand why someone, anyone like you should have to be ravaged at 16 and lose a battle with an unfeeling disease.

Whatever the case, Josh, I still remember you and seek to honor that memory.  I regret that I didn't know you better, but you taught me an incredible amount about the tenacity of the human spirit in the time I did spend with you.  Your memory continues to inform the way I value others and respect the sanctity of life.  I hope that wherever you are, you're happy and whole and smiling that infectious smile.  You earned that much and more.