Life as a Window

There are so many aspects of a chronic illness that are painful to endure that it's hard to know where to begin when someone genuinely would like to be a listening ear.  I used to go hiking 3-5 miles in the hills around my hometown on a regular basis. This was the backbone of my spiritual life. To walk, pray, and contemplate for 2-3 hours a few times a week was the essence of my being.  Since being struck two years ago this has disappeared almost entirely.  I cannot remember the last time I walked for even 15 minutes - it's been six months or more.

But the point of this post isn't to complain about how my life has changed, but to simply explain why my blog posts will come in fits and starts. There are days, like today, where I am barely functional.  I have a dozen or more ideas for posts percolating.  I have an outline for a book that I am working on. I have books and articles that I would like to read.  But today I have nothing.  Even listening to Bach or Arvo Part for 5 minutes is more than I can do.  I cannot talk or hold a conversation.  Miraculously, I find that I can type thoughts. It's a form of communication that works even when spoken words fail me completely.  I am storing up my energy with the hope that I can be cheerful and encouraging when my boys get home from school. It's all I have to give today.

On days like today I remember that I am not actually, the captain of my own ship.  I am not the master of my own fate.  My mind, body, spirit is too frail for the lie of self-reliance that I used to live even while believing that I was, indeed, on a spiritual path of honest submission.  There is a submission that cannot be learned without outward intervention.  It is a submission that is different than resignation.  It is a humility of limits.  Today I remember I am nobody and nothing. I am an empty vessel. Today my hope is that there is a love beyond reasoning that fills empty vessels. This kind of hope was what I always was trying to teach back when I had health and strength and reckoned that I owned my body and my life - even though I really didn't know what it meant to go through that doorway of submission.  Now I am beginning to know what before I had merely intuited to grasp.  Now I experience life as though looking through a window.  But oddly, the glass is less dark.  It is the letting go brings me closer to being face to face with the love beyond reason.