When you are not worried about yourself because of a faith
so deep and absolute that it overcomes all fears and concerns, it is easier to
be truthful about the state of your reality.
So I do not seek pity or solution or remedy when I tell you
that I suffer from depression or that my heart is broken or that the loneliness
inside is so deep that my tears echo against the hollows between bones.
I seek only to connect, to know by your presence that you
care. I seek to touch you so I can know that I am alive. I believe that if you
listen to me, really listen, you will find that you are alive, too. You will
find that those dark places deep beneath your flesh are where the oasis is. So
I invite you to stand with me on this massive rock and peer into soul. It will
hurt, but only at first. And then we will find God and you will know what it is
to be alive from the inside out. Be not afraid to cry because the tears, mixed
with faith, are what take us into the oasis.
Are you afraid of success? It’s an old question, I know, and
a theme that bores and tires me, but today it tugs at me and demands some
attention.
To be great requires tremendous social responsibility and
yes, I am afraid of that. I am afraid of letting people down. I know the truth
that no matter how great I become, there are still too many days that are not great. And if I’m great in a public
way, there will be demands for greatness on those days when greatness is
invisible. It’s too illusive for me to claim it. When it is there, greatness is so wonderful and so filling
that all fear recedes; fear bows to the greatness. But fear is also very
powerful and does not bow gracefully or for very long. Fear rises with an angry
vengeance and takes its rightful claim on my soul. It takes the spotlight of
greatness and turns up the heat so that it burns me – an unbearable pain that
collapses me. Then fear screams at me: who
are you?! You are no one! You have no right to this greatness! How dare you!Such fear is paralyzing.
Clinicians call it depression. I
take drugs to tame the depression and they work. So I stumble along, tripping
over fear, but shielded from the greatness that promises to cradle me in my
dreams. It is a marginal existence, but preferable over the drug-free invalid I
would be without it.The drugs numb the fear and allow me to get out of bed
everyday. I wonder what would happen if I stayed in bed, drugless, and let the
fear have free range over me? Would it eventually tire of me and leave me
alone? Would the greatness work in silence and snatch me away when the fear is
unsuspecting? Yes, I think that it would, but the question this becomes whether
or not the greatness is great enough to combat the fear once fear realized the
threat of losing me.
I shudder as I write this because it makes me aware of the
battle that is being fought in the valleys of my soul. I would rather not think
about it because if I notice it, I think I have to participate. I have to do
something, even if I choose to stay in a marginal existence, it becomes an
active choice if I think about it. I’ve got a good balance going, not crippled by fear, not
soaring in greatness, so maybe this is what I want. The problem is that this
balance seems so meaningless. It is mere survival and I can’t quite justify a
life that aims only to survive.
So here is my quandary. Shit. Now what do I do with it?
I set out in this piece of writing to explore greatness – to
try to get a grip on it – what does it look like? What is my greatness? I can’t
see it. I can’t imagine it. It is too silent and too illusive right now for me
to explore. Or am I just too numb to see or feel? I need to think about this –
I need to become familiar with the idea of great so I can decide if I want to
work with it to strengthen it and make a place for it in my soul. Maybe if I
become intimate with it, I can join its army and overcome the fear at least
enough to keep fear always smaller than greatness. I don’t’ even know where to
find such intimacy – everywhere I go is undercover.
