I think its really just a valley of dry bones... Hurray!

As anyone who has been following my blog has probably noticed by now, it was started amidst severe mental turmoil. I have never really experienced anything quite like this. Tonight I talked with Jonathan and Rebekah about it and was very annoyed by my complete lack of ability to verbalize the trauma I have been in. Today has just been a day for bombshells anyway. The metaphorical picture of what my mind is like, however, changed tonight. I've been very pleased with my metaphor that my brain is like a forest... sometimes dark and scary, and at other times a nice place to take a relaxing stroll. Well, this metaphor still works and I don't think it has any logical leaks in it, but I have a new metaphor now which more accurately describes what I have been going through. Here's what happened:

Anthony, who came to work for the community's business: Heritage Homes and decided (recently) that he wanted to stay on and live here, was asked to leave the community and spend some time considering his recent decision. This affects me immensely because, although I have only known him for a few months, we have been roommates and I really have come to like him. Anyway, our whole household kind of knew about this, but he was going to say some official words to us tonight so that we would be clued in on what was happening. Before everyone was home though, I got into a heavy talk with Jonathan and Rebekah about the extreme mental duress I have been in. As I warned them, I was completely unable to put my true issues into words. And although we spent almost an hour discussing odds and ends and fractured bits of my issue, we never got to address the problem head on because (as has been the case all along) I could not see it clearly for myself. Try as I might, I could not sort out the overwhelming thoughts into a coherent statement and eventually it got to be too much and my brain just went blank. Anyway, eventually after arriving where we had started from, it was concluded that something was definitely the matter but what this matter was. was as yet undetermined. Then Anthony was able to say his piece and we had a time of response followed by some prayer. I think I had a genuine prayer this time around. (I have to say that sometimes what comes out of my mouth at prayer meetings is just a bunch of bunk!) I started by thanking the Lord for the examples that we are surrounded with here in community and then asked for a sense of purpose and a desire to find more than futility in life. I really think God was listening, too. Don't get me wrong, I don't really think I've survived the woods yet, but I thought He gave me a clear example of what has been causing me to flounder. I am still looking for the solution (which may be found just in examining the example) but at least a ray of hope has pierced the darkness.

Here is the example that came to mind as soon as I was done praying, it can be found in Ezekiel 37:1-10. "The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, and caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: and I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army." I think this is my new metaphor and the root of my distress. I think this is why I was so distressed by convention and the Plan of God course that followed. It was like the sun came up and instead of sparkling on a beautiful forest glade, I was confronted by an endless vale of dry bones. Surrounded by death. Everything I had put my hands to for so long was reduced to crumbling osteo cells. Of course it is depressing to awake to the fact that what you have been calling "life" is instead a vast expanse of death that stretches farther than the eyes can see or know. To stay consistent and use my forest metaphor, it has been like walking through a horror forest where behind every shrub and under every branch another rotting carcass lurks to be found.

This plain of bones is so devastating to look on that I think i was incapable of taking it in at first. Here I am giving my life to a community where the common thread is a desire to give our lives for God and each other and I am trying to find MY purpose and MY place and what the Lord has for ME. This isn't a life at all... it is worse than death... it is an age old death, one that has been clinging to and diswading mankind for thousands of years: it is a valley of VERY dry bones. Like Ezekiel, the Lord is commanding me to take action. When Ezekiel was confronted by the death and decay of Israel, he was commanded by the Lord to prophesy. Not just to prophesy whatever he liked, but to prophesy the specific plan of the Lord for spiritual Israel. I think that is what God wanted me to get from this example. The only way out of my field of death is not to run, where could I run to? It is not to hide, what forest can hide me? It is to stand in the middle of that vast expanse of death and wait until I hear the words and then to prophesy life to all these bones. This standing is not an idle waiting, it is a stand like Ezekiel took. A waiting on God that involves asking for and expecting direction. And when the direction comes (its promised arrival is the only ray of hope amidst this death), I must speak those words of life. Carry out the direction I'm given. This is my only hope for life to come out of this darkness.

The last issue that has been plaguing me is the huge emptiness that I think is supposed to be a desire to do whatever it takes to bring life to my death. I am still looking for an answer, for a filling of this void. But I think that the small bit of grace that I received tonight during the prayer time has given me the desire to keep asking. It has provided me with a small bit of desire for help and so the huge free-fall is currently at an end. I am trusting myself to a tiny toe-hold on the cliff of sanity, may God move in and show the answers as I find the frail strength to ask.

Insanity is one of the most selfish things I can think of right now. Or maybe selfcenteredness is insanity. Anyway, the two seem very closely linked. I think part of my deliverance is to move away mentally, not just physically, from my own self. Rebekah said this while we were talking tonight, and I tried to brush it off, but I think it is really true. It keeps resurfacing. Part of avoiding the free-fall is to stop thinking about it. It is to instead think of, and be consumed with what other people need. I don't think one ought to totally neglect there own state of affairs, but I don't think it is possible to bring much life to your own state of affairs either. A new revelation: I think that is what community is all about - we can't bring life to our own gardens so we must tend each others that all may live. Something like that anyway. Well... I have a whole Calculus lesson due tomorrow and it is eleven o'clock already, so I guess I better get too... but this is my current state. It is ugly, but at least I can recognize it now for what it is. I hope I have the stamina and will power and desire to see it through. Only time will tell.