The Creeping of the Hours (Day 27)

Today has been a hard day, a battle of thoughts and ideas, of action and trying not to act.
I packed today. I am ready to come home. What else am I really doing around here for two more days? More of the same, which is very little. It is very similar to taking a seven hour drive—the last thirty minutes are the most difficult because you are so close to home but not quite there yet—but you want to be so much you try to will it, and, in willing it, you point out just how far away you are. It is a control issue, wanting to pack up and travel and be somewhere, to do something. The obsessive compulsive creation needs to act and move because it has become unbalanced. I moved a bookshelf from a room and back just to have something to do. Packing was only a pretense of practicality—"to see how much space I have now"—but was really just acting out of control.

Control.

I am so afraid I haven’t learned anything here. The last several weeks have been more luxurious than before—the air-conditioned room, the feast meals, the hours of no work, the staff becoming more and more like servants (which is an awful and ironic thing to think while in Haiti). This is so far from removed from what I anticipated—I am afraid I have depleted spiritually by coming. Will I have moved to the next realm of my life? Will people say "He changed so much in Haiti"? For the better? Am I more spiritual, more easy-going, more flexible, less controlling, more yielding? I am so worried about not having accomplished something, become someone different. Perhaps while being-on-The-Way, I am moving myself In-the-Way-of-Myself—embodying my old habits and thought patterns, instead of yielding to the truth. I feel no different, simply seeing the country as another place to be, unaffected, detached from the poverty. I am simply used to it, maybe even taking my position here for granted.
Jesus is the paradigm of someone who has yielded completely to the Father, so perfectly that he was the Father Himself. We are to follow this example. But to understand Jesus’ role, we must return to the story of the stormy sea, Jesus asleep, the fearful disciples’ terror. The priest discussed this posture, this strategy, of eyes closed as a moment of true faith. Only in the moments that we are lost can we reach for God Himself, without even Jesus. He removes himself as a mentor and guru, teacher and friend, so that we can find our own place; example, yes, enabler, no, so that we can find true empowerment.

I would hope that this is where I am in these final days, that my confusion and tempestuous thoughts—the sea as subconscious, the sky consciousness, in battle for the balanced horizon—are the true vestiges of yielding: letting-go of the situation so completely that thoughts, ideas, change, self-improvement are no longer important. It is the flip side of experience undermining the need to do in order simply to be, without judgment, even enduring the monotony of the last two days. Waiting for nothing. Acting on nothing. No-thing. God. And then acting in the space. Experiencing. Living. Breathing. In-Spirited. In-Carnated. Godly.
I want to be the right person, do the right thing, feel the right spirit, so much that I try to will it, and, in willing it, I simply see just how far away I am. But then, as Dawn said to me yesterday at Hospice, I am missing the ride, the being, and the growth experiences, the acting. Not-doing: the feeling of nothing-coming, no-being-coming, which is impossible, because being-always-is, even after death; the ultimate act of Yielding?

EDH: 6:10PM-10PM, 12AM-7AM.