Adam is a friend of mine.  We have gone out to eat on multiple occasions since being introduced.  He’s a bit eccentric, he carries a notebook everywhere, has humor that doesn’t quite hit the mark, spiritual rather than religious, dresses a little like an old-school hippie and is sort of alt-right conspiracy-minded. 

Adam is also depressed and a broken record.  Time and time again he goes back to his relationship with his father and wants some sort of validation that he never does receive.  His father, his opposite politically, left when he was a child, seems to have some mental issues of his own and can be very degrading when things don’t go his way.  It is quite evident that the sins of the father have visited upon the son.

I have urged Adam to move on, told him that his biological father will never give him what he so desperately wants, and have suggested that he do as I have done when let down.  Namely, I have told him to come to Holy Cross.  The Orthodox have fatherly figures who represent the Heavenly Father for the fatherless. 

Unfortunately, Adam, despite his desperation, is stuck on doing things his own way.  From the first time we met until now there is a wall of resistance that goes up against Christian religion and even what seems like an inability to understand simple explanations.  For example, I used the illustration of Naaman having to dip in the river Jordan to be healed, thought I had explained well, and got nothing but a blank look of his being genuinely perplexed.

There’s truly not much hope for Adam until he is able to let go of his disappointments and hope of some sort of resolution on his own terms.  And, quite frankly, even if his dad would miraculously transform into the father he envisions as ideal, that would not fix what broken in Adam.  He will try drugs, he asks for my “fellowship” with him, but absolutely refuses to dip in those healing waters of the Church.

It’s sad because his repeatedly going back to this makes me feel as if I’m wasting time on a lost cause.  I mean, it’s hard not to do that inner “here we go again” eye roll when there seems to be no progress.  And it does certainly work on my patience too.  But there’s one big reason why I do not write him off entirely.  What is that reason?  Well, maybe because I’m not all that different from him.
 
My Own Skipping Record

In the days of vinyl records there was nothing more annoying than the skip.  It was what happened when the record had been mishandled and the surface grooves scratched.  The needle would travel down the groove, reach the scratched area, and jump back into the prior groove.  The result is that the music abruptly stops and makes an unpleasant transition over and over again.

Being stuck in a rut is not fun.  Ending up in the same place no matter how hard you try will exhaust the strongest person.  Worse, when others try to help pull a mired soul out, and the stuck person goes sideways rather than forward, many will leave concluding that they do not want to be helped.  And sometimes that is indeed the case.  Some do enjoy the pity party attention and are simply a drain of resources that could be used for those who truly want out.

Those who have read my blogs over the past few years have probably started (long ago) to wonder if any progress has been truly made.  And, believe me, some days I do wonder myself as I give a slightly different angle on the same themes over and over again.  I mean, you get it.  I had some really big expectations and ended up really disappointed at the end.  So move on already, right?

And the truth is, I have in many regards.  I’m not the same person as I was a year ago.  I have gained confidence, continue to attend to my responsibilities, and the feelings of loss grow less intense with each repeat cycle.  That said, the recent setbacks, the physical pain, along with the unresolved situation with Charlotte, can very quickly lead to that spiral back into those past hurts.  There was no real resolution or closure there, to survive I simply pivoted to new hopes.   

Completing the transition, out of the wilderness of broken glass to my new promised land, means seeing a fulfilment of the impossibly.  That means Charlotte being here.  Until that moment when we meet in the airport terminal, her safely on US soil, there will be that cloud of uncertainty hanging over me.  It does cause me to skip at times, to go back to those feelings of helplessness and worries that my hopes are still entirely delusion.

I choose to believe. But not because it is easy to believe.

As the man with the sick son who came to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

Do You Want To Be Healed?

A year or two ago, this was the text for the Homily one Sunday morning:

One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”

(John 5:5‭-‬8 NIV)

It really struck me, more than ever before while hearing this passage, that Jesus asks the man if he wants to be healed.  Imagine that, a man, waiting for nearly forty years, nobody helping this unfortunate man into this healing pool.  He, like Adam, like myself before the pursuit of the impossibly, had been waiting on rescue by the means that he could understand.  His days must’ve passed an increasing nightmare of his own paralysis and being surrounded by other hurting people more concerned with their own needs.

Jesus asks, almost as if knowing the man’s will to be healed is permission.  And the incredible part?  After hearing the man’s complaint about no help, simply commands him “get up” and the man does.  His faith set him free.

That in contrast with this:

Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. “Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing? Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.

(Mark 6:1‭-‬5 NIV)

The disbelief of those who knew Jesus as merely a man, the carpenters son, limited what he was able to do.  Spiritual healing is, and has always been, a matter of our own choice.  So many of us insist on doing things our own way, we refuse to dip in our muddy Jordan rivers because of pride, we wait on rescue believing that our salvation comes from other people, yet all we need is to look up in faith and then healing is possible.

No, this does not mean we will be spared physical ailment or live forever in our current form.  Even Lazarus, raised from the dead, passed from this life.  But we can be made spiritually whole.  That is why I keep writing, maybe I sound like a broken record, maybe this is too much for many people who stopped reading this blog long ago, still I write so that my most faithful friends may someday also share in my joy having known of my sorrows.