A White Piece of Paper and Some Loneliness

There is something quietly terrifying about staring down at a white piece of paper and knowing that in the next half hour, you will engage in the most torturous of all acts–you will attempt to put part of yourself into the words, sew it onto the page, and display it for the world (and more frightening, yourself) to see. There is something even more terrifying about knowing that your health, your sanity, perhaps even your existence, depends on it.

“Words are loneliness” said Henry Miller, and if I could dare correct him, I would say that it is not words but writing that is loneliness. It is lonely and it is difficult, and often your only reward for crucifying a part of your soul onto a page is the feeling that your crucifixation was a failure. I write and I nail and I write and I hammer and still I say nothing, I say nothing…

How long? The prophets asked it, the bards sang it, and I repeat it now. How long must I suffer under the weight of these thoughts? How long will this darkness endure and the morning delay? How long will I question everything and understand nothing? How long will I hurt like this, unbearably, continuously? How long must I question how long?

I don’t understand. I try to understand, I try and I try and I try so hard to understand. I try so hard for faith, for patience. I try to understand. But I don’t. I’ve learned that a person can think themselves practically out of existence and still not understand anything, still not find peace, still not escape loneliness, still not love what they did not love before. And it is terrifying.

Why?

Somehow I am always not enough. I am always missing, always reaching but never finding, so close. So close. Search, Rachel, and search some more, search for answers, search for an escape from this hurting, search for a cure from this humanity, search for a search that will mean something, search till you cannot help but define your existence by the result of your search. And await the helpless devastation that will crash down on you when you find that you do not know what you are searching for. All I am finding is that I don’t know what I am trying to find and I do not understand. God, how I just want to understand.

Stop, Rachel, just stop. Stop writing. Stop asking. Stop wondering. Stop thinking. Stop feeling. Stop existing in this half-way existence that hurts in a way you cannot describe. Give up. Give in. 

You are not enough, Rachel. This is not enough. It will never be enough. Go somewhere else, Rachel. You need somewhere else. You need someone else. Other than yourself.

 Find someone other than yourself.

“Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it – it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is, that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less –
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
WIth no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars – on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.” -Robert Frost  

 

A 10 o’clock Dissonance

 

dissonance [dis-so-nance]: a simultaneous combination of tones conventionally accepted as being in a state of unrest and needing completion.

 It is ten at night, and I am downstairs playing my guitar. No, I am being played by my guitar. The notes sound momentarily–a refuge of beauty–and then fade back into the quiet darkness. I let the music play and the melody is my security that I exist, that I exist, that I exist, that I am not like these notes, that memories will not be my only legacy, that every tensing of my fingers is my inhale and every releasing of the pressure is my exhale. I exist, I exist, I exist…I am more than what is here. And just like these notes, perhaps I can sound in a moment of imperfect beauty, and perhaps—if I am lucky, if I am very lucky—someone will be there to listen. And my music will not go unplayed. It will not go unheard. I will not go unheard. I exist. I exist. Please God, let me know that I exist.

That I exist.

That I have a purpose.

That I have meaning.

That love is safe to trust.

That You are safe to trust.

That I am safe to trust.

I need to know….

How I need to know.

Please God….

You know that I need to know. I need to know these things. These questions are my existence right now, and I wonder if questions will always be my existence, if there will ever be a time that I am defined by an Answer. An answer…if such a thing exists.

God, I need to know that I am here, that I am alive, that I am here in more than just a physical sense. I need to know that there is still beauty left, untouched, unspoiled, a beauty that is still beautiful, a beauty that is perhaps so beautiful it can atone for some of this pain. God, I need to know that there is beauty in me—that there is worth in me, and meaning… And I need to know that the music will go on playing, that it will sound even if there is no one to listen, that the music itself will be a testimony. I need to know that the music is valuable even if nobody can hear it, that it is so valuable it must be played even if ears did not exist and listening did not exist; I need to know if dissonance can be beautiful, God I need to know because I am that music. I am that dissonance. And I need to know that I exist even if nobody is listening, that my music is still beautiful even if it is broken and absonant, that it is beautiful even if nobody is there to claim that beauty. That even as I breathe and speak, live and love and sound like a misplayed chord for an infinitesimal second into an isolated silence, that the meaning is still there.

And Father, I wonder—if I play well enough, play long enough, can this music break through the shell that is my loneliness? Can the notes pierce through the coating and reach through the silence to comfort me? Can the notes speak, can they say that you exist, Rachel, and you are not alone, you have never been alone. Then why does it feel like I am, Lord? Where is the comfort, God? Where is the balm for this hurting? I play and I play and I play, and I am so afraid, and this broken melody is my only hope, may it heal…may it heal…

I am playing God, and I am letting myself be played. Into this 10 o’clock darkness the music sounds, but my fingers are aching with callouses and my heart is aching with hopelessness and a cold penetrates the notes. My eyes are growing blind, and my notes do not sing anymore, they do not sing… But I cannot let the music die. As soon as these notes end, I will end, and I am afraid God, so afraid… And so I play and I sustain my life, and I play and I rob myself of life, and I am a paradox that perhaps even You cannot solve. If there is truth in this Lord, if there is truth to anything I’ve written or anything I’ve played, God I ask that You’d keep the truth true.

I exist, I exist, I exist… There is a soul—whole, uncracked—somewhere inside this tired mess, and though I cannot find it now, it must be there. It has to be there. I exist. I must have a soul. I must. I must. I must.

But I wonder—could a soul write words such as these? Could a soul touch your heart and beg you to please, please listen to the music. It is all that I have…. It is all that I am.

I play, God….I play and I play and I play, and I let the dissonant, incomplete notes escape these strings and I wait for a day when the dissonance will end and the unrest will be at rest and the incomplete will be made complete, and I will know–surely and steadily–that I exist, I exist, I exist, and that my existence is beautiful.  

“Dubito ergo cotigo; cogito ergo sum”

[I doubt, therefore I think; I think, therefore I am]

-Rene Descartes 

Peter–The Washing

 

What is he doing?

The thought tears itself from my mind as I watch Jesus take off his outer garments and wrap a towel around his waist. I glance over at John; his eyes show his confusion, but his face is better concealed than my own. One by one I look at the others, and I see that they have as little understanding of what is going on as I do.

Jesus goes to a table, takes a pitcher of water, and slowly pours the liquid into a silver basin. His actions are steady, his face quiet, and no one speaks as the sound of pouring water fills the room. Unconsciously, I take a step back from the others.

Finally Andrew opens his mouth; I clamp my hand down upon his shoulder. In a moment of absolute clarity, I know that we are to be silent.  

After what seems an eternity, Jesus puts the empty pitcher back upon the table. Then he takes a chair and sets it in front of the silver basin. Only now does he look up and meet our eyes. He reads our confusion, our hesitation. He walks over to John, gazes at him a moment, then puts his hand on his arm and leads him over to the chair. John searches Jesus’s gaze, then wordlessly sits down.

It is this next minute that I will never forget, not if I live to a thousand years old. It is branded upon my mind like lightning; when I think about it, even months later, it stings like a knife. It stings like love.

Jesus kneels down on the cold, dirty floor. Slowly, one by one, he takes off John’s leather sandals. He holds a grimy, dust-layered foot in his clean hands, and he trickles cold water upon it. I steal a glance at John’s face; it is closed, but then so are his eyes.

Jesus continues to pour water upon John’s foot, and the dirt falls from it like scales. When it is completely clean, Jesus takes the towel hanging upon his own side and uses it to wipe the foot dry. He sets it carefully down and starts upon John’s other foot. Again he trickles water upon the foot, and again the dirt is cleansed away. One more time he dries it with his towel, and then he carefully places John’s sandals back on his feet. Jesus straightens now, looks at John, and then quietly helps him stand. John resumes his position with the rest of us, but his gaze upon Jesus now is searching.

There is a moment of stillness, and then Andrew steps forward. Jesus takes him by the arm and leads him to the chair. I see the same actions performed on John repeated on my own brother. I watch Jesus’s face this time, only his face, and I see a depth of love so profound that I cannot bear it…I cannot bear it. There is sorrow in that love, and it is beautiful.

One by one, Jesus washes our feet. After Andrew is James, and after James is Thaddeus, then Thomas, then James, Matthew, Simon, Philip, Bartholomew, and Judas. I see something in Judas’s face as Jesus washes his feet. It looks like fear. It looks like shame.

When Jesus has finished with Judas, he straightens again and leads him back to the rest of us. Then he looks at me. Without thinking, I take several steps backwards. Jesus does not move, but continues to gaze at me. I feel shaky, for reasons I can’t understand. I feel scared.

“Lord,” I say, breaking my own premonition that Jesus would speak before the rest of us. “Lord, do you wash my feet?”

Jesus says quietly, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.”

I am already shaking my head, not so much in disagreement as in denial. Jesus, this great teacher, taking on the role of a servant and washing my feet?

“No, Lord,” I say desperately, “You shall never wash my feet.”

I see the other disciples exchange glances; they are shocked at my words. I am too, but I am adamant. My pride is wounded. Does he really think I would let him degrade himself so much?

“If I do not wash you,” Jesus’s words slide through my thoughts like water through cracks in a wall, “you have no share with me.”

I feel as though I am struck by lightning. My wounded pride is replaced instantly with contriteness. “Lord, not just my feet, but my hands also, and my head!”

Jesus walks over to me now, and just as he did to the others, he takes me by the arm and guides me over to the chair. I sit down, and the chair is hard and unyielding. In contrast, Jesus’s hands as he unties my sandals are gentle. He removes my sandals, takes my left foot, and begins to wash it. The water is cold, shockingly so, and it awakens me again to the truth of what is happening, the frightening, undeniable truth: Jesus, our Master, is washing my feet. Something like pain pierces me in the heart, and I cannot look at him, I cannot look at him. Jesus is now drying my foot with the towel around his waist, leaning forward slightly to get the full reach of the cloth. He then takes my other foot and begins the whole process over. I watch the dirt fall away, I feel the same stab of pain, and then he is finished. With my sandals once again on my feet, I stand over and allow Jesus to lead me back to the others.

As I take my place again next to Andrew, I am undone.

 

I remember a year or two ago, Antioch was having a prayer night, and they were replicating this footwashing. It was the first time I’d ever seen anything like it. I remember a leader coming up to me and asking me if they could wash my feet, and I remember clearly the terror that I felt. I couldn’t have explained the emotion then, and I still can’t explain it now as I think about it. All I know is that the idea of being that surrendered, that vulnerable, scared me to no end. I shook my head again and again, and the leader gently left me alone.

In spite of this memory, or perhaps because of it, the scene of Jesus washing his disciple’s feet has a special meaning to me, and in particular, Peter’s reaction resonates with me. Though perhaps to a lesser extent, I understand how he felt when Jesus tried to wash his feet. I understand his fear, his wounded pride. I remember my own terror and I imagine how much greater the terror would have been if Jesus had been the one asking to wash my feet. I wonder if I would have the courage to tell him yes. I wonder if my fear would have won out on me.

The act of footwashing is one of service, one of humility, one of love. It was something that I could not understand a couple years ago, and something that I am only beginning to comprehend now. Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, and in doing so, he washes my own feet. I don’t deny the shame that fills me when I imagine that, but I also don’t deny the beauty of the thought. What kind of a man is this Jesus? I’ve lived 17 years in the faith, I thought I knew him, but something about this scene leaves me stranded again and again. What kind of a King would do what this man did? What kind of a Lord? What kind of a Lover…

Recently at the winter retreat, Antioch again went through the act of footwashing. Again I was terrified, and I nearly told the leader I could not do it. But as I stood in line and watched the other students getting their feet washed, students younger than me, students far less shameful than I felt, I understood that it is not just the person washing the feet who is being humbled, but the person being washed as well. Allowing myself to be washed is, in my mind, the epitome of vulnerability. It was that vulnerability that frightened me. I’m not sure what changed, that I let my small group leader wash my feet. Perhaps nothing changed; perhaps I just did not have the courage to say no. Regardless, it was a powerful experience, and even though the shame and fear was still there, it was an act of love performed by a person I love. And Jesus’s love for me became a little bit clearer that night.