Darkness in the Dark

This is how insane I am. The single man across the street has been staying overnight with his girlfriend more and more. I have met her and she is a lovely lady. But often at night when the sun goes down and the darkness comes, I see his lovely house which was once full of light, closed and dark. No car in the drive way, only a few lonely dogs in the side yard, listlessly waiting for their master to return. It saddens me and I feel abandoned again. How quacky grief is. My heart cries out, "Why don't you just marry the girl and move back home?" What is wrong with my once sane, rational and lovely mind?

Church today was sadly predictable. My heart remained asleep. I am asleep, and every time I am awoken by the anointing i.e.,  the presence of God, new tears appear. I am caught between a flood and a drought. Neither is welcomed. And so I shy away from God, knowing that my fragile covering is only made of cheap toilet paper.

But I am finding that I am learning what the Master has for me this season. INSIGHT: The young man who gave the sermon on "suffering" spoke as one who had never suffered. His words were like palm knives, a thrust which does not kill but yet is painful. It is in the quality of the spirit that words reveal if the martyrdom of suffering has taken place within. In those people you can hear and feel the tenderness of God. There is a "dark knowing" of the ways of the Cross, a certain fragrance of charred remains— the combined scent of frankincense and myrrh. It is the nearest thing to holiness and a whiff of it is sufficient. It is the fragrance of Christ.

I shall never speak the same way again of suffering—so intellectually, so blithely, so incredibly stupidly.

Another blessing of my sacrifice of tears has been the awareness that I have been bound by convention, fears, confusion, and my own idiomatic ideals. But the fire has burned the ropes that held my hands tied. I am free because I can see both the beginning and the end. The books of Eccles. says that if you can see all things, but not know the beginning or the end, you understand nothing. Now I have experienced "the end" of all things and I will never be the same again. My robes, my spiritual garment has been singed with the fire from the altar and I am irrevocably changed. For good, thank God and may peace be upon my friend, brother, my bright companion, Hans.