a prayer?

For the clarity to find meaning in this place
For the vision to see beyond myself
To hear whatever word it is that I'm supposed to learn right now
To move beyond this present darkness
To find the strength and compassion and hope to be the person I want to be

It is hard to talk and to write right now - and people who haven't been to this place don't quite understand the darkness. I can't explain it, I don't want it, I try to fight it, but still it is. For the friends I have shut out and those who shut me out, I am sorry. There is a healing that needs to happen that is beyond me and will only come with some time and some perspective. I've yet to have anyone who can really ride out the storm with me, so there are few who will see me cry, few who will know what is at the heart of it all.

There are the immediate things - the job, the loneliness, the church - that underscore the larger longing and I'm not quite sure I believe in miracles, for myself, that is. It's too small, too selfish.

But it's the ache that lies beneath certain songs - the echo of the life, of the person you could be - that glimmer of paradise in an autumn sunset that shows you have far you have strayed from the kingdom. It's that fleeting sense of connectedness you feel as you look into the eyes of someone you could love - and then to watch them turn away. It's that moment when the whole world floods in are you are a part of it all and it is all of you - all of the heartache, all of the joy, all of the trivialities. It is the ground, the deeper ground, the source that in a breath lets you know that there is something holding together this crazy, tragic world and something beyond even that you couldn't begin to put words to. It's that one thing out there that lets you know something is missing...that you're not quite complete without, but still can't quite get your hands around. It is the meeting point of the question and the answer before our forgetting and remembering.

I want to explain, but there is a wildness and sadness to it that I cannot - the flip side of the coin that you don't want to see. I cannot be simple. I cannot speak plainly. I cannot be what you want me to be.

I don't know anyone with the strength to hold me now, hold me here - to truly hold me and prove God's love in this moment, but I won't ask, I won't cry, I won't break again and admit my vulnerability because I don't want to overwhelm my world with all that it is, and so I write bad poetry.

I don't know how not to believe, but the dreams I dream are too hard to live.