As I sit to write, I write because I want something else in my life at times, I struggle with depression and OCD.  There’s times where my life feels meaningful, like when I have good energy and connect with my daughter.  Or when I’m listening to music I’ve put out over the last few years and I connect with the process of what it’s been.  There are other times when my life has been more difficult.  So I write, in hopes of a new “thing” in my life, and as a means of self discovery.  If ever someone were to read this and benefit, that would be awesome, however I feel that we’re most helpful to those around us when we’re living out of our true selves, when we’re honest, where we’re not necessarily writing or acting for the purpose of being influential, but when the authenticity of our lives happens to be attractive to an individual.  So, where to begin:

Narratives:

Growing up, I had a happy childhood until the age of maybe 15 or 16.  But prior to that age, I lived in a small town with a good number of friends that I would spend time with, and who I had a good time with.  I played lots of sports, and overall, I would say the quality of my life was pretty good.  When I was 15 or 16 my family and I moved to a new (although nearby) town and shortly after the move I started attending the local public high school.  This is the time when I would say, and underlying suffering, sometimes in the background, sometimes more prevalent, entered my life.  All while experiencing my “ups” and “downs”, I made it through high school, and went off to college in another state.  In college, my experience of an underlying suffering, developed into full blown diagnosable mental illnesses.  This was super scary for me because I didn’t understand what was happening to me.  I was afraid I was going crazy, or that I was in some intense spiritual battle.  I didn’t understand psychology, and didn’t understand the importance and need to ask for help when something wasn’t right.  My difficulties culminated my junior year of college when I was running cross country and track for the University and was staying up studying regularly until around 3am.  I started to lose touch with reality, and that is where my psychoses kicked in.  

Fast forward:  Now I’m 45, on what is probably life saving medication, and meet regularly with my mental health counselor and psychiatrist.  So, why do I tell this story, and why take the time to write this.  Because I believe in the power of narrative.  When looking back at my life thus far, I might be tempted to think, “I was off to a good start, but then mental illness got me, and it was all downhill from there.”  Or, “I’ve suffered, why?  Is this this the story of my life now?  Just learning to alleviate suffering?  Can I ever be good for anything, or for someone else?”  Or, is what I’ve been through as a part of my life difficult, but the core identity of who I am, and not the truest center that I get to try and live from.  

If it’s not the center, then what is?  I believe that all people, along with all matter, time and space, was created by a loving and powerful Creator.  I call this Creator, God, though some may choose to call this Creator by a different name.  I believe that this God was at the start of all we know.  In the Judaeo-Christian creation story, this God created, and then called this creation good.  So if we trace all of time and history back towards its origin, it was started in goodness.  I also think it’s helpful to trace back before creation too to try and learn about this Creator that started all things.  I believe this God, this Creator, is loving, kind, compassionate, cares about the orphan and widow, is restorative, is always pursuing and loving his creation, stands with all who are hurting, seeks to bring all into Himself, transcends and includes all, and is always more loving, bigger and beyond what we can comprehend.  So is Creation was started by this God, was might be more apt to trust that the creation is “good.”  Does this mean that everything, every mean or vindictive act, or violence and anything like this, should be considered as good?  No.  These are simply not connected with their truest identity.  They have lost connection from the center, and are not living out of and from their truest identity.  Learning who we are, and who we are meant to be, is learning that we are loved, deeply, at our core, as our truest identity.  This is the narrative that has been pouring out since the creation of the universe.  Granted that some peoples’ experiences make it easier, and some more difficult, to believe in a God like that, and believe that this is God’s action in creation.  A child repeatedly beaten by a parent might very well develop a fear of all authority, nay, a hate for all authority, and a great and deep fear of life itself.  This hate, this anger, might very well be protective mechanisms to help the child survive.  To hate, to be angry, may serve well to hide the softer underbelly, the insides that contain the need to be loved and accepted.  Good and healthy religion and spirituality takes it upon itself to help restore this person back to what was meant for them before the tragedy occurred, namely, love.  I believe this is God’s action towards God’s creation also, always mending, always restoring, always healing.  I believe that this notion of God is what can give us confidence and power to take up the same mantle towards working towards a just and healed world.  In this way, any notion of a punitive, angry, punishing, or small god, just doesn’t make sense.  How can we be ambassadors of healing if the leader of all of it isn’t about that in the first place.  In my life, the only way I can trust a healing, or a compassionate counselor, or a kind word, or a new perspective, or a more loving and inclusive reality is a belief that this is ultimately what God wants for me.  If reality is in essence, good, and if I’m willing to take this leap and trust this, I’m more apt to look for the good in things, including myself.  This is the center I can try and live from.  Although it might be the task of a lifetime to try and claim and reclaim this.  Although there may be many victories along the way, but there is simply no end to the love of God, and therefore the love that I can fall into.  This is good.  This is who I am.  This is who you are.  This is what connects us.  This is the search, the find, and the destiny.  This is why my painful depression, or distracting OCD, doesn’t say the truest word about who I am, and I believe that they won’t have the last say.  Viewed from this angle, this perspective, the narrative I believe about and name for my life can change.  This is the truth I can spend my life trying to live into.  

If this is the center, at the start, is first, then faith and trust have a place to land.  Faith and trust are the language of discovering what has always been true.  I know I’m not the center, but if the One at the center is good and only good, my faith is born from what was already before me, I could even say it preceded me.  I’m simply recapturing what was already true.  I’m becoming my original destiny, the dream dreamed for me and about me.  

If this is true, it doesn’t mean that I don’t take suffering seriously, or that peoples’ experience and well-being aren’t important.  Original goodness can be true, and yet many people suffer, many people are caught in the trawls of depression, many people are hungry, many people aren’t given nurturing love throughout childhood to help to develop.  But I believe there is hope.  Hope that if I make a bad decision, grace can meet me and steer me towards a different direction.  Hope that the child denied love, might learn it over their lifetime through the love in other relationships.  And yet it stands, people suffer.  So we stand at a crossroads, and we may have questions about the nature of reality, the point and purpose of life.  Is hope worth it?  Is hope true?  I believe that hope is ultimately the only thing that works.  It is the only thing that can keep us from drifting into cynicism, the only thing to keep us from giving up.  Sometimes when we don’t feel it, hope can be a choice we make, or, even something that we dare and try to put our faith in.  But given a choice between looking at reality, in all its beauty, and in all its pain, I believe hope and love holds the greatest power.  Cynicism and pain don’t have the container or ability hold within its walls all of the love and goodness.  On the contrary, great love can hold and be patient with cynicism and pain.  Cynicism and pain can unfold into healing, and can find a home.  The home that was there at the start, the beginning, home.  Love wins.