Fear And Trembling

Jackie, my wife, has encouraged me to write about this depression thing with out a censor, so if your squeamish or the sensitive type or easily upset by foul language you probably shouldn’t click the link for my blog, or if you did, you should probably quit reading now.

I can feel my throat tightening as I think about doing this and anger welling up. I’ve learned to be sociably acceptable, to tone myself down and sanitize my language, for my Christian brothers and sisters yes, but also for the rest of the population. Some of this is good, trying not to offend my weaker brother or sister or children.

The reality of me, Mike Lipuma, Christian man, is not pretty. Don’t get me wrong. I know I am redeemed, loved by God, but I am not talking about that side of me right now. I am talking about the side of me that makes it a good thing for me His mercies are new every morning.

Just a bit ago I wrote something to post on Facebook, a simple little statement, and several words were misspelled. (In the interest of clarity I will be censoring that part of me that can’t spell) Anyway, in my endeavor to get into the uncensoring mood, this rift of familiar condemnation went through my head wondering what the fuck I thought I was doing, trying to write when I still spelled like an imbecile, something like that, fucking imbecile was there.

Now I’m spiraling into something about shutting my mouth because I really don’t have anything to say and it’s all a bunch of narcissistic bullshit and I ought to quit bothering people. That bothering thing has been with me for a long time. Every time I want to make a phone call to somebody I know, it’s there, and especially if it’s somebody I want to know. (I’m re-reading this now and I caught myself thinking, God, how pathetic) When I see two people talking, it doesn’t matter where, it’s always a battle to get myself to say something. The idea of what I have to say not being important enough to speak, I’ve had to learn to circumvent. These days it’s a God thing that allows me to open my mouth. My thinking goes this way. God made me to be who I am and to be visible in the world, to speak what is true for me. When I do not speak the truth in love, I am telling God to go fuck Himself because I refuse to be used. Speaking is an act of obedience for me. It is, by the way, a sobering and humbling thing to admit I tell God to go fuck Himself on a regular basis. Maybe I don’t use those words, but you know what they say; actions speak louder.

Every once in a while I tell God things would be a lot easier if He would arrange to put a stray bullet in my head, or maybe a car accident, most typically after a fight with my wife after one of us has said something no spouse should say to the other one. Sometimes I am just so tired of struggling to be alive that a bullet seems like a viable option. Don’t get all freaked out now. I’ve always been too much of a chicken shit to kill myself and if I haven’t done it by now I’m not going to.

I feel like such a cliché now, a whiney little fuck.

Sometimes I wish I could just weep. Sometimes I think if I start I’ll never stop. Sometimes I think I’m not worth the tears. Christianity is sometime such a paradox for me. It gives me hope, but it doesn’t necessarily get rid of the despair. I so want to leave that behind. There is talk of the “now” and the “not yet;” the not yet of the coming kingdom and the now of living through the process of getting there.

In the now we get glimpses of the not yet in the Amish community in Pennsylvania befriending the wife of the man who murdered their children, or in my church helping us out with our mortgage while I convelesce from my stroke, in people like Desmond Tutu leading the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, or the part Christianity played in the Solidarity Movement in Poland or the Civil Rights Movement here.

I’m sure I don’t have to mention examples of the other side of the coin. You can come up with enough places where the world and its people are broken all on your own. If you are willing to look, you can find the places where you’re broken. There are plenty of times in life when it is appropriate to weep. I think we all have much to grieve. After all, it is in the now with all it’s fucked up shit that we all have to live. Before conversion I used live trying to make sure things didn’t suck much more than they already did before I died.

I’ve been a Christian for at least twenty years now, all that time learning how to hope and not lean on my own understanding of things, to understand that my despair is not the truth about how things are. Christianity is not opposed to the concept of the yin and yang. My despair, which I despised with a powerful hatred for a very long time, I have learned, is also a coin with two sides. It’s like the theory of relativity: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. As much as I have despaired, so I am capable of that much hope. As much as I have felt abandon, it is with that much sureness I am found.

I don’t know if despair and sorrow is where everybody’s art comes from, but it is the source of mine. Slowly I learn to see beauty and hope, that my despair is the mirror I see through dimly. But in the now, the sorrow will always be there, it is the cross I am commanded to pick up. It is the weight giving the rest of my life substance. There is a book I’ve called the most terrible, beautiful novel I’ve ever read. It is called The Last Of The Just. It was written after World War II by Andre Schwarz-Bart, a French Jew trying to come to terms why so many willingly walked into the gas chambers.

Christianity is like that, terrible and beautiful at the same time. Some one said, “Life is hard if you do it right.” I don’t know where my next statement is, theologically, so keep that in mind. I don’t think Christianity is for everybody. If you want a nice easy life with no troubles, my advice is for you is to run the other way as fast as you can. On the other hand, if you want something real and you're willing to put up with some shit, I don’t know a better place to find it. Keep in mind; it’s not no bed of roses. Biblically speaking, there are very few out right commands; you know, do this, don’t do that. One of them is, “Work out your salvation in fear and trembling.” Note it is in present tense. Now. In fear and trembling. Doesn’t that make you just want to jump on board?