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Jonah Complex
Mar. 15th, 2008 06:40 pmI have gotten by on the pretense that while I am, as has been lately proven over this last year, not good at anything, that there were a select few things at which I was still decent. It turns out that in the past weeks it has been proven that I am not a decent friend, a decent man, a decent lover, a decent human being, a decent student, a decent thinker, a decent Christian, or a decent scholar.
The final, and it seems only, thing which kept me going was the idea that maybe I was a decent debater. That, while I may never appear on a speaker of the year list, that I was still reasonably able to communicate my thoughts and convince others to side with them, and that the formalities of debate were in my grasp.
This last too, has now been disproved, and it seems to me that I have squandered entirely the rich birthright of my family and my God. This last, inconsequential thing was all that remained of my connection to them, and I am as much a failure at that as I am at anything else. My spirituality is gone, crying to a God I have deafened with my wickedness and lack of love, my decency dashed on the rocks of my selfishness, my scholarship inadequate in the face of the institutions which are meant to govern it, my malnourished brain atrophying. There is nothing left in me which is adequate. My mouth is stopped up, my ears deafened to any call, and my eyes irreversibly blinded to what is beautiful.
I want to run away, and wander, aimless. I want to sail to Tarshish and cast myself into the stormy sea at even the first sign of a whale. I want to leave behind all these empty reminders that I am an unholy and insufficient wretch which leeches from the goodness of creation, in which I ought no longer participate.
The merciless silence of death seems good to me. I want to end my toil, and I want my fruitless labour to finally give place to much longed for peace. I feel as though I'm drowning, and it is up to God if it is a great fish or the sea which will swallow me first.
-EJ
The final, and it seems only, thing which kept me going was the idea that maybe I was a decent debater. That, while I may never appear on a speaker of the year list, that I was still reasonably able to communicate my thoughts and convince others to side with them, and that the formalities of debate were in my grasp.
This last too, has now been disproved, and it seems to me that I have squandered entirely the rich birthright of my family and my God. This last, inconsequential thing was all that remained of my connection to them, and I am as much a failure at that as I am at anything else. My spirituality is gone, crying to a God I have deafened with my wickedness and lack of love, my decency dashed on the rocks of my selfishness, my scholarship inadequate in the face of the institutions which are meant to govern it, my malnourished brain atrophying. There is nothing left in me which is adequate. My mouth is stopped up, my ears deafened to any call, and my eyes irreversibly blinded to what is beautiful.
I want to run away, and wander, aimless. I want to sail to Tarshish and cast myself into the stormy sea at even the first sign of a whale. I want to leave behind all these empty reminders that I am an unholy and insufficient wretch which leeches from the goodness of creation, in which I ought no longer participate.
The merciless silence of death seems good to me. I want to end my toil, and I want my fruitless labour to finally give place to much longed for peace. I feel as though I'm drowning, and it is up to God if it is a great fish or the sea which will swallow me first.
-EJ
