I am “on retreat” this weekend because I needed it.
“On retreat” in this case, is a Christian phrase meant to
suggest a retreat from the usual battles of the world in order to gather your
strength before flinging yourself back into the fray (synonyms include: fight, argument,
quarrel, fracas, dispute, disagreement, affray, skirmish).
For me, none of this involves my wife or kids. It does
involve lots of other things.
The main one is that I have been in an internal spiritual
skirmish with myself. I am a Christian (“duh!”, right?), but for some time now,
my walk with God has been seriously lame. I mean that in both ways, too. Lame
as in “that is SO lame!” and lame as in a physical handicap.
Because my walk has been lame, everyday stresses (both
positive and negative!) – student testing, applications for summer school and
for college, family members who are too close to a psychologically unstable
military dictator, being overweight, a writing “career”, my education relicensure,
and an upcoming wedding I will perform – have been enormously exacerbated by my
parents’ continuing decline and the necessity of my deep involvement in that,
as well as continuing issues with my wife’s breast cancer treatments.
Even the “triage counselor” at the school I work at
thought me getting away for a retreat was a good thing. When I mentioned I’d
been snapping at people, she said, “No, not that. It’s just that your eyes look
flustered.”
The theme of this retreat has been “For we walk/live by
faith, not by sight.” Second Corinthians 5:7. The verse is strangely tucked
into a narrative that’s discussing whether or not we’d prefer to be dead and
with God or alive and NOT with God. There is also discussion as to whether the
Greek word should be translated into “walk” or “live”.
The Bible study leader has chosen the life of
Abram-Abraham as the vehicle for this weekend, so we’ve been delving into his
life as it is recorded in Genesis.
A couple of points and how they intersect with my
writing.
The first point is that I prefer the “walk” translation
over the “live” translation. As a writer, I am hyper aware of the meaning and
implication of words. In this case, I find that “walk” is a more active verb
than is “live”. My recent experiences with my parents have given me new
appreciation of this. Both are victims of the life-sucking condition we
tremblingly name “Alzheimer’s” – to universal dismay and sympathy. My parents
live in a retirement community, but within that community, my mother lives in her
chair. While she is absolutely and completely alive, her active and vibrant
past has disappeared from her. She lives, so passively now that it is painful
for me to see her.
While on this retreat, I went on a two mile walk through
mud, over waterlogged fields, and along woodchip trails. I reveled in the quiet,
and while it was cloudy and unseasonably cold, soaked in the peace as if it
were brilliant sunshine.
“For we WALK by faith, not by sight.”
I may have been living by faith (though rather
pathetically), but after this weekend, I may once again walk (by faith).
Secondly, while I have certainly been writing,
submitting, and planning; in my perception, I’ve been laboring entirely on my
own. God really had no part in my creative process, and to be frank, I didn’t
see why he’d care about my trivial SF stories or about a career as insignificant
as mine when he was clearly in charge of careers of men and women like Gene
Wolfe, Connie Willis, Brad Torgerson, Kathy Tyers, and Orson Scott Card.
It’s clear that God intervened in the lives of men like
Abraham; but I had forgotten that God’s word is meant for all of us. Even
insignificant counselor/science fiction writers like me.
It’s good to remember this; it’s good to begin an active
walk with God…
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