Now to happier thoughts...

Yesterday I felt a serious urge to post what I did, and I was angry, but today is another day and a happier moment.

I just want to share briefly some of my thoughts regarding where I feel God leading me. It's been a most interesting journey as of late as He's drawn me to Him and has exposed me to some new disciplines that have truly been powerful. I've also taken to immersing myself, as much as is remotely possible with a "real" life anyway, in the study of the monastic life and way. My mentor and friend, Richard, is on this journey with me and our biggest question is this: How do we live the monastic life in the world? Many of the monastic writers and thinkers make this a critical element as they discuss. It is our job to take the "great silence" and carry it with us.

As I've journeyed this path, I've found some scary things within me. One such issue is that I'm deathly afraid of silence. Silence is a hallmark of monastic spiritual disciplines and stands looming before me as something to walk through. The bizarre thing is that I desperately am compelled toward this walk but also frightened in the same respect. I think that perhaps the fear stems from the thought that I'm not sure what I will find underneath the noise, behind the curtain of boisterous life I use as a shield. Yet, I still feel a strong compulsion to enter in, to simply be in the presence of Christ.

The other issue that I've wrestled with even more so as this leg of the journey has intensified is the aspect of my pride and ego. God is working His divine surgery upon these areas of my life and it hurts necessarily. Whether it be in relationship with my wife or in simply dealing with people in traffic, I feel Christ exposing my hidden layers of pride and raking at them with His knife, working at cleansing my soul of all that is not Him.

As uncomfortable as this journey is, and as frightful as the uncertainty of the future looms, I'm excited to see the next chapter. I'm fascinated by what these concepts and these developments will truly look like encased in flesh. I'm challenged to now wonder at what this knowledge and experience now require of me, what responsibility they will now leave me with.

peace.