Not my words...

These preciously convicting words from St. Augustine have weighed on my soul for many years... Just thought I would share them:


Without You I am Nothing

I call upon you, my God, my mercy, who made me, and did not forget me, although I forgot you. I call you into my soul, which you prepare to accept you by the longing that you breathe into it. Do you desert me now when i call upon you, for before I called upon you, you went ahead and helped me, and repeatedly you urged me on by many different words, so that from afar I would hear you, and be converted, and call upon you as you called to me. For you have wiped away all my evil deserts, O Lord, so as not to return them to these hands of mine, whereby I fell away from you, and you could restore them to your own hands, whereby you made me.

For before I was, you were, and I was nothing to which you could grant being. Yet, behold! I am, because of your goodness, which preceded all that you made me to be, and all out of which you made me. You did not need me, nor am I not such a good as you would put to use, O my Lord and my God. I am not such as would serve you in such wise that would would not tire out, so to speak, from activity, or that your strength would be less for the lack of my services. Nor am I such as to cultivate you like a land that would be untilled unless I tilled it. I am such a one as may serve you and cultivate you, so that because of you it may be well with me, for from you comes the fact that I am one with whom it may be well.

A recent realization

We speak of boundaries, boundaries –Boundaries between family members, co-workers, friends…Lovers, and the dangers of emotional incest. We study the distance that exists between two people that allows for conversation and the eternal struggle for equal parts autonomy and intimacy. Distance, Distance, Distance. Repulsive required distance. This quasi-philosophy is overtaking my psyche. So much so that it’s now being applied to—You, the only You that matters. I’ve placed a boundary around the limit you have to impact my soul. Curse these boundaries! Without them I’m to believe it’s pathology. But with them it’s the origin of the deepest, strongest cancer my soul’s reality can ever know.

My past few months

Recently I have found myself in the midst of a paradigm shift. A sinner pleading for Grace transformed into a Saint—striving to rid myself of all but love. Everything I clung to—beauty, safety…that very Love I used to speak of so often are being stripped away and in their place—Hate, darkness and hopelessness. My God, the very fibers of my soul cry out in fierce protest. The dichotomous environment that creates when a soul filled with His spirit is forced to stare disgusting evil in the face causes such strong repulsion. Like opposite forces of magnetic fields.

Yet here I am…wanting to run. Perhaps to paralyzed to do so—Mocked by evil. Oh so like David I feel, surrounded by a thousand better qualified, clothed in steel, yet me standing naked. This giant is relentless… monumental, the very embodiment of evil. And there’s that craving to run.

I’ve stared evil in the face—I know its name, I’ve memorized its trademark, I’ve seen its movements—its antics, its schemes and stances. Dear God this moaning, is it mine or creations? But worse—so much worse, I’ve seen those who lie in its path—STOP—so much to speak of—too much to say. STOP—you know not what you speak of.

Already I feel prostituted by darkness. So dark—so dark, so wrong, so evil—evil, evil hate filled world. How do you not hate it in return? How can I not hate, hate all of it?! Oh Father, I am so lost in this ocean of cruelty—and this is what I have to surround myself with—this is what I must breathe? Must I breathe disgusting, horrible shit?

Why me? Why me? Why me? Why me? If there is another purpose for my life show me. Show me now before I contaminate myself one day more. Show me now, or let me disappear inside of you, so that this won’t ruin me.

Fill me with light. Drench me in nothing short save your perfect Grace and Purity. Oh most Holy, Sacred Christ—be my Light my pure, enduring illustrious illumination, for I am surrounded by Black.

Heal my soul.