Go out and preach the gospel, and if necessary use words—I think St. Francis said that. Walking through the campus of UC Berkeley off “Holy Hill” yesterday with an assortment of students in the MA program at Graduate Theological Union, I chatted with the two other students majoring in Systematic and Philosophical Theology… and realized that God has lost His potency to this world because all we Christians ever do is talk about Him. I reached a point in my Christianity with Jesus over the past few years where words just aren’t good enough anymore. Paul talked about speaking in tongues of men and angels… but it is worthless without love. James talked about faith without works being dead. In my field… pursuing the knowing of God rather than just the study of God, I feel an obligation to act, that my words and pursuit are all worthless unless I am living them.

To be very immodest with my heart, I sat on the floor of my room last night, surrounded by papers, ideas, possibilities, training information for my job, and dreams… realizing that the carousel of life was whirling just too fast and that I was the operator winding the crank at the same time. I have been moving through life like an awkward dancer… in continual movement… if not of body, which is frequent enough, of mind; very little heart engagement, I tend to ponder before I feel. And there is a wall I have been running into more and more lately, one I realize because it is evoked in words and uncovers the very shameful honest of my heart. While I came here to study God intellectually, learn the more intimate details of my Jesus, how to better dance with Him, I have let all the opportunities He has been showing me within myself add to the burning fever of unsettledness and restlessness that has been smoldering within me.

I am terribly excited about courses at 3 different colleges, my Dominican school, the Jesuit school, and the Franciscan school here in Berkeley, but working through each of those courses could either be a perpetual battle to remain focused, an abandonment of God to intellectual pursuit alone (which I find dies at some point), or my submission to Jesus, allowing Him to lead me by the hand down a new path. I feel so very young, and even where I live, I have the daunting task of being real in my faith. Questioning comes so easily; asking what some call hard questions is what I do best, they are hard for me not to ask. The God of the Word I have studied, do I know Him as I think I do? I have stopped feeling Jesus in my hands, I hope this is just a time… but I have no hands of His to lay mine in.

When I open the Bible now, I am met with a rushing wind, blowing my soul over, almost. The words are heavy, weighty, and I try and understand how they are real to me… but then, I have not been reading them often. Since the bustle of the summer, I have been unsettled… I am transitioning by throwing myself in almost an abandoned rush or adrenaline to the opportunities offered me. My first job at the Hergl Center working with Developmentally disabled adults was such a blessing… staunch, Orthodox Catholics, such good and kind people, to work for… trying to cultivate peace for people who have no inhibitions in expressing their urges, needs, desires because they know no better. Yet there is little peace in me… sometimes there seems to be because I organize my life so well, but it is entirely deceptive.

My new friend whom I am sharing some living space with, asks and talks to me a lot about the most interesting things. The subjects fascinate me, but I only run with them so far before I refuse to make a decision. I thought yesterday about how Jesus does not like us to be swept about by winds of doctrine, to be neither hot nor cold… there is so much passion in my own soul about everything, it seems, that I pursue it all, and grasp none of it at the same time. Something about the pursuit drives me where I am at right now, and there is so much more I wish I understood about myself. Pursuit is empty, always craving filling. I belong to Jesus, yet I do not drink of His words enough. Jesus, my Word of God… how am I not living Your word?

Restore to me some measure beyond the strivings I make, for I am finding as You say that they are empty and meaningless apart from You. I am wearing myself to death, Jesus, and somehow I let that passion I was running with for You, with You to grow cold. Stir those fires in ways I can’t imagine, that are of peace, perseverance, and focus. Here I am, going to approach You in Your Word, God of the Word…. Speak to me, reveal in me Your light of life.

I know myself enough now to know I am always in need of a quest; will You give me direction as how to quest after You, now, Jesus? I have almost forgotten in my whirlwind of passion
I have been living to the surface again, bloody old orientation, I knew a depth and it grew shallow; into the depths of Your rivers of love and blood I plunge. Take me deeper still, into Your heart.