December 21st

The Agony in the Garden

This is a step, a hard step, in any faith journey. In ways I probably don't have to spell out for anyone who has taken up the burden of faith, this step happens in every faith journey.

I've always resented it, personally. Mostly because I always felt that the path had been decided. I always hate that in more earthly matters - when my consent or path has been determined but I have to go through the motions of pretending to agree freely. There is a right way. I know that. I know what I will eventually decide to do. Why do I have to go through this temptation?

Because otherwise my choice means nothing.

And maybe that's too easy of an answer.

I've resisted - hard - a lot of plans I've felt God had for me in life. All through high school, I was convinced of my vocation to become a nun and, if I am being honest, there has been nothing in my life since to dispel that calling except that I don't want that for my life. I know I could probably be happy enough in that life, and God knows (clearly) that it would do wonders for my spiritual life to have the structure laid out for me (to say nothing of other benefits). But I don't want it. The job I want and the life and family I want preclude that calling. Rather than facing that dilemma - the confrontation of what I personally want for my life and what I feel God has called me to do - I sidestep it. I spent a few painful minutes or even hours in Gethesemane, and then I bail.

Jesus' rebuke of his followers that they could not stay with Him as He prayed for the strength to make this choice certainly has reason to resonate with me. I can not stay in that state of crisis long enough to force and immediate choice. The reason is probably fairly simple: I know what that choice would have to be.

I am the servant of the Lord, who has done great things for me. I know that He knows best. I will do as He asks.

I wish He would ask for something else. If nothing else so that what I am doing with my life now didn't feel like it was working toward the wrong kind of life.

So I connect with this Mystery, with the agony of knowing the proper course and of knowing that you will take that course outlined for you - but of the desperate bargaining and begging: don't let this be what You're really asking of me, oh God. Let me be mistaken about what You really want for me. Don't ask this of me, please. And the inevitable pain of: but not my will be done but Yours.

And maybe this isn't the worst moment (although I've thought so over the years). Maybe it's not even close to the worst moment, but it's where I feel stuck. I try to walk one way or another out of the Garden, and I know that I refuse to leave because I hope that I can still find out, magically, that the vocation to the religious life is not what God is calling me to after all. Maybe I'm even right, I'm very confused.

And, my dear readership, I don't know if I really want answers from you about this.

But since I'm working through my issues, I will say of this Mystery - I know this pain (to a lesser degree of course), and I feel trapped at this stage of the faith journey. And maybe that's more because I'm afraid of the steps that come immediately after than anything else, but I wish I knew what to do. I wish I knew if I already know what to do. I wish I knew less - that I wasn't wishing so hard that I didn't.

I wish I could make heads or tails of God's will, and I wish I made less sense of it. I wish my mantra wasn't: God if it is Your will, let this cup pass from me. Perhaps I even just wish that I didn't know that this sentiment must finish: but not my will be done but Yours.

I don't think I really wish that I didn't have this choice, but I do wish that I were better at making it.