Lilith: A Farewell

 

All I have written is as straw. 

When I was younger I had a span of years where my Lyme's disease returned. During these years I lived as one in a neverending nightmare, where to exist was to be in pain. There were days I couldn't get out of bed because my joints ached so; Kyle would come looking for me and, seeing me, would pity me in my pain. He would help me out of bed, bearing my cries of pain and anguish as my feet and ankles gave out, and hold me up until I could get my feet to cooperate with me. My dreams were visions of awful spectacle; I would frequently have to pray myself awake. Others pitied me, this I knew, but I saw them as one sees shadows in the corners of your room, after awaking from something awful and unholy.  I would frequently find myself wishing for death. That part makes sense well enough, but I couldn't get anyone to really connect with why I truly wished my death: somehow I knew there was a Life awaiting me, beyond the agony. Beyond the cacophony was Silence. I didn't hate my life, I wanted more, and I knew it was on the other side of this life. And that was for what I longed.

Eventually I recovered from Lyme's. The pain stopped and I barely remember it. But the memory of that yearning for Life haunts me, even still. I did not have much context for this desire. Most people who profess Christianity do not have this hope, the real one, the hope that can bear all things. Or maybe it's that hope either has you or it doesn't. It is a fearful thing, to be in the hands of God! To have hope is almost identical to the way a man "has" a woman: she takes him in, and while he may boast that he has her, no sane person says he owns the world that gives him life. So it is with lovemaking, and so it is with hope, and indeed all the virtues, especially love: it has one or it doesn't.

The last few years on this blog have been a journey I didn't expect. I have learned much about myself and the world and God while writing. I have tried more than a few things, and found them all wanting. Many failed experiments are on this blog. I regret none of them. I needed to try them all. I am thankful for the time I spent on them.

But I have read Lilith, and the end is come.

It has come like a thief in the night, most unexpected and unlooked for. But yet it is here. George MacDonald's novel is the answer to a riddle I didn't know I was posing. It is answered. My search is over, and I find myself back where I began: longing for death, for Life is within it. But it does not find me sick and crippled. It finds me with friends, family, that I did not have before. Years ago I thought I was not dreaming this world. The seeming insight almost broke me. I have felt the error keenly, ever since. I didn't know that was what I was feeling, but the error is now so obvious that I have to chuckle at my own expense. But now I understand it. And I have found a family I wouldn't have had if I hadn't made that mistake. O happy fall! O happy mistake! For life is a dream most serious, most consequential. What we call life is but the mood you will have upon actually waking up. 

And wake I shall. The timing is irrelevant, for I control it not. So I wait. "...asleep or awake, I wait." And until then I will spin dreams that that will help me awaken in the best way possible. This blog chronicled the process of realization. From The Last Jedi until Lilith, all has led me to this moment. I have many things to make yet, many things that must last in the dream for other sleepers, long after I leave it.

How will you find me? For I go, and I go now. Alas, I cannot stay here. You will never see a post on this blog again. The Facebook will come down on Christmas day. The Patreon will close before I take another cent from my dear friends, who have helped me so! But I do not go into oblivion, as I have many things to do before I am awakened to Life. I have not done my due diligence; I owe a debt that will still not be repaid when I am called home by Father. He will have to forgive the debt. 

So where will you find me? I'm not sure how to answer that. But, if you look, you'll find me. I'll be doing my work.  A recovering Scot can only be in so many places at once, after all. 

Thank you to everyone, from the bottom of my heart. Love God. Keep the faith. What we think of as life is but a dream that will impact how we wake up. 

Awaken well, friends.

All the things under Heaven and earth can help one wake up well. 

But wake we must.