I think I long to be a tragic action movie character like jason bourne because even when it ends badly, at least it ends. Waking up after the climax and going on with a hum drum day is a lot more difficult than heroic acts of courage. I am tired More from the fatigue of facing what is really a normal life. Today I am editing paragraphs for a website. I made lists of my current and future writing activities on giant white boards on three walls with bright colored markers in code. I spent the first two hours of the work day with Brandon fixing a troubled iphone. I have managed to screw up my third iphone now. I answered phone calls and made phone calls. I spent time on hold waiting for the ATT customer service operator to tell me what ATT will and will not do about my bloated phone bill due to all the Haiti aid work. I waited like a zombie just holding my newly repaired phone to one ear and staring blankly at my emails I did not want to answer (Molly Mccoy, this line is the embellishment–the tuna fish).
At one point I just decided I couldn’t do it and I walked outside. Brandon and I strolled over to the art department to see my friend’s show–Marycaitlin. It smelled good in the art building and I liked the almost violent stillness of the art gallery where her show is hanging. I felt an urge to just lie down and sleep. Why do I want to sleep so much? Am I depressed? I just sent a text to Alyssa telling her I am. I told Kevin last night maybe I am suffering a bit of PTSD. I don’t know. I wish bombs were dropping again in some ways. I wish the Haitians were throwing rocks at me and fighting me about everything. I wish my pants were ripped and filthy and my body stinking of days of sweat. I wish I was thirsty. But really I don’t wish any of this. I don’t think.
Maybe when we accept the responsibility to engage in heroic acts we have to suffer the recourse of the whiplash to our egos when we realize there is actually nothing heroic about the heroism. I don’t even know if that thought makes any sense. Last night Kevin said something really wise about the paradox of our expanded ego in the heroic act and the humility of knowing we are not actually heroic–at least that is how my mind processed his idea. It made more sense when he was saying it.
Maybe its just that I get used to the trauma. It isn’t uncommon. I live in perpetual motion. In Haiti I live in a world of constant fighting and arguing. Even asking for a cup of coffee is sometimes an epic undertaking. I get so worn out that when I come back to a place of clean rooms and quiet hallways i feel what amounts to terror at the quiet. Last night when I arrived at the cottage at the Kleins I felt so uneasy because there was virtually no noise. Not even the wind. It was so good to see Kevin bouncing over the pine needle path to say hello and talk awhile. I feel so awkward talking some days. Especially after firefights, even if they are only metaphorical.
I put this photo at the top taken at Hugo’s house in Qingdao China last autumn because it has that empty normal emotion to it… and yet notice the light coming through the window in almost violent glare. It is as if this hallway is my mind, the dresser drawer the girl searches is my meaning and the window the constant draw and threat of everything outside me that both will mold me and possibly destroy me. Only God can control the outcome of this outside influence on me.
Uploaded by: flip holsinger on 23rd March, 2010.
wow, philip. this is beautiful…even though you did employ my least favorite word, “bloated”. love you.
Philip,
I think John must have felt much of the same feelings you’re experiencing. Stephen, James, Peter, Paul, and all these other young Christians John had led to faith were being imprisoned, tortured, made to watch the torture and murder of their loved ones, and being murdered themselves for not making the confession that the Emperor was God. And all the while, John is gaining the distinction of being the last apostle to die – and that of the mundanely painful death by age.
Sometimes the hardest work is the normal work that stretches out over a lifetime. In moments of intense pressure we either fold or flourish (you and I both seem to flourish more than fold). For us, it’s the drudgery of the everyday that represents the monumental challenge in life. I despise routine. I cave under normal. I fail with keeping the easy schedule others find comforting.
But, God is good to sustain us when we need it most. I pray He grants you an overwhelming sense of adventure in completing these otherwise mundane things and that He gives you the extra measure of strength you are needing even now.