An Update...

Yet again I am at a point in my life when I wonder why I just didn't become a monk. My heart is broken into many little pieces and all I want to do hide away. But I can't. I can't for two reasons. One, I live right across the hallway from her. Do you have any idea how hard it is not to go into her room and kiss her good morning or kiss her good night? Or to tell her you love her? Do you? I was happy and content before I met her. I really was. I was fine with being the single pastor and I did not want a relationship. She told me to open my heart. She was the one that pushed me to tell my parents. She was the one that want a relationship. I was just in shock that somebody could actually like me for more than just a expendable friend. But in reality, I was just as expendable as boyfriend as a simple friend. She says she needs to find herself, find out what she wants even though a few months ago I was what she wanted. I promised to give her my heart but my heart was not big enough. And so now I sit in my room, all alone, with nobody around to talk too, not even a simple old friend.

Two, who could I talk too? I have never been in a community so close and so tight and felt so alone and so distant. I feel isolated from any kind of church life. My church in Baltimore is an hour away and my teaching parish is not the place where I can comfortably tell members my personal problems. I wonder where God is and why did this happen? Lutheran theology is very comforting and beautiful but it can offer little comfort when all you have is that to turn too. We sometimes forget that the cross is full of splinters and nails. It is hard to cling to the cross after one has been battered and bruised.

And yet, when I finish this entry and post it, I will close my computer, get back out of my chair and continue on with my life because nothing is worth ending your life. Nothing. Believe it or not, I will wake up tomorrow and smile because I know that bloody and ragged Cross is there along with a man who made it possible for me to smile in the morning. That my friends is the beauty of the Cross. That my friends is the Theology of the Cross. Amen