The last several weeks have been a trying time for me, evidenced not least by my lack of writing, here — I’m sorry! (I don’t actually know if anyone reads this, but it’s a good exercise for me, and at the very least, I’m apologizing to myself for denying myself that catharsis.) I have not handled life “in the world” well since choosing this path over pursuing a monastic vocation about a decade ago. Not for lack of trying, but I just don’t seem to be “wired” for the world and I chalked that up to “just sucking at life” for a long time. However, the past couple months have abounded with synchronicity and coincidence to a degree that I can no longer deny divine intervention.
People often get put off with the idea of discomfort as part of God’s action in the world. I used to be one of them, but I think that’s the wrong approach. I have a motivation problem; not that I don’t want to do things so much as I struggle to make the first move towards something. Whether because I don’t like change or because I’m afraid people with think I’ve lost the plot when I tell them, “I dunno; it’s God’s idea, not mine” — it doesn’t really matter why. But sometimes, the only way to get me to move is to force me to do so. Something has to catalyze the action but when it finally does, I generally adapt very well. The past week is a perfect example.
The actual “catastrophe” was a job-related situation. Since it’s under investigation, I can’t say anything of any detail, but let’s just say I caught someone — who should not have been — digging in the proverbial cookie jar. I’m a coder, so take that as you will. It’s not a massive catastrophe, but it goes a little beyond “so-and-so ate my lunch.” I reached out to HR but, since I appear to have been the “tool” for the manipulation that was being attempted (one of my neurodivergent quirks is that I trust people maybe more than I should), this immediately spawned a second inquiry into my own mistreatment. To be honest, I couldn’t care less; I’m not an “office politics person” and I do much better when I’m just giving a clear and concrete list of tasks to complete, and sent off to live in my coder cave for a month while I work on them. However, after having enough sleep over the primary issue, I decided I needed to finally let HR in; then the anxiety over the personal problem set it, and I sent a second e-mail to HR. I immediately felt better about the situation at work, but this works like a domino effect, and it led to new anxieties.
This situation is, as far as I can tell, irreconcilable for me. In a best-case scenario, I may be able to move to another department, assuming my reputation for being a “rules snob” hasn’t already circulated via the aforementioned office politic. More than likely, I’ll find myself looking for a new job because, even if there isn’t any direct retaliation for this, I have glanced behind the proverbial curtain and seen how deep the rabbit hole goes; I don’t know if I can realistically trust anyone I might work with, elsewhere, to continue working here without taking a toll on my mental health. And if I’m being honest, this job has been needling away at my mental health for some time — two years, maybe — anyway. It’s time to move on. I know this, and have known it for a while, now. I just have no idea what I’m going to do.
And that brings me to the next problem: I live in an expensive city, in an expensive state, in an expensive country. Losing my job without something else lined up is going to ruin me. And I’m not really worried about me; if it was just me, I would be content, even excited, to be stripped back down to nothing. I have mentioned, before, that one of the happiest times in my life was being homeless. But the young lad who depends on me, and my other (adult) dependents didn’t sign up for that. I’m already in a pickle, economically, between bills I can’t pay, a poor credit score, and an ever-increasing cost of living. The average middle-class family of four in this area needs almost twice the income I currently make (which is not a negligible amount) to maintain a decent quality of life.
The part that bothers me the most about this is that I’m not a unique case. There are probably hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of families in this same predicament. When I pace around my living room, asking myself out loud what I’m going to do in a dozen different ways as if one will magically summon an answer, what I’m really asking is, “what are we going to do?” We, as the collective working class1 of the world, have been put in an impossible position in which, at any given point in time, one small disaster could result in our lives being completely demolished and irreparably broken. And it only seems to get worse with each passing generation. In times like this, I cannot help but think back to the time I spent as a vagrant “traveling kid” and how liberating it was not to want or need more wealth than what I could earn at my part-time job as a kennel technician.
Something has to give. There needs to be some kind of change: a solution that doesn’t just alleviate immediate problems at the high cost of spawning new (and often bigger) ones. So, as I find myself in the familiar position of trying to spruce up my resume, I also find myself entertaining a secondary strand of thought: my vocational calling. On one hand, this feels irresponsible — shouldn’t I be focusing on securing stability? — but on the other, as I mentioned, certain things seem to be lining up in a way only God can ensure, and a voice in the back of my help keeps urging me to trust Him.
I think I know what I’m supposed to do. Or at least, where I’m supposed to start. And if I can find and assemble all the pieces quickly enough, it would resolve a great many difficulties — not just for me, but for a handful of other families in similar situations. And I want to trust God, and surrender everything to Him. I’m tired and as far as “life in the world” goes, I’m cooked — I have no desire, whatsoever, to continue trying to “make something of myself” or “carve out my niche.” What I’ve been doing for the better part of the last decade has never been for me; the work and money and worldly acclaim has never brought me any happiness — but it made life bearable and comfortable for a few people who trusted me to provide for them, and that brought me happiness.
But I’m scared. Not to throw it all in on trusting God, but that I might be wrong in my intuitions about this. I’ve been wrong so many times before, when I was so certain I was right. I’ve eaten the Fruit of Knowledge, of Gnosis, and been burned by it over and over. So how do I know that what I think I know, this time, is actually God’s will and urging? How can I be sure this isn’t just another instance of my own ego — or Satan, if you prefer2 — tempting me to think I know or understand something that, in reality, I’m still as ignorant of as I ever was? I’ve become so anxious about falling back into that “trap” that I’ve gone from Gnostic to “doubting Thomas” — where even if God were to reach down from Heaven and tap me on the shoulder, I would demand more confirmation and evidence just to assuage my fears and confirm that I’m not completely losing my mind.
The mention of the apostle is deliberate. Today was the Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle. As I read the entry in my copy of Lives of the Saints, I find that I share quite a bit in common with “the doubter,” beyond just the struggle for certainty. Thomas was a passionate and zealous follower of Jesus during his earthly ministry, and in addition to his famed capacity to question what is right in front of him, he was impetuous, and filled with anxiety. When Jesus told the disciples he was going to prepare a place for them, that they knew the place and the way, Thomas immediately pleaded, “What?!? How? We don’t understand!” — I’m paraphrasing, of course! Tonight in my prayers before bed, I’ll be pleading in my own way.
At the same time, this weekend, Jesus offers a reassurance of his own. On Sunday, in the Gospel, we will hear his words to a crowd of disciples:
Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find to your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light. (Douay-Rheims Bible, Matt. 11: 29-30)
This is a genuinely beautiful exhortation that I often recall when I’m feeling anxious, even when it as far-flung in the lectionary from my present as possible. It is also not the only place this sentiment is echoed; I read Luke 12: 22-31 to my little one earlier tonight before bed — it wasn’t intentional, it just happened to be the next story in his Children’s Bible, and this parallels Matthew 6: 26-34, which concludes with, “sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.”
This past Sunday, as the kickoff to my “catalyst week,” I heard the story of Elijah granting an old widow a child in gratitude for her hospitality as the first reading during the Mass. She put her faith in him as a prophet, and reaped “a prophet’s reward,” as Jesus described it in the week’s Gospel reading. There, Jesus says plainly:
And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for me, shall find it. (Douay-Rheims Bible, Matt. 10:38-39)
I mentioned, early on in this excerpt, that one of the reasons I cannot deny God’s intervention in my life at this point is the astonishing amount of synchronicity and coincidence that seems to occur in spite of the odds. I have no reason to doubt God’s influence — I have experienced it first hand many times before, despite my hard-heartedness and stupidity (it’s okay, I’m fine calling it what it is!) — and I’m not even struggling to accept it and believe. However, my own faults and susceptibility to the temptations of pride and knowledge keep me apprehensive. I’ve finally figured out enough to know what to believe, and I’m terrified of losing so much more by falling back into my old bad habits.
It feels like a “catch-22” and I’m not even sure what to do with that. Pray for me.
Endnotes
- When I say “working class,” I’m not specifically referring to the “blue collar” notion of working class, but of the broad spectrum of workers ranging from laborers to doctors and nurses who cannot afford not to work. In other words, if you can’t quit your job and live indefinitely off existing wealth and interest, then you are part of the working class; you have to work to survive. As the billionaire class absorbs and hoards more wealth from the working class, the nature of this survival becomes less and less comfortable; eventually we will reach a point where even the most prestigious workers will be priced out of anything but their basic necessities, and I don’t even want to think about what that means for the rest of us.
- At the peak of my descent into Gnosticism, I rejected the idea of Satan as an external being, interpreting the devil as merely anthropomorphic expression of our own inner misgivings: pride, hubris, ego, etc. My conversion experience turned this upside down, as I suddenly understood how this force is a very real, external influence on our lives now and throughout all of human history. But I cannot help but wonder if there wasn’t some truth, partial though it may be, in my old deductions: if God is the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, would it not stand to reason that the devil might be a hellish sire (Satan), a worldly heir (and, admittedly, I’m at a loss to identify this one), and an incorporeal anti-spirit (the ego)? I don’t dwell on this, because I’ve spent enough of my life wasting thought on unholy things that become irrelevant when we turn our hearts towards God, but it does occasionally pique my curiosity for a brief moment.
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