In The Wilderness - Part Three

Part of what I wrote yesterday really stuck in my mind last night as I sat down to write my daily journal. I have been keeping a journal fairly regularly since 1992. There have been gaps during that time period, but, for the most part, I have been consistent. For the past three or four years I haven't missed a day. So, last night, as I sat down to write, I started by asking the same questions I had asked on my blog - "When we remove the clutter, is what we are left with, what we are? Do we define ourselves by who we are when we are alone?"

Admittedly, I didn't see the forest through the trees immediately. First I made a couple of probing insights. I pointed out the fact that we've been alone for some fourteen years now... that no matter what we've done as far as friends and dating, at the end of the day, we come home alone and we write or we watch TV or we... And that was when it hit me.

Somewhere along the line, I had become we.

I laugh at the sports guys that refer to themselves in the third person. But how more ridiculous is it to refer to yourself using the Royal "We"? I mean, I know I need to lose some weight, but since had I become more than one person? As I started back down this line of thinking, I realized what this wilderness had become for me. I hadn't lost my way so much as I had gained an unwelcome companion.

And this is where the story gets weird.

I realized that this unwelcome companion was the Novel itself. Somehow in my anxiety to finish this sucker, I had personified it. I had given it not only a voice and a desire to be finished but I had allowed it to call the shots. It had begun to tell me what it needed to be finished. And I had blithely followed along - adding scenes and character stories and changing things to fill out the Novel and to finish it. Not because it needed these changes, per se, but because the Novel, like everything else, desired to be the best thing that it could be.

See, I told you... weird.

The problem I was having was in losing my voice on the matter. I was going along writing what the Novel required instead of writing what I wanted to write. The Novel had taken on a life of its own and it wasn't willing to give it back. It wanted to control its own outcome.

I think somewhere in the wilderness, Jesus must have confronted these thoughts, the opposite of my own. He must have walked into the wilderness to find Himself. He must have imagined the way He'd like the story to turn out - of Him leading His disciples to bring about a new kingdom on earth. Of Him healing the sick and the poor. Of Him doing His father's work well into his old age and then retiring to watch His handiwork throughout the land. He must have been awfully tempted to let His story become the story. But ultimately, He knew that deep down inside, His story had to have a different ending. He knew that and He confronted it. He struggled with it, but in the end, He returned from the wilderness ready to bring the story to fruition. His desires were supplanted by the desires of His father and the necessity of the story. He became a We. He became the three-in-one - submitting His will to God.

I let the story control my own desires. But in doing so, I have let the story gain the upper hand and my desires have been lost in the noise. The Novel had started to be full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. None of Me was in the Novel. I realize now what the problem is. I need to put myself back in my story. I need to stop being a we.

We walked into the wilderness. I am coming out.