Wednesday, October 15, 2003
i slept most of today, my day off, and had dinner with a friend, and slept some more and went out for a while. the exhaustion catches up to me. much of the exhaustion is shat i talked about last time, giving myself away to people, entering into their lives, their suffering, i become so drained, so exhausted. it is not easy to sit with 20 year old "Dance". he came here from the south to have fun and the City excites him, but has increased his "h" use. his life is going from one date after another. he is terribly lonely, and needy seeking fulfillment in his drugs and sex. wants a relationship. needs constant attention. his self-esteem is so low and he suffers so much. or to talk to death every night and see her deteriorate and cry out with pain, always needy. last night when i was out i was thinking how these guyes lives are not so much different than those of people who are adults makling bulka bucks in marin. their lives are consumed with making money and their drug is the so called "good life", "the american dream", but the result is the same--lives that are empty, and ultimately burn out and early death=--the guys from drug related, and these others from stress and heart attacks. we human animals seek something to fill our lives when it is really found in taking time for God and for others. Deo Gratis! Thanks be to God!
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Tuesday, October 14, 2003
long day, hot day. picked up a nun friend after outpatient surgery, foodbank, had car inspected, worked with monica and thom, movie with laura and vance. and in between people who need my attention.
as i look at being present i understand more and more that to be present one must enter into the other's world in that moment. and i do that. i feel their loneliness, their isolation, their pain, their fears, and my energy is drained. and then in solitude and silence i return to my Center and am renewed to go at it again. the drainingness, the tiredness is always a good tired, a contented tiredness, but an exhausting tiredness. to be present means to be vulnerable--to the demons of the other, to their pain, their craziness, and to see that all of us are really just fragile human beings trying to make sense of this thing we call life. Deo Gratis! Thanks be to God!
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