"That wasn't very cash-money of you"
I awoke New Year's morning unable to breathe, and with a pounding headache. I had filled the night before with heavy drinking and some problematic decisions, and was now wondering where the grand plans and life changes I had resolved to make had gone. I assume they vanished into oblivion with the fourth glass of champagne and gin. I quickly determined to make the year a year of repentance, a plan which I still hope to carry out. 2020 has indeed been a year of repentance, however it has also been a year of subverted expectations.
I have become a catechumen in the Orthodox Church in America, and much of the study I have had to do as a result has guided me in that repentance. Becoming Orthodox was not something I ever would have seen coming, and my catechumenate has also defied my expectations on countless occasions. The most notable of these defied expectations was not being able to attend church for three months. As a result, I spent March, April, May, and June watching live streams of the services. God also has not violently shifted my ways of thinking about a lot of things. The process has been very slow and gentle. At times, like now, it has been paused as well. Father Meletios writes that in the Christian life, the one way we grow consistently is in experience. This year has given me a lot of experience.
I have also been surprised to see the entire my country crumble into borderline anarchy, almost to the point of civil war. For the first time in my life, Christian persecution seems not like a possibility, but a certainty, as leftist ideologues begin more and more to take center stage, dictating their morality to the cowed, power hungry mobs.
The rest of my life has been full of subverted expectations as well. Today, as I took my lunch break, I received a phone call from the principal of Belmont High School telling me that they had not selected me for the Latin job at their school. Why he felt the need to call me and waste my break time to tell me that, i will never know, but here we are. Whereas I believed that I would be employed by this point and have a new place to live lined up, I have been met with anything but. A job I was earmarked for went to a very close friend, and the other schools to which I have applied have yet to write back to me. The romantic side of my life has been first turned on its head by giving me a tiny glimpse of hope, followed by something comparable to a Japanese prison guard smacking a prisoner with the butt of his rifle to keep him in line, followed by anger, disappointment, and utter resignation. I sit here now, writing this post, remembering a couple of phrases that have spoken to me over the year. Hevel havalim: vanity of vanities. scream quietly in your heart. Lachanna vos: a Latin/Punic phrase meaning something akin to "that's all, folks", or "goodnight, y'all". This last one sums up how I am feeling at present. I am ready to give up and say goodnight to everyone. I so desperately want to run away from the bakery, this wretched country and state, everything.
The beach is odious to me. The ocean fills me with sadness. Everywhere I go makes me not want to be there.
but in the midst of all this...this is where you'd expect a hopeful message. There isn't one. The world is going to hell in a hand basket. All of us who bear the name of Christ are in for it and hardly any of us are the slightest bit ready for it. There are no jobs, America is waning on the world stage, and teeters on the edge of totalitarianism. Because I am a masochist, I have every intention of fighting back against the misery and not running away. Be bold, be strong. This year sucks. The next one will suck too. Christ doesn't promise us a good life, He promises us a cross. So I am going to try to take up my cross and climb Golgotha.
