Ryan Brunsink's Blog
an excerpt from solitude. / 12.16.08, 05:10 PM
(the following was written a few weeks ago, while on a solitude retreat filled with silence and reflection.)
agitation.
It’s like I know where life is found, but I won’t move to obtain it. I’ve been handed a glass of living water, and I thirst, and yet I do not drink.
Why? Why? I’m so frustrated—with God, with myself. Why can’t I live? I know that life—satisfying, abundant life is only found in God, and yet I can’t live. Not that I can’t live morally, or even against the cultural and social norms, but I still can’t live.
I’m not alive. I don’t meet the creator. I don’t commune. I don’t listen. I don’t love.
But I want to. Desperately. My soul is restless—meandering about the things of God, but never resting in Him.
God, that you would press down on this lump of clay and do something with it.
Am I just impatient? Or am I not doing my part? It’s like I want to do something frantically to feel the presence of God, but I’m paralyzed before I even attempt.
So am I to accept this paralysis, to sit and lie silently until God speaks movement into me? Or am I to fight it with everything I’ve got? I really don’t know. And I’m tired of not knowing and not moving.
_______________
and peace.
I started walking around the lake. Quickly, I became aware of what I had been feeling—frustration, agitation, paralyzed in my faith. So, I began to look for symbols of this feeling. The first fifteen minutes or so I didn’t find much of anything that spoke to me—only intensifying my agitation. “I’m not learning anything.” I have no problem with silence; I’m not having trouble focusing, and yet nothing significant is going on in me.
As I kept walking I came upon a tree with one branch that had almost all of its bark stripped away. I began to look at this branch and the few remaining pieces of bark—like flakes of skin that had yet to be shed. I contemplated this image.
I felt like it was an adequate symbol for me. The bare branch represented frustration with myself and with God—the lack of movement in my faith. But God began to teach me through this image.
He was saying, “You just want green and growth, but I need you to become bare. I am stripping you of your skin, making you bare.” So I plucked one of the remaining pieces of bark off of the limb, placed it in my coat picket, and continued on.
Eventually, I came to a four-way crossing. I stopped and turned in a circle to look around and contemplate my direction. As I turned, I stopped as I saw that one corner of the forest was covered in red plant growth. There was so little green, yellow, or brown; it was striking. It was all covered in red. Naturally, I was brought to the thought of Christ’s blood, and a sense of peace came over me. Even in the midst of my agitation and frustration, Christ’s blood covers all. When I’m being stripped bare, and there’s no green growth on me, Christ’s blood covers all. The sentimentality was comforting, but it left just as quickly as it had swept over me. Ahh, a sense of fullness felt and then released.
Not quite sure what to make of these fleeting truths, I walked through the red brush toward one tree that was covered in bight red leaves. It was beautiful. The sun was shining through it. I got to the base of the tree and looked up through the leaves. I decided to take a red leaf as another symbol of what God is teaching me. I grabbed a curled dead branch from the ground, and used it to pull a red branch down toward me. I plucked the first leaf and found it to be not so beautiful. So, I proceeded to pinch another off of the branch. As I examined it, I realized that none of these leaves were beautiful. In fact, they were all rather dull and faded, with tears and rips and holes in them—patches of discoloration, parts eaten away. And then it struck me, the tree was indeed so beautiful, but not in and of itself, only as the sun shone through it. The sun lit it up, all of its discoloration and flaws and made it beautiful. This gave me some sense of closure. I felt as though God was saying, “Yes in all your crap, I will make you beautiful.” “Not you, Me.” “It’s My beauty, My glory that makes you wonderful.” “Not your successes, not your determined effort to find me.” “It’s My revelation of Myself.” “And it’s through the blood—the red that covers all of you, all of your imperfections in the times of bareness and the times of lush green growth.”
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Hi Ryan, We enjoy reading your writings. When you send us mail be sure to address it to Mr. & Mrs. Brunsink not just grandpa & gma. Our FL address is: 609 Hwy 466, #662-1009, Lady Lake, FL 32159 Love Ya! PS there are lots of grandpas & grandmas here.
By Donna Brunsink / Dec 29, 04:34 PM / #