March

On Saturday, I had brunch with a friend whom I haven't spoken to in at least a year. Whenever this kind of catch-up get-together happens, the conversation inevitably turns to the topic of how life has changed, how we have changed. For dearth of mundane shared experience, the interlocutors must think and speak in the more sweeping language of where we are from, where we have been, where we are going.

I have no idea where I am going. It is often hard to remember where I have been. As for where I am from, what I remember is so little, and even that I cannot trust.

Somewhere in the mess of where I am is the desire for contentment. Saint Paul said, "I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content." How long did it take before he could honestly say that? Perhaps it is the kind of statement that can only be true in seasons.

Spring is coming and already, the girls are throwing on their pretty dresses and summer shorts. The runners too are starting to emerge, their bodies strong and straight, with air pushing hard into the lungs, blood pumping fast through the legs. At the moments when they pass by me, these women with their lovely gait and these runners in shorts, it is hard to be content.

Harder still it is to be content when love is a disappointment. Again, I am alone in my ugliness, watching the person I love moving quickly away, quick for reprieve from the burden of me, the cross of love. It is hard to be content in these moments.

The psalmist cries:
Whom have I in heaven but You?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You.

At points in my life, I have cried these words together with the psalmist, and learned what Paul learned. But I have forgotten.







Whom have I in heaven but You?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You.