i want to be well

today was an amazing day.
today I feel like God spoke to me for the first time in months. maybe a whole year.



me and my friend, Emily, went down to Compline.
Compline is a service at St. Mark's Cathedral in Capitol Hill, Seattle.
Seattle is the #1 most atheistic city in the nation, but it is a come as you are city. Not much pressure to be anything but who you are. Compline was the most amazing service I have ever been to because it was a catholic chanting sevice.. and most of the people crowded in there were my age, mid twenties, and sat on the floor. Laid on the floor and gazed at the ceiling as the small choir's liturgical song and service echoed in the grand space of the auditorium. The sanctuary was awkwardly shaped. It felt more like a mosque than a church and the tall pillars holding the roof up had a distinct Asian influence. It was another unusual thing: full. People came because they wanted to.. because the service was what it was and you could come as who you were. They weren't apologetic about worshiping and adoring God and because they respected you and didn't try to train religion to make it marketable or seem cheap, and you didn't dance around who you were with God and could come before Him alone. It didn't matter if you showed up or not because they would have sang even if you didn't come. They weren't singing for you, to please you.. they were singing in worship God and to please Him.

I think the reason church sometimes feels so hypocritical because we continue to come only to focus on ourselves and what we expect catered to us.. instead of coming to be transformed by the experience, come because we are seeking God.

Sometimes in all the hustle and bustle you loose site of what is really important.. and its not ourselves. The calming music left for reflection.. and thought.

My friend, Christa, also helped with this triad of inspiration. I was talking to her about my struggle with others being uncomfortable with me because of my beliefs.. of getting trampled in the mess of other's hurt over God and hurting me in the process... some part of you seems a little dead and you start dragging it around.. and soon its a heavy weight.

She told me "they just don't know God. I mean they don't really know God."

I feel like if other's knew my God the way that I do life would be beautiful. Full of meaning. I don't know, maybe a god isn't relevant to how a lot of people see life, but for me it is. If I didn't experience Him I wouldn't have any basis for continuing to seek Him... If logic, dry and basic wisdom, and the reason of my deepest heart didn't keep me coming back here, I would have ditched God along time ago..

But I wish to be transformed from my consistently broken self, so that it is tangible and knowable.
To come as I am.. to be me, to be a human being, filled with bittersweet wins and failures and yet be an image of God too.

Sufjan Stevens topped the bill tonight, and, I think, transformed me from stone to living flesh and bones.
His song "I Want to Be Well" was in my ipod as I flew back home on I-5..

I've heard Sufjan suffers and struggles with mental issues. Depression being one of these. And I thought about my depression and anxiety issues that I have marked me with so much shame..
I don't know if Sufjan is talking about fighting the illness in his mind or the spiritual battles he faces
..but the words struck a unsettling close chord as the tumultuous chorus circled.

the simple words

"I want to be well, I want to be well, I want to be well, I want to be well.
I'm not fucking around."

And I thought "Amen"

"Illness likes to prey upon the lonely, prey upon the lonely
Wave goodbye, oh, I would rather be, but I would rather give up"