Therefore, I don't want to complain about anything.
I have shared things about my health over the course of the past fifteen years (fifteen years!) of this blog, as well as in the book that preceded it in 2010. The book —Never Give Up — is the source of the name of this blog, which is my peculiar "space" on the internet. There's no small irony in this name: I often feel like I "give up" all the time, as soon as things get difficult. It's only when I can't escape, when I'm stuck within constraining circumstances, that my determination to live and act in some way that has meaning and purpose "kicks in," driving me to adapt to the resources that are accessible to me. For the past decade-and-a-half, this blog has been one of those resources.
I write, record quotations, and do artistic projects here. But everything is rough and provisional. Perhaps this is all I can accomplish with my talents and efforts in this life. As I grow older, I still have "good days," but I can't deny that it's becoming more of a strain to write, or to express what I want to say. Even reading is getting harder. I've always been able to read. Now, it seems to tire me out very quickly.
Meanwhile, I feel bombarded with more and more of the noise of (mostly useless) pseudo-analysis and arguments about everything. It's hard to keep up with what matters, what falls within the range of my responsibility in the world around me. In civil society, as "things fall apart" more rapidly and extensively every day, I must share in the great concerns of the times, and feel the weight of the obscurity and sorrow that fill the atmosphere like dense clouds.
And now the frozen air of January has arrived with a rage, and here in Virginia we are frozen into our homes. My bones are no longer able to deal with the cold. I haven't been able to take my beloved walks lately. The cold cripples me. And the electric space heaters in our drafty house struggle in these temperatures.
Sorry. This is starting to sound like "complaining." We all have our burdens. Moreover, vast multitudes of people have to endure terrible conditions, the implacable brutality of violence, or personal sufferings beyond anything I can imagine. My heart cries out for a greater compassion when I hear so many stories of people devastated by so many kinds of horrific wounds.
If I complain about myself, it's just a sign of my own weakness and forgetfulness of the immense Gift that shapes the whole of my life. I pray that I can live truly the present moment that is given to me, remembering that I'm not alone, and trusting that each moment is a step on the path to the fulfillment for which I hope. But I am weak. And I have taken a “bit of a beating” over the years with physical and mental illnesses. I can't deny that I'm struggling a lot recently.
What concerns me most is that it sometimes seems like my mind is beginning to fail me (I should say, that part of my mind that didn't already break down years ago). Perhaps God wills to permit me to endure a further affliction that will introduce me to a whole new level of powerlessness. Thus I might experience more concretely the fact that my value as a person depends entirely on God's love.
I still have so many things that I think might be worthwhile to say — reasonable considerations and opinions (at least) that have been refined by many decades of education and personal experience. I have discovered new vistas too, in recent years, such as the vital importance of "Western persons" at least trying to understand more about Chinese and East Asian histories and cultures. This can give a greater wholeness to our own sense of humanity, and open us up to a dialogue that is essential in a globally interdependent and interactive world. Above all, it can awaken us to the awesome and mysterious ways of God's Providence and the will of Christ to open for us Christians — who have been sent out to all the world — "new ways" of encounter and evangelization by which we will all come to know Him with greater richness and intimacy. For they are also our brothers and sisters in the salvific love of His heart.
I want to share the expectations that have begun to stir within me of the grace which — right now, in humble and often hidden ways — is effecting this great expansion of fraternal charity among distant brothers and sisters. Much work needs to be done, work that will require the efforts of many from both sides over the course of many generations. I will probably only glimpse from a faraway distance the beauty of the genuine East-West encounter and communion that the Lord wants to bring about (as well as the meeting of so many other cultures and histories of peoples around the world for whom He has loved and suffered). At least I can point to what I see from afar, and rejoice in the dawn of the beautiful light on the path that is opening up before us.
I'm grateful for what I have glimpsed, and I want to share it with others. But just writing these words has exhausted me, and I have scarcely begun to articulate the basic details that I have begun to learn and that challenge me so deeply. I'm so often in pain and very tired. Please pray for me to be faithful to whatever the Lord asks of me, and to have peace in His will for me.