It’s
around 3 pm on a sunny
Saturday. I’m sitting on a bench on Cold Springs Trail, a popular
hike near my old school, Westmont College. To my right dozens of
gallons of water are being poured over a rocky ledge into the otherwise
tranquil pool below, and the sound drowns out
everything but the most persistent birds and the occasional scuffling
of hiker’s boots.
I am tired and, for some reason,
anxious. There is a weight on my chest and while I’d like to
bury it in activity, I try to sit still and listen to the water and
the birds and the boots. I’m restless and sleepy at the same
time. But I sit. I listen.
I look down at my notebook.
At the top of the page, there is the title, “About Me,” but the
rest is wordless. The little blue lines which are supposed to
be holding up phrases from being pulled by gravity off the page are
empty. I’m supposed to write a brief biography, but I don’t know
what to write.
“Father, why am I so tired?”
I say. “Why am I so anxious?” I listen for words but
nothing comes, only this weight, like a heavy blanket over me, covering
my body and face, like when you lie too long with your head under the
covers while the air underneath turns into warm carbon dioxide. Your
breaths become big and empty and you pull the covers off panting.
I give up listening, my mind and body too dull to hear anything.
I look back down at my notebook and the task I’ve schedule to accomplish during this hike. The one I walked through the
ivy and oak covered Montecito wilderness to work on thinking that maybe
nature would inspire me.
“About me,” the page reads, still.
I hoped words would magically fill the page, but they haven’t.
I suppose that, like me, they’re waiting.
a brief history of my life and especially of my conversion, but I
always
get bored giving my testimony. My reasons for loving God do
not read like an exciting romance novel, and while I suppose personal
stories of salvation are not grounds for competition, mine always feels
weak and lame against others’ more Shakespearean tales.
an Indian couple 22 years after their arranged marriage. They’d
tell you they never felt love at first sight. Love to them is
more like a staircase with 22 steps, and as they look out at the world
from the top, they smile and know they are just where they were meant
to be.
“What shall I tell them about
those 22 steps,” I whisper to my chest and to the rippling pool.
I listen. There is one bird which makes his voice heard well over
the splash of the waterfall. I look up to the sunlit canopy above,
my eyes searching for his little body, but I can’t find him.
My eyes aren’t trained to see birds. I can only listen for their
songs.
The pressure in my chest is
nearly gone and though the page is still empty, I can almost see my
jerky hand scribbling over the page and giving it life.
Finally, inspiration makes
its voice heard. I begin to write:
I remember a night about
7 years ago. It was late. I was already in bed, but for some
reason I was feeling anxious and ambitious. I got up, the light
still off, and knelt on the floor in my room.
I put my head to the
ground and said, “Father, I need to hear your voice. I need it. I’ll
wait up all night if I have to (like I said, I was ambitious), but I
need to hear your voice.” I remember getting pretty worked up, even
crying, something I didn’t do much of my teenage years. I’m sure I
said all sorts of gibberish to God about something or other, maybe my
feelings over a girl at school or some other form of teenage angst.
Mostly I just knelt and listened. A few times I started to get mad
because I wasn’t hearing anything. The darkness won though, and I
stopped worrying about that. I listened to the silence.
I’m not sure how long
I sat like that. It wasn’t all night. It might have been
an hour or even just 30 minutes. But eventually, spent and peaceful,
I stood up. I felt I had been heard and that it would be okay.
I staggered back to bed
and fell asleep.
Seven years later and
I believe I am just receiving the fruit of that prayer. And the fruit
is that I am sitting here, halfway up a trail, in front of a beautiful
waterfall, just listening. My story is not one of sudden highs or
terrible lows, although I have had both. My story is and will continue
to be about the search for, beyond ambition and anxiety, the place of
peace.
My page is full now, filled with black. I close my journal and listen to
the waterfall, to the birds, the footsteps of hikers. The pressure
in my chest and my anxiety are distant memories. I will probably
skip the rest of the hike. I have no need to get to the top today.
On my way back to the trailhead
my path crosses a grey haired woman wearing jeans and a blue vest over
her white shirt. She smiles as we pass and I smile
back, blessing her from my peace.
A small, grey bird lands on
a tree, only a few yards in front of me. We make eye contact.
My chest fills up again, not with pressure, but joy.
