A story that is nothing but questions

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Don? Are you still there? Don? Are you still listening for God? Don? Is there a person stirring inside there still? Are you lost in yourself, lying there on your bed, flooding the couch with lachrymose fluids? Are your ears still open, puppy dog? Those 2 foolish flaps of flesh that don't know how to keep sound out, are they still functioning the way they used to? Don? Don? Do you still hear?

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Have you pondered this, little Christian? Have you stopped and thought about your brokenness, or are you just groveling in it? And how long will that go on? When do you stop and think about what being broken might be *for*?

Were you better before you were broken? Don? Are you pondering this with honesty? Were you really better, imagining yourself as a strong Christian, a hairy-chested Pelagian guiding others like some sort of mini-God of sanctity? That was better???? Oh honey, wasn't that just a fantasy? Weren't you always a great deal weaker than you pretended to be?

Remember the time when..... and how she cried?

Isn't it better to know you are weak when the fact is that you are? Isn't brokenness more than the crack in a teacup? Doesn't it lead somewhere? Doesn't the fissure make an avenue of its own like a path to hike, isn't there a lane leading through there, don't people travel through here? Haven't you watched them pass, haven't you looked down on them?

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Isn't there a possibility that this is good? And if it is good, or might be good, why do you flinch and refuse to go the way your own weakness points you to go? Are you acting wisely or refusing to be wise? Is a young girl helped by your breaking down?

Don? Are you listening? Or is your refusal to listen somehow secretly listening? Are you going to just let time, with its undiscriminating destructive power, take care of this for you? Are you not going to look for the truth that is everywhere so also must be here? Are you never going to listen? Does never mean never?

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Is it some macho thing of yours then to roll around in your own sickness, to feed upon it, to refuse to study it and learn? Is this an important part of your manhood, to refuse to get well? Is refusal a part of you? An intimate part? And if you refuse to listen -- if you ultimately refuse -- ask yourself then, just who is it that you are refusing?

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