Life has felt like a tornado going a thousand miles per hour; the Lord has me on this path where I'm taking on more and more responsibility with the church, but with my anxiety every single meeting is a source of distress for hours beforehand, and hours afterwards-- to the point where I feel like I'm on the outside of a train car, holding on to the handles, my hair whipping in the wind, hanging on for dear life as the locomotive careens down the track.
It's like I need a day of vacation after each "burst" of activity-- but don't have the adequate time to decompress from it or digest it all-- like I'm perpetually "running behind", so things feel very harried, and I feel deeper and deeper underwater as I go.
This past weekend for instance I spent helping a church friend with the website for his business. I'm happy to do it, but it definitely took away from my ability to unwind and relax. Yesterday, I went to Mass in the big town near me, and was initiated into the Knights of Columbus-- again, happy to do that, but it was a big source of stress as well, socializing with strangers whom I'd just met, which has always put me in difficulty.
This week, I have a Faith Formation class for my kids on Wednesday night; I got invited to a dinner to explore becoming a deacon, on Thursday night; then on Friday night I am running my church's Liturgy Committee. I'm "on call" for production support at work even through this upcoming weekend, where I'm lector and sacristan; plus the usual full slate of work involving my actual career. I wish I could take a multi-month sabbatical from work to sort of "re-form" my identity, or wrap my arms around everything.
At the end of the day, how I unwind is doing fun video game-related projects. But when I do have the spare time, I don't have the energy.
Add to it my living arrangement, where I feel like I live in a different home from my own wife and kids, and it's a lot to deal with. I've also been stressed about my weight; I was 147 lbs when I first moved "up North", now I'm 162 and counting-- yet I just can't seem to keep my eating on track through all of the anxiety. In all of this, I've been just trying to turn to the Lord in prayer, asking Him for some relief: I know He wants me on this road, every single signal he gives me is "full speed ahead"-- so I just have to trust in Him!
Tonight I'm supposed to attend my first-- one day after becoming a part of the group-- Knights of Columbus meeting. But it's at 8:00pm, and just to get some semblance of sleep in the midst of my constant "fight or flight" mode, I need to have "lights out" at 8:30pm, otherwise I'm trashed the next day. And unfortunately, my team at work has sprint planning first thing in the morning tomorrow-- so I'm going to need to set some boundaries and, sad to say, skip tonight's meeting.
If only I didn't have this anxiety and derealization! I'm broken, somehow.
The Diaconate
The aforementioned meeting I have on Thursday involves a few people trying to convince me to become a deacon. The diaconate is a funny thing: I did a lot of prayer and reflection, and came up with a "pros and cons" list. On the "pros" side is that I think I would make an awesome deacon: I have a lot of passion for liturgical matters, and I can readily envision myself in my "mind's eye" doing baptisms, funerals, giving homilies, and the like. It's a great intersection of my gifts, and the act of serving.
On the "cons" side is everything I just described above. How in the world would I add years of training, getting a master's degree in Theology, and so forth to the mix? Even setting aside my anxiety issues, mathematically when would I even have time to attend class, or study? I'm going to need to head into the meeting with the communicated expectation that I'm only there for information-gathering. Maybe in my fifties, if I can retire or go down to part-time work, I could become a deacon for the latter decades of my life?
The Pope
I thought that this article was well-written. I don't know enough Theology to say whether God can be proven purely via reason, but the back three-quarters of the article really strikes a chord with me. The crux of it is here, bold emphasis is mine:
"In short, the Pope [when criticizing enforcement of immigration laws] is pitting the Church against the very idea of 'America,' against the 'shining city upon a hill' that has captured the spirit of freedom and the imagination of people worldwide for nearly a quarter of a millennium. The end result of this can only be that some people-- many people, most people-- will choose to ignore that which the Pope and his bishops insist is a moral necessity. That is a disastrous outcome and sets a disastrous precedent."
It's important as a Catholic to remember that the Pope is human and thus fallible, just like the rest of us; the only time what he says is treated as official church doctrine is under very specific conditions. This concept is explained in great detail in articles such as this. So when the Pope speaks off the cuff and expresses some political opinion which doesn't quite seem to make sense on a Theological or even logical level, that shouldn't put us Catholics is any kind of grave difficulty.
It's important not to lose faith, even when the Pope is playing politics.
The trouble is, these actions do set a bad precedent. Many lay Catholics I know, at this point, ignore just about everything the Pope says-- even in those situations when it is an "official doctrine" kind of situation! In fact, people sadly tend to roll their eyes when the name "Pope Francis" is even mentioned. Just as the author puts it, the credibility of the Church starts to take a hit, and I've seen it myself.
It's a shame because the Pope also says a lot of really good things-- but one "bad apple" remark tends to ruin the bunch, as it is with anyone.