Faith, Comfort, and a Bucket Full of Vomit

As I look forward to the prospect of a fan base with a variety of beliefs, I don't intend to get religiously preachy, so don't worry. With that in mind, I was sitting in a church other day. Always afraid of being late to every place I go, I had arrived too early and was waiting in the stagnant room for the mass to begin. Before it did, an usher approached me and asked if I would like to help with the collection.

My mind was filled with doubt: the thought of somehow screwing up an easy task, somehow looking like a fool and embarrassing myself, and other assorted "somehow" excuses not to do something different. I turned the usher down. I immediately felt bad about the decision, but even as I sit here typing this, I have to acknowledge that I still would not have replied in any other way.

The mass commenced, and the priest began with an attempt to, in his words, "pull us out of our comfort zones." He told everyone in the congregation to introduce ourselves to some of the strangers who filled the pews around us.

I grimaced.

This is the day I become an atheist, I thought to myself.

So as you might have guessed if you had read my previous blog posts, I stood stiff, probably thinking I was presenting myself with more openness than I appeared to be. A few people smiled, some brave souls actually waved at me. I smiled and waved back. A big man with a few tattoos came over and shook my hand. He knew he had nothing to fear from me.

Again, I don't wish to get too religious on this platform, but from a philosophical point of view, the priest went on to explain that, at its core, Christianity is designed to bring us out of our comfort zone, to make us think, make us question, make us reach out and become a part of something bigger than ourselves.

Introverted as I am, I am just barely mature enough to recognize that I desire this.

I just don't know if I'm emotionally mature enough.

But I know that I'm adaptable, even if I have to adapt to the forceful nature of my own ambition.

At work in the hospital the following night, I met a man. My previous patient had been discharged early, and I feared I was to be sent home after only an hour on the shift. But a new arrival had come. Naturally, I will not give his name, and his physical attributes are largely irrelevant, so use your imagination when I say he was middle-aged, and he looked scared. Almost childishly scared.

There was a man so overcome by irrational anxiety that he literally shook, stammering as though amid sobs, and vomited profusely. This anxiety was something he had gone through all his life. And while its intensity varied based on the time of year, he told me he hadn't gotten seven straight hours of sleep in twenty years.

He was an artist, like me, and like me he had found some comfort in creation. But whereas I had long fixated on novel writing, he had done a variety of little things at different times, as though seeking that optimal avenue. Maybe having found mine was my salvation from a life of overwhelming fear, I don't know. At least I had the concentration to get a foothold on my craft, a gift which he maintained that he was losing with each passing year.

I felt my own acids churning in my stomach as I watched him heave pure acid into a bucket over and over. He roared as his body constrained and convulsed. It made me think of those who built a fortune on the foundation this man had never had, and I felt angry.

Of course, I have had this feeling before, this particular brand of anger; I described it in my first post.

I feel empathy for those in hopeless situations, and envy toward those who have everything.

Intellectually, I'm mature enough to understand that there is no such thing as hopeless, and that there is no such thing as everything.

But emotionally, I don't know if I am.

It brings me back to my Christian philosophy, and my long-standing desire to pull myself out of my uneventful comfort zone, to process my sometimes painful ambition and push my reclusive life into something bigger, something infinitely grander.

In a few days, I'm going back to New York City, looking for answers.

My one guiding instinct is that every little step, the slightest nudge, brings me closer to the revelation I seek.