So, I have a question for you. Or rather  a series of questions. Rhetorical. Unless you want to answer.

Do you want to be loved? If so, are you convinced yet that I genuinely do love you?
If not, what would it take to make you believe? What would it take to earn your trust?

"Yvain was so distressed at departing from his beloved that his heart did not leave. The king could lead the body, but not the heart, which attached itself so strongly to the heart of the lady left behind that he had not the power to draw it away. The body cannot possibly live without the heart, yet this wonder did happen. The body still held on to life without the heart, which, though accustomed to lodging there, had no desire to follow the body farther. The heart found a good home, and the body lived in hope of returning to its heart. In place of the heart, the body had, in a strange manner, created a substitute out of hope." -- Chretien de Troyes, The Knight with the Lion

Often, when I talk with people about you, they want to see a picture. They always say something, usually with oohs and ahs and 'oh, my's, about how lovely and pretty and beautiful you are. I've heard you compared to a painting, and an angel, and more, all of which I agree with. And frequently, they'll make a comment like that they can see why I love you so; I remember one girl on the trail, who said she understood why I would walk 2,000 miles for you.

But I always have to correct them, that while you are the most beautiful woman in the world to me, it's really not about that. It's about who and what you are inside; a beauty that can't be fully conveyed  in a picture, although some of it does show through with you, in your eyes and your smile. 

And it's about the connection we shared, a connection I've never had with anyone else. Ever. And one that doesn't really make any sense, from a purely rational perspective, because it doesn't seem like we spent enough time together to feel something so deep and so strong. Did you feel it too? I know you're not comfortable with intimacy, but you did feel something, didn't you?

In truth, my heart was yours from the very first time we talked; from the moment you sat down at that table beside me. My mind didn't know it, or didn't want to admit it, but my heart knew, and so did my spirit. It's still yours, and always will be.

Liszt, Liebestraum--Khatia Buniatishvlili

Magical. I've never heard this performed with such sensitivity, color, expression, and beauty. It makes me feel warm inside, like hot chocolate on a cold, snowy day.

Here's another for good measure. Breathtaking. Liebe, komme zu mir.

"If we purify ourselves of wickedness, then we will come to see invisible realities. But there is no point, while we are still blind, in asking why it is we cannot see the light, no point in stuffing our ears and then asking why it is we cannot hear anything." -- John of Apamea

Where Have You Hidden, Beloved?

This is John Michael Talbot's musical version of a poem by St. John of the Cross, one of the great mystics of the church, which is in turn based on the Song of Solomon, viewed as one of the primary sources of mysticism in scripture, and especially of "erotic" or romantic mysticism.

For me, it has both spiritual and temporal meaning--it expresses my longing for Christ, my heavenly beloved, and for the one who is my earthly beloved. And I see those two as linked--or more accurately, I see the one, the lesser, as a facet of the other, the greater. And I believe that that dual meaning was there in the original composition of the poem, inspired by the Spirit of God, which later became scripture. In my view, Solomon was genuinely in love with a woman when he wrote it, and fully recognized, as I do now, that his love for his betrothed wife was a gift from and a service to God. Love is a sacrament. Speaking specifically of the love between man and wife. It is, in fact, the very first sacrament, and the only one given to us before the Fall.

Many Christians, when faced with the Song, or with the erotic mystical tradition of the church, dismiss the corporeal aspect completely, valuing only the metaphorical, spiritual sense. And that sense is very real. But it has no meaning and no value if the metaphor on which it rests is invalid, wrong, or sinful. When did the Lord ever use something wrong, bad, or sinful as a metaphor for a spiritual truth that was good and right? There's a saying among writers: in order for something to work as a symbol, it first has to work as a thing. This is true of the Bible, and of spiritual truths expressed in metaphorical form. Jesus used many agricultural figures and images when He was teaching Truth. But if farming had been a wicked practice, they wouldn't have worked, would they? So with romantic love. It is not bad, in itself, though it is easily and frequently corrupted. In itself, it is a good, holy, and blessed thing, part of the original design and intent of our Creator for our happiness, and an example given to us by Him to show us His love for us.

I bought something for you today; just a little thing. I know it's foolish, and that I'll probably never be able to give it to you. But it made me happy for a moment. When I saw it, I couldn't help thinking how perfectly it would suit you, and how pretty you would look wearing it.

"The joy of late love is like green firewood when set aflame, for the longer the wait in lighting, the greater heat it yields and the longer its force lasts." -- Chretien de Troyes

I mentioned, in my previous post, the struggles I've had with my fitness since coming home from the Appalachian Trail, almost two years ago now. I want to talk more about that.

You may remember that, when it happened, I was met with various theories and interpretations as to what was going on in my body. I initially thought that it was primarily a blood glucose/insulin issue caused by having been compelled to revert to a very high carb diet of processed American junk food while hiking, due both to availability of foods in the rural towns along the trail, and low energy while hiking. Then I found out about Overtraining Syndrome and Adrenal Fatigue, brought on most likely by the combination of long-term chronic life stress, and short-term acute stress from the fasting, dieting, and hard and frequent exercise of the previous couple of years, especially the six-month very low calorie modified fast I'd just done, followed immediately by training for and then hiking the trail.

So since then, I've been doing what I do, that is reading, researching, and analyzing. And praying, of course, for understanding and enlightenment. Yes, I believe God even cares about our weight and physical health. Because it is a health issue, and a quality of life issue, not just one of vanity or social status. What I've come to learn, is much more about the long-term root causes of my problem with excess weight, and (hopefully) also about the long-term solution.

The first original cause was that I was raised on the Standard American Diet (acronym SAD). We all know by now, I think, what's wrong with that, so I won't go into great detail. But in case you're one of the few who are still laboring under the delusion that the only cause of obesity is Eating Too Many Calories, and that the solution is Eating Fewer Calories and Exercising More, and especially Eating Less Fat and Salt, I will briefly say that you are just wrong. And so was the medical and governmental establishment which told us that for so many years. "Move more, eat less" sounds true, to those who have never had to struggle with this issue, because it works for people whose metabolism, endocrine system, blood sugar and insulin regulation, and cellular metabolism are healthy and functioning normally. They can change their diet and exercise a little bit, take off 5 or 10 pounds, and that's that. But that is not the case for anyone suffering from a disruption or disorder of any of these systems.

Which leads me to the next cause. No, first there's an intermediary one; the reason, I think, why my body reacted by putting on weight were some people's don't. That is, my parents' divorce and the arrival of my stepmother, which put me under an enormous amount of chronic emotional stress beginning at the age of 6. It has now been shown that one of the ways the body reacts to stress is by trying to put on weight. This is hormonal, not psychosomatic--the body is trying to protect itself from a perceived threat. So it up-regulates hunger and down-regulates metabolism, and you gain weight.

So then, the next cause was the reaction to that. My father, meaning well, saw that I had become a bit heavy, and took me to the doctor, who advised what doctors advised in the 70s (and some still do): a calorie-restricted meal plan, low in fat and salt and high in carbohydrates. My father even went on it with me, as he had developed a bit of a spare tire since his Army days. He went running with me, and bought me a set of weights, and put me in football. And it worked. Sort of. Rather, it worked temporarily. The problem is that this kind of weight loss does not address the underlying hormonal issues. Rather, it forces the body to lose weight by burning more energy than it is receiving. But the body reacts by lowering the metabolism to conserve energy, increasing hunger hormones to try and get more calories, and producing more insulin. And eventually, the body always wins, because it keeps making you more and more hungry and more and more efficient at storing fat (and less at burning it), and you can't go on indefinitely increasingly restricting calories and exercising for longer periods and at higher intensity, because you'll die. This is why the universal experience of people with serious weight issues (not those who have just put on 10 or 15 extra pounds over the years) is a cycle of success and failure, commonly referred to as "yo-yo dieting". I was no different. Well, I was different in one way: in that I tried harder, and more frequently, than most. I've lost weight so many times, I've lost count. I mean seriously lost weight. And of course, every time, I did more damage to my metabolism, my endocrine system, and my insulin/glucose system, and made it harder to lose weight the next time. But I did it. I worked harder, and harder, and harder, and ate less, and less, and less.

One time, for instance, when I was trying to make a weigh-in to get back in the Army, I only ate every other day for thirty days, and on the days I did eat, I ate one boiled egg for breakfast, a plain, small baked potato for lunch, and a few pickled beets for dinner (because they are diuretic). I was also taking diuretics and laxatives, and exercising with as much intensity as I could manage on such a diet. And I lost 35 pounds in 30 days. I guess the point of that is to demonstrate the truth of what I said before, about not being able to indefinitely decrease intake and increase expenditure--I was probably a lot closer to very serious health consequences at that point than I would have liked to admit at the time. And also to say, that unless you've done something like that, or voluntarily gone six months without solid food, then don't talk to me about self-discipline and willpower.

But even with all that, my weight problem was always a matter of 30 or 40 pounds. My heaviest was about 235, and I should have weighed between 185 and 200. But then there is the next cause, and that is the antidepressants, which are very clearly recognized as causing serious weight gain. When I first started on them, I lost weight, like many do, mainly because the emotional relief they provided allowed me to get motivated, diet, and go to the gym. This was after my second accident, when I had had my surgery and physical therapy, and recovered enough that I was able to start living again. So, once again, I lost weight and got in shape. But then, once again, it came back. And it kept coming, and kept coming, until I had gained well over a hundred pounds. A quote from a study on weight gain among people on psychotropic drugs, most of whom had been thin and healthy before: "What they all had in common was the inability to turn off their urge to eat, regardless of how much food they were consuming." This is exactly what I have experienced. You just never stop being hungry. Even when your stomach is physically full, and you feel completely stuffed, you still want to eat. This is hormonal: the hormones which signal the brain to want to eat do not get turned off, and the ones which signal satiety do not get turned on.

It is not well-understood, why antidepressants cause weight gain, but one of the most likely culprits is that they disrupt the endocrine system and disorder the hormones. When you combine this with a body whose hormones are already disrupted by the SAD, the equally harmful low-fat, low-salt "solution" to the weight gained on the SAD, and the chronic stress of long-term emotional distress, then you have a recipe for complete disaster. And indeed, this whole set of factors even affects us on the cellular level--and if the cells aren't healthy, then the body as a whole cannot be. This is how I got to where I got.

So like I said, during the time since my crash, I've been trying to find real, long-term solutions. And what I've found is the enormous body of research that's been done in recent years (but is still being largely opposed and suppressed by the mainstream medical establishment in favor of the "calories in, calories out" model) on ketosis, fat-adaptation, insulin resistance, leptin, ghrelin, and other hunger hormone regulation, and fasting, both intermittent and extended. In addition to this research, I was praying once, about what to do about my weight. And I had a very brief vision. It sounds kind of silly, but it was a vision of me frying meat. So, in brief, I've gone keto.

I've tried it before, but never had any success. But I understand now, that the reason for that is that my body was so damaged by all those things I mentioned above, that it's just going to take TIME for my body to heal itself from it all, and get everything back into order. And, having been on a ketogenic diet with intermittent fasting for 3 or 4 months now, I'm finally starting to see some real progress. But only in my overall health and well-being; I haven't started losing significant weight yet. A little, slowly, but not what I would wish. And that, of course, is very frustrating and discouraging. But I am firmly convinced that this is the path that is going to lead to the final solution to this problem. As my body heals and recovers, as the hormones are balanced and the metabolism restored, as my cells are repaired and build new mitochondria, and as my insulin and leptin resistance subside, the weight loss will come. Here and here are some basic explanations of what I'm talking about.

I should add, though, that I have not joined the keto gospel church--speaking of those people who go around saying that all carbs are evil, that keto is the way we were originally supposed to eat, usually trotting out some hunter-gatherer theory of the human diet based on evolution. I believe the way we were supposed to eat (the word implies intent, doesn't it?) is the one outlined in the Bible--including grains, fruit, and even wine. I see keto as a corrective measure, for people like me whose bodies have been damaged by the modern super excess of sugar and refined flours, and absence of many necessary elements, such as fat and salt. I hope to eventually return healthy carbs to my diet, and even allow a few exceptions here and there such as sugary foods on holidays. And I'm open to learning more about other methodolgies and dietary therapies for addressing these issues. This, for instance, looks quite intriguing. I may try it as another step in the process, after I've done keto long enough to get the good effects of that.

You may be wondering about fasting, in context of the results of my previous fasting. The problem there is that what I did before wasn't true fasting: it was a very low calorie liquid diet. And it wasn't ketogenic: there was a substantial amount of carbs in it, because I made my protein shakes with milk and sometimes juice. True fasting, that is, water only fasting, is totally different, hormonally and metabolically, and has been shown to actually be very beneficial to the body. (here and here are some informational links on that topic.)

You also may be wondering how bad it is, i.e., how much has come back? I probably make it sound worse than it is. I'm not back where I was when I met You. I'm about where I was after my first hike, in Florida, and before I started the serious weight loss which I chronicled here on my blog.

The main problem, to be brutally honest, right now, is emotional. I'm doing quite well with sticking to the keto diet, but I'm having a very hard time keeping motivated to get serious with my exercise again, and with maintaining longer-term water fasts. The thing is, that kind of motivation requires one thing above all: hope. And that, as I detailed in my previous post, is something which I'm very lacking right now. I have metaphysical Hope. And I have hope that is born of an act of will; that is, choosing to believe, based on faith, that there is something better coming. But I don't have ANY practical hope, for my life, meaning tangible, practical hope. And that leads to sadness, depression, and despair, and those just suck the life out of all motivation, like dementors.

So that's where I am. Again, not looking for pity. I'm just doing this to break down that wall. Also, I'm hoping that talking through it like this will help me break out of it.

"Whoever sits in solitude and is quiet
has escaped from three wars:
those of hearing, speaking, and seeing.
Then there is only one war left in which to fight, and that is the battle for your own heart. -- Abba Anthony

I had a dream, quite a long time ago now. In the dream I was experiencing it from the perspective of a woman. There was a war, and I had been left alone in an all-but-abandoned motor pool, with the sole task of guarding it. There was a building, and inside the bay there was an old tank, just a stripped-out shell really. Inside that empty tank hull, I had made myself a little home, like one does when one is living away from home, and I was comfortable in it, and felt safe. The only weapon I had was an ancient and very unsafe-looking double-barreled shotgun.

I went out to patrol the perimeter, along the fenceline, and encountered a man at the gate. He was unarmed, and tried to speak to me, but I noticed neither. I was terrified, and shot him. He backed up out of the gate, raised his hands in a gesture of peace, but I shot him again. Then I turned and ran back inside the building, locked the door (wondering why I hadn't kept it locked to begin with), then crawled back inside my empty tank and hid. It was only then, when I began to calm down, that I realized he hadn't even been armed, and might not have been an enemy at all.

I see this dream as being about you. I was seeing it through your eyes, so to speak. The man I shot in the dream was me. The rest should be self-evident: tank=armor, fence=boundaries, etc. I am convinced that this dream was Given to me in order that I might understand your perspective on what happened between us. I actually felt your fear. And I am sorry that I was the cause of it. I wish I had understood better from the beginning, and had been able to be as tactful and sensitive with you as you deserved.

Another one of those dumb little things I regret:

That one time, when you were crying in the choir pew. I don't know why, I hope it wasn't because of me, but I was afraid it was. Have I already written about this? I don't remember. It was a time when you played in the liturgy, and you played something that always moved me deeply, and had a special meaning for me in association with you. And it was hard. I almost got up and left, but I thought I'd probably disturb you, maybe even break your focus, so I sat in my pew, gripped the armrest, and gritted my teeth.

When I saw you crying, I thought maybe you'd noticed, and it had upset you. And I did...nothing. You sat there after the mass ended, and everyone else filed out, and I went out too. Like a coward.

What I wanted to do was go over to you, kneel down in front of you, offer you a handkerchief, and ask if you were alright. And say I was sorry, if it was me that upset you. What I wanted was to be able to comfort you. But I was afraid it would just upset you more, if I tried to speak to you. And maybe cause a scene with your parents. Your mother already looked very angry at me as she left the sanctuary (reinforcing my thought that it was because of me). So I didn't do what my instinct and honor told me to do. I should have anyway, no matter what the cost to me.

Aegina Spin

I've been withholding myself. I've just realized that. I've been sliding further and further down that path of hard-heartedness which I've said so many times I won't go down. It's slipped up on me, to the point that I'm almost back to where I was when I started this journey, before that day when the Lord changed my heart. It's just too easy to hide one's self, to avoid the pain and embarrassment of being human. I can feel it right now, writing this; it's like there's a hard crust around my heart, and at the moment all I feel is uncomfortable, trying to crack it.

So I'm going to intentionally make myself vulnerable again (and probably make myself look foolish) by telling you what's been going on with me.

A couple of weeks ago, shortly before Christmas, I got the idea that I would like to get involved in a theology program. Not a university one, but one of the several which are run by traditionalist Anglican communions for the training of their priests and lay ministers. This is something I had looked into years previously, but never pursued. But suddenly, it seemed like exactly what I wanted and needed. Not necessarily with the idea of being ordained, but just for the sake of doing it.

So I started looking around on the web, and I found a couple of possibilities. Then I started thinking, that if I was going to do this, I should probably (and not only for that reason) get involved with a church again. So I started looking for possibilities there. And it turned out, that there was a new Anglican parish here in town. Not only were they Anglican, but looking around their website, I saw that on their links and resources page, they had links to Derek Prince lessons, which meant that they are, very unlike our old parish, open to some of the things which I believe deeply and practice, i.e., mysticism and the real presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. I actually got kind of excited.

But then I saw that the rector of the parish is someone who is (or at least was, I don't know) a good friend of Your family. And I started imagining trying to navigate that, with all the rumors and judgments whirling around in the background. And I also saw that the parish is part of the denomination to which I belonged in Tennessee, before I moved here. The church whose cathedral is right outside the campus of the grad school I had to leave, and whose clergy stopped talking to me after that happened. Those thoughts, and memories, and fears, combined with thoughts of what happened when I applied to Wheaton last year, and others, and it was like nuclear fission: negative thoughts, fears, hurts real and imagined, all multiplied exponentially until I basically completely melted down. And since then, I've been feeling like this:

The worst thing, the thought that I just can't get past, is that I'm blocked on every path by this Thing that's been following me and hanging over my head for the past--what is it--seven, eight years now? This concrete cloud, to borrow a phrase from the girl who started it. It makes me feel like my entire life is stifled--like there's no possibility that I'm ever going to do anything with my life, or be anything worthwhile, because of this. And then I start thinking about how old I'm getting--like it's too late to do anything anyway. Then I start thinking that I'm not old enough, if all I'm doing is waiting around to die.

Then I think, that I just have to be patient, to have faith, to trust in the Lord and in his promises. But then I think, "But where are those promises? Look how long it's been. And nothing has changed." Which isn't true, but it feels like it is. Then thoughts about how hard it's been, dealing with my weight, fitness, and health since everything crashed during my hike two years ago, and how seems like I'm so far back toward the beginning with that, after having come so close, that it seems completely hopeless (although that really isn't true either). And about how hard it's been, overall, trying and trying and trying to do something in spite of my injuries, living with all the pain, both physical and emotional, always trying to never give up, to work around my limitations and disabilities--but how, when all is said and done, it just hurts. It just hurts, all the time, and everything I do is affected by it. Then the feelings of loneliness and emptiness associated with spending the holidays alone, and not even wanting to celebrate them because of the health/weight/diet issue, add a few thousand pounds to that load. And I'm sure you know how these things go, without me going on and on adding more details. One negative thought leads to another, which leads to six more, until you just want to Stop Existing.

I'm not telling you all this to elicit pity or sympathy, and I'm very much not telling you to make You feel bad, or responsible, or guilty. I still don't blame you, or believe that you ever wanted to hurt me. I just want to be honest and open, because I don't ever want to be again who I once was, no matter how hard everything else gets.