PHANTOM
It's been six weeks since my last entry, and the only thing immanent in my spiritual life is silence. So it may come as no surprise that my search for relationship with God has led me to the doorstep of mysticism. If I intend to have an intimate relationship with God, it seems obvious I'll need more than analytical observations and an academic retooling of my theology. I need experience and would happily settle for an experience at this point.
So I've read up on Christian mysticism, Gnosticism, Buddhism, and mindfulness and transcendental meditation, and discovered in them a common theme I despise: intimacy with God seems to require esoteric knowledge and asceticism that very few would have the time and ability to explore, let alone master, were they desire union with God. If this approach is true, it seems only a select few will ever know God or real transformation. I can see no reason why a loving God would require such feats of a seeker, so am at a loss.
God, you are such a fantasy. Even if you are out there, especially if you are out there, you're a fantasy, a phantom. You truly are a man of legend. Where did you go? Did you give up? Lose interest? Have you nothing left to give? You are so absent: ever disappointing, ever alienating. I hate you for leaving me alone in this place, at my most vulnerable, when the cornerstone of my faith and identity has been wrenched from beneath me. Why don't you answer? Is my desire inauthentic? Are you a machine? Must I learn how to use you, to operate the switchboard between our worlds? Must I learn the right buttons to push and levers to pull??
I am not a machine. I'm a man, one you've left abandoned at this dire moment of crisis when I needed you the most!
There, I've said it, and my fit of spiritual emptiness is subsiding. The emotional charge is waning; I'll be back to normal soon. And so I shall proceed through the rest of the day with little memory or care that such thoughts were written, as my shouts go unaddressed and the mystery remains...