THE POINT OF NO RETURN
I have reached an impasse. One thing is certain: I cannot carry on without first experiencing God's love as a living encounter. I cannot engage my heart from a sense of obligation. Such is the case with love. If this is freedom, however, then I am damned in my salvation. Imprisoned within this dreadful freedom, I fumble with the ramifications of beholding a divine relationship genuinely out of reach. Here in Hades, the prize is beyond my capacity to acquire, yet I have seen too much to return whence I came. I'm caught in a loop, a lonely satellite orbiting in ellipse.
I must address a nagging question: in endeavoring to experience God, have I simply replicated the synthetic carrot and stick model of reward and punishment, doing little more than elevating it to a higher level? Have I merely interchanged the reward of God's love for Heaven and the punishment of estrangement for Hell? I tend to think not, since relationship is it's own natural reward. It's its own means and end.
Still, something's amiss. No matter how I attempt to reframe my spirituality, framing it around love - which should be the antithesis of self-interest - I can't help suspecting that all of this is still about me. I'm after something, but it isn't the right thing. It's all too damned self-referential...