Dear Matthew:
I suppose that it’s
time that I explained to you my absence from the Place of the
Transfiguration. It isn’t that I feel
obligated to explain to you, and I don’t believe for a minute that you would
hold me to such an obligation. But I
have been gone for three days. I did say
something to Chris, who gives me his blessing.
I do not believe that I’ll be returning.
I thought that this would be a hard decision for me to make. It appalls me how easy it is. Quite simply, I woke up Saturday morning with
the knowledge that my time was up. I’m
in a hotel in Victoria right now, a cheap bed and breakfast near Beacon Hill
Park and I expect that I’ll be getting work here soon at a homeless shelter.
I should tell you
now, that I am not experiencing a crisis of faith. Whatever I was feeling at the community, I
seem to have carried with me. Or it
seems to carry me. Never has my path in
life felt so clear to me. I know now
that what I have undergone is conversion.
There is something to what the fundamentalists say about being born
again, and what a shame that such idiots should feel that they would have
exclusive rights over something so beautiful and universal. Literally my eyes have been opened, and I see
as though for the first time. Please
give my warmest love to everyone, by the way, especially to my mother, to Glen
and Lazarus, all of them the most excellent candidates for Transfiguration
Place. And, especially give my love to
Adam, whom I particularly miss. I do
plan to visit soon, but first I need to get established here, find a more
permanent place to live, etc.
I am actually
happy. I never thought this could be possible.
It seemed, while I was staying with you guys, to be almost, but never
quite entirely within my grasp. And now,
I’m beginning to see why. I was having
to get away from you, Matthew. Please,
you know that I don’t mean any of this personally, I will always love you, with
the clean, burnished love of Christ. But
this is what’s happened—As long as I were to stay with you and Mom in the Place
of the Transfiguration, it would be tantamount to resisting growth. I have always relied heavily upon you both as
my caretakers, and have consequently remained stranded in a state of perpetual
adolescence. I have never really lived
on my own, having always been dependent on you both for everything. I can’t do this any longer.
Norman, who runs
the shelter where I’ll be working, has networked for years with Transfiguration
Place, since he has often sent people to you guys to recuperate from trauma of
being homeless. He speaks highly of this
work and sends all of you his warmest regards.
I have given up
journalism, for the time being anyway. I
have come to see this getting blacklisted as a gift from God, the closing of a
door that opens to nowhere. Now I can
have direct experience of the homeless and destitute, instead of merely writing
about them from a position of false security and superiority. This for me will be a much truer experience
of Christ. The Place of the
Transfiguration makes a sublimely beautiful environment, but now I need to know
Christ in the gritty reality of His suffering humanity. Forgive me.
Michael
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