and so a new month begins...

The Anchor is one of my favorite places in Cincinnati. Technically it’s not even in Cincinnati; I have to go across the Brent-Spence Bridge into Kentucky and get off at the 12th Street Exit to get there. It is a wonderful little diner filled with colorful little folk. One of the waitresses, she’s about my age, she’s really cute. I usually go there to work on homework, to hone in my Greek or to review essays I’ve written for classes, but today I went there to do a little journaling in what I call my “black book.” It is a leather-bound moleskin journal—the same kind of journal used by Hemingway and Picasso—in which I write some of my most intimate and telling thoughts, in which I often pull forth the dark skeletons from my closet, in which I shed light to the dancing of neurons behind my open eyelids. I sat there and I wrote and I drank coffee and had some toast and smiled at the waitress and continued to write. I filled out a few pages and sat back and looked at my work. I closed the journal and locked it shut, and I probably won’t open it again for another few weeks. The journal stretches back to 2005, detailing some of the most exciting and even dreadful events in my life. I will be brutally open and honest—knowing hardly anyone reads this blog anyway—and write what I wrote today:

I am starting off the month right: coffee and toast at The Anchor Grill in Covington. I do enjoy this place. It is perfect for getting alone to journal and think for a while. “So what am I thinking about this morning?” Last night Jessie and I went to Sitwell’s Café. I told her, “I am torn between two different directions: glorifying myself and glorifying God.” I know I need to submit fully to God, but I am afraid to do so. Why? Because, due to experiences, I have been “taught”—and wrongly taught—that submission to God is synonymous with emotional torment and torture. I fear that if I fully submit to God, I will be tormented and miserable—and so, thus far, I have been trying to achieve peace, contentment, and joy by my own means. And all the while, God is standing before me, arms outstretched, begging me to come to Him; and not to torture me, but “to give me something.” To give me what? My dreams? A wife? A family? Peace? Joy? Contentment? Do I trust Him? I don’t know.