The Dead Sea In Me

I heard a story many years ago about the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee regarding what sets them apart. The Dead Sea water flows into it but does not flow out, so it stagnates and can not support life. The Sea of Galilee water flows in and out and teems with life. This was framed as an analogy to our spiritual lives. The Water of Life, Jesus Christ, flows into us and is to also flow through us out to others. When we dam Him up inside of ourselves, He, in a way, stagnates in us, and our spiritual lives also stagnate.

God speaks to me in many creative ways. I do not hear voices or see visions. There are no visible angels in my bedroom or the passenger seat of my car. But His voice is never far from me. He whispers beauty to me, and my inclination is to keep it just for me. Partially because many don’t want to hear what He has to say, but to a greater degree because I want Him just for myself. I see the selfishness in this way of being in a relationship with Him and His Church, but I do not always allow my awareness of that selfishness to push me into the living action of sharing. Of opening up the dam in my heart to let Jesus flow through me to others. But Jesus has His ways of breaking through that dam.

When I hold Jesus back from others, a slow pressure builds, pressing on the walls of the dam I’ve erected. This pressure makes itself known through feelings of depression, anxiety, distraction, indifference, fear, and finally, anger. He lovingly allows this pressure to build in my life because He wants what’s best for me and those I encounter. He knows I will not willingly open the floodgates of my dam, so he patiently chips away at the dam walls until cracks appear, and then He begins to flow through.

Yesterday morning I woke up feeling very unsettled as I have many mornings throughout the time I’ve been back in the Holy Catholic Church. I didn’t want to go to Mass. I wanted to engage in some form of sexual activity. I wanted to stay in bed. I wanted some sort of release from this pressure. So I started to look online for some pornographic release. As I did this, I was aware of how unsatisfying this was, but more so, I was aware of how selfishly I was behaving by skipping out on Mass, an activity that my housemate Brian and I share each morning. So I got up and got myself to Mass.

As I drove to work yesterday, I was listening to the song “Good Good Father.” In it, he says, “You are perfect in all of your ways.” I thought, “This suffering is His way, and it is perfect?” I then thought, “You are making this more difficult because you will not talk to him, him being Brian.”

I don’t want to talk to him.

I think of the stagnant water in the Dead Sea—flowing in but not flowing out. When you withhold yourself from people, you withhold Me," is what I hear internally. This short conversation with Brian, if it’s Jesus' will, will influence the rest of my day as I go from death to life-giving.

Later the same day, I decided to finally send two emails to the priests at my parish regarding homilies they had both given that had left me feeling unsettled. I’d sat on the emails for weeks, worried about how the priests would see me after sending them and unsure that what I had to say had any validity. At the end of the workday, I spoke to a coworker who had been very angry with me for several weeks to make things right.

This morning, I woke feeling peaceful. There was no sexual temptation. There was a little slothiness but nothing too extreme. The pressure on the dam in my heart had been released. The mercy, forgiveness, dependability, and love of Christ had broken through in multiple places. I let Him through, and so my heart has life.

My dam is slowly crumbling, and it is painfully beautiful. I can allow the crumbling or fight it. I can live in selfish pain or selfless peace. I have the dam controls in my hands. Lord, please guide them. Remind me of this peace whenever I dam myself up again, which will no doubt happen.

Human-written, AI spell-checked 3/26/21 AD

Image from Nick115 at Pixaby