I have lived in Las Vegas for nearly all of 2018. Here are the gifts I have gained through God’s grace:

A deepening and acceleration of my spiritual life unlike anything I could have foreseen.

The kindness of strangers where and when I least expected it.

Fellowship – love, friendship, help, support, and spiritual fraternity- at church(es) like I never had before.

And the catalyst for all the gifts I received through my time in Las Vegas, the first gift of them all:

Increased privations, pain, and suffering. It would have been impossible to advance and know joy without them.

Thank You, God, for bringing me through this fire that further turns me gold, for weeding my plot so fruit can grow unchoked, for violently tilling it to break up the blocks and give air to the roots, for withholding the Sun and rain by turns so that I could reflect on how much I depend on You for them and rejoice in Your Love when they finally come.

It’s countercultural and difficult to understand in our society – even seemingly perverse to a cultural that has become so lamentably self-indulgent, placing value and transcendence and salvation in material things, and and belligerent in its irreligion. And I still have a resistance to suffering that is human nature. But it is a gift that we all must identify, accept, pray through, and give ourselves to in order to receive the rewards. The alternative would be stagnation, disintegration, anger, bitterness, falsehoods, fruitless attempts at solutions… To face difficulties where one is completely stripped of all other recourse and Earthly tools to help oneself is to know this. Short of that, we can all choose to come to understand and participate in this mystery, this journey of powerful and endless conversion.

I’m aware I’m only getting going. He’s hardly done with me…

A Blessed and clear and fruitful 2019 to all.

It happened again. I had no sooner hopped into my Uber in the church parking lot when the driver turned to me and asked, “Do you work for the church?”

“Excuse me?”

“Are you a pastor here… uh, a priest?”

I was flummoxed. And not only because of my attire – shorts, a t-shirt, and Birkenstocks (questionable in appropriateness in summer, definitely unusual in winter, but I have this neuromuscular condition…).

Incredulously: “Do I look like a priest?” I’d been here before and was astounded afresh.

She couldn’t quite answer, and so I regathered myself so as to end the poor woman’s persecution and cleared things up for her. But I was not at ease.

This has has been happening for the last twenty years – and with no small degree of regularity. Older women at church, the often lonely torchbearers of faith and devotion in our society, noticed my daily attendance at morning Mass and the deep, meditative focus, rather transpersonal, as I prayed my Rosary. Once in a while one of them would come by to talk and then ask me, with nearly breathless wonder and hope, “Do you want to be a priest?” And I sighed a heavy sigh, dropping my chest and looking away into the middle distance… I replied that I did at many times in my life for years, especially for the last four – but was always denied by the reality of my health problems. I burned with yearning, gastric juices of unfed hunger churning in and searing my soul, a knife-twist of unrequited love wrapping heart flesh around the blade as I gazed at the sanctuary of a church. But it never stopped. At first I would hear it every two months, then every month, then biweekly. I heard it once a week or a month at one point; that was remarkable. But then came the week that I heard it three or four times. And the pain turned to being knocked over by the absurdity of it all – and then to dull, dispassionate submission to answering blithely, smiling indulgently, and detaching myself further from the situation. Then I moved from my native Los Angeles to Las Vegas – and it started over again. I could scarcely believe it. I found myself resensitized to it all and running the gamut of emotions, from reignited hope to bitter reality checks, from the exquisite and transcendental joy of dreams to the anguish of solitary confinement – impatience, surprise, disbelief, the confusion at being repeatedly held suspect as one who could fulfill a role by countless strangers while it remained impossible, an image of my life’s purpose delivered to me in morning mist, then burned up by the light of the sun. And every time it happened, it was always the same: being driven to or picked up from Mass, the destination inspiring interest from my driver, I sometimes being spontaneously led by the conversation to witness soberly to my faith (but not even every time, I sometimes being more reserved and silent), and always my being dressed poorly, in shorts and a t-shirt, often in bad repair, occasionally stained – with not a shred in my appearance (save maybe for my beard) to lead one to imagine me as a man of the cloth; everything superficial about me should have disabused anyone of that notion. But perhaps it was my very poverty, in conjunction with what I know is my kind and gentle nature (when I’m myself, not caught up in distractions…) along with a direct association with the Church on many weekdays, when there no obligation to worship, that construct this picture for so many strangers – some Christians, many of them as secular and irreligious as you can find, all of them in wonder and hints of hope as they ask. They answer has remained. The moment with Maria leaving St. Francis de Sales this morning was no much different from the pattern.

What struck me, though, was this: Just a half-hour before, praying the Rosary is my habit after Mass – loving Our Lady, asking for help, asking for healing, petitioning the needs of the world, contemplating the joys and sorrows and glories of her and Our Lord’s lives – I prayed something more in my litany of intentions. Both recessing from Communion and during the Rosary, I prayed, “Lord, please show me Your way. Lord, show me your way.” And then came Maria and her provoking question, the latest in a long chain. And as I write now, I wonder if it is not insignificant that her name is indeed, “Maria…”

I don’t believe in coincidences, but only in God’s plan.

Is this proof that I am being called? I almost hear my Guardian Angel shouting, “What else do you need to hear? How much clearer can we make it for you? Are you dull – or just obstinate in your doubt?” If that’s it, then, show me how can this be, since I am now a physical absurdity? Do you plan a miracle , God? Or must I plod along under the Earthly Cross and persevere with the healthcare that You may make available? My physical body… the obvious problem… Nothing is impossible for God. I’m not good for much else besides the service of Holy Mother, the Church, anyway. So please, if this is Your will, God, my having relinquished my own and having turned away coldly now from nearly desire for this, You make a way. Or if You want me for the Church in another role that I cannot order for myself, You show me the way. Tell me how and what and where to go. I need to move soon anyway. I need to pay less rent.

Speak, Lord; Your servant is listening – and up for anything.

Oh – and I forgot to mention: The address of Saint Francis de Sales church is 1111 Michael Way. Hello. My name is Michael.

I’m in an ER holding tank, getting intravenous antibiotics. I have a wound that’s been festering and growing for about four months. While I wouldn’t choose this first as a use of my afternoon, I admit that I’m grateful to God for a novel way to pass the time. I’m usually scrambling to fill it with errands and appointments, as, being on disability, I don’t work, and my “job” of daily Mass and prayer for others’ intentions can only reasonably take so long. (I apologize, God. You know I’m weak and my limitations keep my energy, attention, and physical stability waxing and waning. You also are aware that you made me quite mutable and equally active and contemplative, so a variety of tasks suit me… Ok, there I go, blasphemously blaming the potter for my resistance to the kiln of attaining more stability. Please only forgive and understand me, Lord.).

Now, then, about that wound I allowed to fester for a third of a year: no excuses. I always claim adamantly that I advocate for my own health with the utmost seriousness, am conscientious and hyper-vigilant, that doctoring and self-care are my other “job.” Behold the hole in my story. I dropped the ball on this one big time. Last August, a bug bit me. At least, that’s what I think was the cause of the unexplained red mark and itching-cum-burning on my right ankle. The discomfort increased in intensity and duration, and a small wound started to appear – and grow. (I am not diabetic.). After two weeks of hoping it was just go away, I called a mobile urgent care service for a home visit. The nurses were pleasant and efficient, they diagnosed cellulitis, and they prescribed me some antibiotic ointment. And it did nothing but add a different kind of burning to the original pain. I finished the tube, and nothing. A month later, the wound was now a small hole in my flesh, it smelled foul, and I was becoming quite anxious. Upon a repeat visit, urgent care prescribed oral antibiotics and ordered x-rays for the wound area to make sure that there was no “tunneling” in my leg (the term alone was frightening). This is where pride and neglect took over. After they had left me alone again to my own devices, I decided that I knew better than to accept antibiotics and risk damage to my already long-suffering gastrointestinal track and immune system – so I refused, never got the prescription filled. As for the x-rays, I had been told to expect a phone call about scheduling, but it never came; rather than follow up, I let it go. I was so afraid to go to an ER after so many past experiences of agonizing waits, uncomfortable positions that complicated my neuromuscular problems, and – the greatest fear of all – being admitted to a hotel stay from Hell where immobility and restricted freedoms prevented me from keeping up my daily routine of meals, movements, sleep, and other intimate bodily functions that left me a total mess when I got out and taking days-to-weeks to recover.

So I stayed where I was, and, instead of timely treatment, I chose denial and intertia. Only, my problem was not inert. Absent any treatment, the wound only grew. It got visibly uglier. The pain worsened. I thought I could treat it myself, figuring that, I I could just keep it clean, that it would heal. I like natural and holistic medicine, so I often applied Manuka honey and colloidal silver gel (supposedly two natural antibiotics) under big band aids. They did not help. If hubris could be sued for malpractice, I could have made a million dollars from myself. I did think from time to time of eating crow and reaching out for medical attention, facing my neglect in the eyes of professionals – and then I would turn another blind eye. The reason was the same fear as before, thickened by my already constant preoccupation with managing all my other issues. I didn’t want to extend myself to even more possible stress and suffering.

Like I said, I have no real excuse – only explanations.

But, a few days ago, the pain and ugliness of the wound reached a point that I could no longer ignore. My concern for my leg was beyond denial, and I broke down. My first solution was to visit urgent care, rather than the ER, hoping that it would be easier. The urgent care doctor was so alarmed by the sight of my wound, however (the seriousness with which she fixed my gaze in hers and admonished me sent a message of its own), that my original hope was quickly drowned in reality. I needed big guns – imaging an intravenous antibiotics, and the doctors wanted me to go immediately. However, with night falling and my needing to get home for my dinner/sleep routine, I said that I would not. She had a hard time understanding, and once again urged me to take action. She even told me that the osteomyelitis that she saw could threaten my bone and my ability to keep my leg – if it hadn’t threatened them already. But I promised her: while I could not go then, I would go as soon as possible the next afternoon. As I left the urgent care office, a new kind of fear that made me ill and sad filled me… I did not want fear to grip me, though, so I started to pray. I prayed and prayed and prayed that the damage was not serious and that I could keep my leg and that I would not have to stay in the hospital. I offered up everything I had to God, imploring the Blessed Mother and St. Peregrine to deliver me. I went home, carried on, went to bed, went to Mass this morning… and then ordered an Uber.

Here I am. The fluid is dripping away, and the bag is halfway empty. I feel a vaguely unpleasant taste in my mouth that I would best describe as itchy-metallic. I am bored and cold. And I am so grateful for all of it. It looks like I can go home after the IV is done, too. Thank you God – both for Your forgiveness and Your mercy. I hope that this clears up the bacterial infection in my leg and (my following forthcoming care instructions) allows the wound to finally heal. AndI hope I have learned my lesson for good. I’m looking forward to leaving to run an errand before heading home, and I know how fortunate I am.

Thank you again, God. Thank you.

I was praying the Rosary after Holy Mass this morning. I was looking upwards towards the painting of the Divine Mercy on the right side of the church, then my gaze shifting to the crucifix in the sanctuary. Mid-chain of softly droning Hail Marys, my eyes settled on Our Lord crucified. And a thought came to me: “Let me suffer, Lord.” In my own voice, I myself, apart from my operating mind, declared this desire. While I continued to chant, waves of praise to Our Lady on the surface of the ocean, somewhat below I was stunned at the perverse wish that had come out of me – affronting my every grounding and sane wish for healing and function in the world and service to the Church militant as a dedicated, physically normal soldier. But from far deeper below, my soul had lifted itself like a cloud of incense out past the waves to Our Lord’s wounded body. I did not interrupt my Rosary, continued praying. But I wondered what kind of desire this was. It disturbed me slightly – but I’d been put through quite enough paces accepting, allowing, welcoming, actively practicing through suffering in my life to not be thrown off axis by this. I saw it. I recognized it. I admitted the cloud passing. I wondered at the meaning of it. Was this indeed Our Lord’s desire for me, to use me as a victim soul, taking on the pain and offenses of the world, offering them up as reparations for the swords and lances piercing Our Lord, as consolation for Him, as relief for those helpless persecuted innocents everywhere with no recourse? Had my soul been primed and now finally ready to accept and rejoice in this mission – and now joyfully sing it to Him? I trembled just a little inside me. I almost didn’t notice it. And I only continued praying.

Lord, help me.

Tell me what you want from me. And help me.

After recent feedback from a concerned (if a bit hasty) party,  I need to clarify something.  I am not now, never have been, and never will be suicidal.  I like being alive.  God’s gift inflames me with faith and hope in possibilities,  and loving others is bliss that nothing matches.  The work of being on Earth, the rigors and the tumult and the muscling through (as limp and wan as am at this point) and the commitment and the blood and sweat and tears – it all always goes somewhere. And the reward is great.  It’s  just really horrible sometimes.  I’m weak and I fall and curse the pain and the cross and want with all my being to be out from under the weight of it.  Any normal human being with a body and feelings does.  But I’m here.  And I will continue to be.  God has a mission for me/us.  Things will change. Nothing lasts forever but God and His promise.  

In the process I see God, and this I love.

I used to live a life of great sin. In my early adulthood, I didn’t practice my faith. The Lord allowed me to wander, lost in the darkness. I studied Zen Buddhism, from which a Christian can glean the practice on non-attachment to things of this world, disinterested love, and vigilance of the mind and passions… Such can be what God permits, to draw something good out of a state where He is nonetheless absent. But that was just for beginners. I also delved deeply into the realm of the New Age that feeds the mind so many of those dark things. Tarot cards, crystals assigned powers, gurus, healers, mediums, qi gong, yoga, Kundalini chanting – all were my territory. And, when I was 18, I came out as a homosexual. No doubt the playing in all these pagan mysteries had paved the road and opened the gate to living in full sin; but so had my mother’s years of the same before, during, and well after my conception and birth. Ancestral sin is a real thing; we all inherit from our parents and antecedents, given life through them. (I love my mother greatly, we talk all the time. I don’t blame her – only pray for the healing of all our family.).

With enthusiastic abandon i gave myself over fully to homosexual “life” and cultivated a complete identity and lifestyle to legitimize it. The goal was to be a subversive, creative, and vivacious intellectual-spiritualist – to convince myself and everyone else that I was this thing, to be seen as that and see this perception reflected in their eyes and to reflect their reflection back in mine. Wit, art, studies (critical theory is popular), tastes (in pop entertainment, culture), politics (especially progressivism and gender theory), spirituality (ancient but progressive, iconoclastic, possessing and giving power, getting one spiritually high) beauty and image – all this was institutionalized and codified and worshipped and good. Being this, doing this, you were accepted into the flock of “intelligent gay people.” They were masses who wanted to be either what they thought the others were or that against which they believed they were being judged – sheep with a shepherd they couldn’t see, playing a flute they couldn’t hear, leading them into danger – all for a desire they mutually had and which none could ever really understand or explain or justify, no matter what emotional and psychological rigors they put themselves through or social and cultural constructs they built up to bulwark their tenuous houses – this desire fed to them unconsciously at formative points by the same flute-player, because lies are the way to draw sentient beings and children of men with God’s inheritance – who naturally and rightly seek ultimate pleasure (which is truth and beauty and endless survival) – into destruction. The Good Shepherd they had either rejected in ignorance or willfulness – or had never known… It makes me sad. I pray…

I got sick. In 2006, after 8 years of reckless wrecking, i was diagnosed HIV-positive. Leaving the clinic on the train that afternoon, everything in my field of vision went black. My life as I had known it, as I heard a deep interior voice say, was over… and a new one was beginning. Over the years that followed, I became ambiguous about the identity I had worked so hard to believe in. I started to take a hard, naked look at my shivering soul in the night, barely lit by a candle flame at that point, and ask what I was. I took the leap and admitted to myself that I did not know my life or my sexuality, but only that it had been abused. I looked at myself straight-on with cold, flat light. And in the bathroom one evening, I allowed myself to listen to the truth- like a child ignored and now acknowledged – I doubted that I cared about being homosexual. But honesty is hated. I began to hear another voice telling me not to lose “faith” (interesting sophistry), to keep my head in the game (a truer word choice than I knew). Emotional security is invested in identity, so I listened – for years. Back and forth I struggled between shedding it all and re-committing, doubling down, renewing the oath. Dating supported this; few things in our narcissistic culture (that enshrines romance and sexual activity without love) support your identity as bonding with others who confirm your false identity through being desired.

It was in the midst of this struggle that my re-conversion began. Instinctively, I was seeking the power of God and the light of Christ to lift me out of darkness. And it was the Blessed Mother who led me back to Him. One day, at my mother’s house all those years ago, I picked up a book on the Third Secret of Fatima; it put the holy fear of God in me, as well as a suddenly ignited and overwhelming burning love for Our Mother that spread throughout my soul. Although I wasn’t practicing my Catholic faith actively, I had never sworn it off or left the Church, so it was not difficult for me to begin seeking out Catholic teachings to replace the New Age ones in my always voracious hunger for truth in the written form. Mariology, lives of the Saints, Catholic doctrine and dogma – I couldn’t get enough. The first Sunday of Advent of 2011, I took myself to Mass with the intention of it being the beginning of a new regular attendance, which it has been. And begin praying the Rosary in earnest, my devotion to it growing only exponentially over the years. But it was this new path that allowed one of the greatest miracles in my life to happen.

• [ ] A voice inside me for years had been encouraging me to keep my head in the game. At one point, the game shifted. While previously I had always attracted other men who were vain, dishonest, psychologically and materially unstable, unreliable, narcissistic, generally arrested in development, and mentally and emotionally abusive, I began to attract those who were kind, caring, gainfully employed, and “spiritual” (although in the popular empty, atheistic or pagan senses). And I could not have cared less. I was totally left cold – completely uninterested. I desired less and less to be with them sexually as well. If I tried to engage in sexual fantasies about other men, I became at first dispassionate, and then eventually utterly repulsed. I wanted nothing more than to run far away from what was increasingly a blackness framed, a shadow puppet play in my mind’s eye, lurid firelight flickering behind a flat simulacrum of normal human existence, which showed itself to be actually a toxic mockery the longer I watched. Gaining full clarity on what I was coming to understand was prevented by a veil of cognitive dissonance that I was keeping in place. I needed to rip that veil down. But I was afraid. All of this falsehood was the foundation of “he” whom I thought I was. What would I be if I ripped it down? Well, God sent me the drive. Courage, thy name is woman.
• I met a young woman in the graduate program I was in at the time. We had become friends, but, the more I got to know her (and she, me) the more I came to care about her. It felt like she understood me, and we enjoyed being together. I started having feelings for her that I’d never had for anyone in my life before, and they felt so good. I cared for her in a way I hadn’t cared for anyone, and It felt so special and right.
• [ ] That’s when I identified what was happening to me. I faced what I was feeling. I said to myself, “WOW: THIS is what I’m supposed to be feeling! THIS is what other guys are talking about! THIS is RIGHT!” And I knew with perfect clarity that it was. This was Truth. I faced that this is what God had created me – and all of us – to be, and I chose – finally – to be it. I said, “That’s that. My old life is over. It’s done. I choose this.” No sooner had I claimed it than I felt the weight of the world fall from my shoulders, and I felt so free… Things didn’t work out between that beautiful young woman and me, but God used her to deliver the key to unlock the lock on the demonic chains on my soul. I had reclaimed my soul and my faith.
• [ ]
  • [ ] And I am convinced that the entire reason that God made it so easy for me, reached into my heart to change me, sent me His Spirit to lead me, gave me the faith to follow, sent me a messenger to take me the rest of the way, is because I first took that leap of faith that Advent and said, “Yes,” to His invitation to return. His Voice has been calling me all along, but I resisted out of pride, out of fear. A lost sheep, I’d gotten myself far from safety in a thicket of thorns, and I didn’t know how to get back. But He called… He called… ceaselessly He called for me, searching me out, the one who had gone astray – such love, faithful and persistent – for me. He had a pattern put me to live in apartments very close to churches, inviting me to go; He put holy books in front of me, asking me to read. Because I wanted the sureness of His Love and the brightness of His Light, I gave in and said, “Yes,” that Advent. And then, out of love, He changed my heart for me, brought me all the way back. All I had to do was gulp and face the shadows and lies and face the unknown and take that leap of faith – throwing myself with full commitment into space… and say, “Yes. Lord, yes. This is Truth. I love You. I want to be back in You. Catch me…” He did.

Wanting to love Christ is the most central and sustaining part of my life. My love for and devotion to the Catholic faith and the one true Church is like that of a Crusading knight for the Holy Land or soldier for his country. I am dispassionately intolerant of the madness and lies to which the current age has sold itself and in which it has built houses for the insane and the Godless and the critically emotionally damaged – and intolerant with pain in my heart to the rancorous backlash, the screams of bitter resentment and Hellish indignation, and vicious attacks from those clinging to cognitive dissonance against accepting the painful reality of what they are choosing – lies that are destroying humanity and civilization. It isn’t true that homosexual attraction (to say nothing of the ill and these days endless spectrum of sexual and gender disorientation) is “what you are.” That is a lie from Hell. There is confusion, there is mental instability, the is Godlessness – but what you are is a child of God who has gotten lost and tangled in wires and briars. Pride and fear of being cut keep you there; humility of what you may not yet understand and willingness to be free will allow you to be. I must live the Truth – the truth about Jesus’ saving power, of the Blessed Mother’s supreme role in our salvation, and of the Father Almighty’s immense love and omnipotence, on which we are to be utterly dependent. Witnessing may be one of the reason He’s kept me alive. But more importantly, He wants me to pray for them – and one day minister to them on the battlefield, casualties of the Devil’s open fire.

I love Our Lady – like a knight; like a child; like a weak and broken, sad and pathetic sinner who sees the love and redemption of Heaven shining for him nonetheless through its Morning Star, sees its strength reflected for him in its Tower of Ivory, sees himself reborn in its House of Gold.

Virgin Most Powerful, pray for me.

I’m weak.  My faith is wet under the blanket of self-pity.  I loath it (the latter).  I wish I were better – stronger, brighter, cleaner, clearer, more unquestioning, braver.  I wish my faith blazed white instead of colors dirtied by selfishness.  Help me to trust You.  Take away fear and concern for function and convenience.  Burn me up inside-out.  Do it instantly, don’t ask me again.  Take me.

The Spaniard priests who had been struggling unsuccessfully to convert the Aztecs for years could never have mastered the intricacy and depth of knowledge of Aztec symbolism (nor were they interested) appearing in this image that subsequently converted 9 million in under 7 years. Belief of Catholics: Proof of the miraculous. God spoke to these people in their own language to bring them to Him – through our perpetual advocate and messenger, Our Blessed Mother.

Aztecs did not create this. That would be absurd. They were largely resisting conversion up until this point, most had no interest in or even knowledge of Mary. Those few converts, like Juan Diego, were ignorant,uneducated, unskilled – did not have the ability to create an image of this level of masterful work, intricacy, beauty, and complexity of symbolism. Those that did were Aztec artisans… cresting Aztec religious images… which looked nothing remotely like this in style.

Also, look at her coloring. Europeans would NEVER have created an image of the Blessed Mother as a morena, a meztiza, a woman of mixed Spanish-Indian blood. Look at all European art up until – and for centuries after – this image. Never. It would have been unthought of/alien/rejected. The same goes for Aztecs; they created images of people that looked like them – brown – and what else, of course? To be mixed was to be shunned and out of place generally by both cultures for a long time to follow – and would not have been desired to be represented for any reason in art. Any multicultural ideas and enthusiasm were about 500 long years (and as many miles) away. But this woman is intentionally meztiza. Why? The answer is obvious. God wished to send us the messages that He loves and came for and came to save ALL of us – equally – at once – and through the one same Mother Mediatrix. And is because they could see this – in one clear picture – that the millions of illiterate, ignorant, resistant Indians converted. They could see on just the surface of this images symbolism that this woman came for THEM – and that she loved THEM – and that, as Juan Diego reported that she told him, she is his/THEIR Mother. And they started coming by the thousands at a time for baptism, crying with joy, the priests barely being able to lift their arms to make the Sign of the Cross, so tired from doing it over and over… This is the leap of faith – which the image makes perfectly obvious as the only message.

I’m in such pain, I’m in such hellish agony. Every day is worse and worse, and sometimes don’t want to keep going. But I can’t just lie down and surrender like Bl. Marthe Robin. I have too much energy, too much fight in me, too much function. I can eat, I can walk… but everything is a fight, everything is a struggle. Nothing works on its own. Meals are work, bowel movements are labor and the Passion, sleep is Purgatory. I have to work so hard just to stay alive and function as half a person. Why does everything have to be such suffering? Why did God put so much fight in me? Why couldn’t He just take everything away and make it simple, and let me just fall backwards into the pillow of Lord Jesus’ arms and bask in His comfort, be stroked by the Blessed Mother like Bl. Marthe Robin? Why does He give me just enough to keep going like a normal person but not nearly enough to really be one – for everything to be pain, everything to be struggle, everything to be constant work and attention and focus and preoccupation and thing falling apart fear of loosing it all if I let go for one moment – never rest? Why does He give me this? What for? What’s the point of me, my life, this absurd struggle? I could reach and love others and Him so greatly from a sick bed. What’s the point of all this bizarre and grotesque rigmarole, this constant nighttime thunderstorm?