Unreservedly your servant

I remember my reaction when I first came across a sco-ld's bridle. This was a medieval device used to punish goss-ips, a metal contraption that fits inside someone's mouth to prevent them from talking. My thoughts were: oh God I need one of those, I wish someone fitted that in my mouth until all I was ever able to utter was praise for you. I meant it too. It scared me to think this and I didn't tell anyone. Gosh I'm weird, I thought, who thinks things like that? Am I sick?

Then one day we took a friend to visit the ruins of a Scottish castle, and again my thoughts scared me. God, I'm so disempowered that I wish someone locked me up inside some damp medieval cell until, through tears and shivering and sickness, I was able to promise to do nothing but serve you forever. I meant it too.

No chance of that happening either... Instead, I would always fail and no one would help me, no one would discipline me, and my life would be spent sliding further and further away from my heart's deepest desire, because they are too weird for the time I live in.

It didn't go away. I wondered what it was that had got its nasty grip on me and was disempowering me? Why was I so in despair that shivering in a medieval castle would be the only thing that could rid me of this shapeless thing? I felt like a seabird caught in a oil spill, my wings and entire body caught into a tarry black stuff that was asphyxiating me, with nothing but spiritual death to look forward to.

The only way out I could see was to embrace the weirdness. My thoughts might be weird but I meant them. However, procuring a sco-ld's bridle or being shut away in some damp dungeon was not a very realistic option. So I thought up a 21st century variant. I put a soft hairband on my wrist and spent all of my free time and lunchtimes sitting on the floor with my wrists joined together in it. I'd refuse to read a book or watch a movie. I'd say nothing and think nothing except ask God for mercy.

The only time off was when I was at work, or volunteering, or spending time with my fiancé. At the jail where I was volunteering, I served tea and coffee while trying to remain humbler than my clients and serve them with deference. It might have been a tad artificial, but I didn't know any better.

A year and a half went by and the disempowering back tar did not go away. I just didn't know what to do. I was starting to see sense in some of the op-us dei self harm stuff but my intelligence drew the line. Barely. And only because I was pregnant. I kept doing what I was doing on the volunteering front. I kept begging God for help.

Bit by bit, the right things began to happen through me. All the stuff I'd felt disempowered to do. These occasions were brilliant and almost flawless. I could hardly believe that these were occuring through my body. All I knew is that I still wanted to be God's servant. And I was terrified that they'd stop.

I think that I have an inkling about what the guys at Emmaus meant when they said: were not our hearts burning within us while he was with us? A lot of my weirdest thoughts and decisions boil down to the fact that this foggy inkling is also my most valued possession. Whithout it I would feel like jumping into the next river and filling my lungs with water.