Journal of Clay Walker~

Entry: 17

NOTE: Entire entry is religion based, and I was thinking of a form of Christianity (to make it something more people could relate to religion-wise), but I'm sick (and lazy) so I'm not gonna go look it up, so it's just like an ... awakening, I guess. OH! And he hasn't written for five months! 'Kay. Bye.

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Feelin' religious...

"You warned me; I really shouldn't have any complaints. Right from the beginning, you said it clear: I am who I am. You said You were beyond understanding. You told me I wouldn't be able to comprehend You with my limited mind. I don't think You were trying to hide anything. Until recently, I thought I heard what You were saying, too. I thought I had a good grasp of what you were trying to tell me. And I thought I could live with that. I thought it wouldn't interfere with our relationship, and up 'til now, it hasn't.

Here's what I thought You were saying:

I thought I heard You saying You were beyond understanding because You were so grand, omnipotent, omnipresent, vast and imcomprehensible in Your greatness and limitlessness. When You told me You were who You were and warned not to make You into anything else or have any false expectations of You, I thought You were talking about how powerful You were. I thought You were referring to Your ability to create and transform. I thought You meant You were everything, and everything was nothing without You. I thought You were warning our enimies that You could not be defeated, assuring our people that You could and would do anything for our safety and redemption.

But I didn't think You were preparing me for Your involvement when a one-year old was killed by a Palestinian sniper fire. Or that you would be implicated when whole families were whiped out, when parents are slain, leaving seven and eight orphans, or when grief stricken Mother's and Father's fling themselves on the graves of their children in an attempt to keep them from returning to dust and ashes just yet. G-d forbid!

I didn't think You might one day be accused of causing modern day G-d-loving Jews and their families to be killed in traffic accidents. Or that scores of Mothers and Fathers would be taken from their children at a too-young age by cancer an heart attacks --- Mothers and Fathers I know from my community. G-d forbid!

I didn't think that "I am who I am" meant that you were these things, too. And if I somehow did briefly entertain my ego driven mind of intellect and logic, I didn't know it in my gut like I do now living in Israel during these days of suicide bombers and child killers, of Palestinian mothers, who in ther hatred of Jews, proudly cheer their children to their graves. G-d forbid!

When the Twin Towers fell, was I to suspect anyone else behind this act but You? Did Bin Laden come from other than Your will and hand? Did you think I would let You off the hook? Does someone else run the world?

But you know what? I got it. Somehow I have moved to a place (or a corner of a place) in which I have acceptence.

I see You are who You are. It is all You, and You are all. I see swarming, humming, alive, pulsating mass of creation in which You are life in all it's wonder and gore. It is clear to me you are unknowable and beyond understanding, beyond my comprehension, beyond anything that can contain and limit You. You are so powerful and all emcompassing as to leave me standing open mouth with eyes buldging, heart burting, blood punding, eyes weeping, brain hurting, small and helpless, fragile and vulnerable. Insignificant, like a peice of dust.

I am in awe of You and Your unlimited, unbridled potential. Of Your total unpredictabality. Of You complete willingness to be all, Your insistince to have all You completely known, despite the fear and shock and sarrow that might be entailed, despite the realization that none of us can ever embrace the whole of who You are..."

- Jay Litvin.

My religious here, even if he is no Rabi. My hand hurts, I'll finish his all-too-real essay-like thing sometime later. It made me feel better, somehow. I read it all myself, and I just don't want to forget. I want to be able to recite this by memory one day; it's beautiful, with a strong as Hell meaning.

I thought I was alone in the kind of hating G-d because all of what he lets happen, but after reading this, I've came to accept it. I knew studying into Judism would bring something back into my life, something solid. And all-in-all, the never-ending war of my past has finally ceased to stop making it's way known inside my head because of a religion.

I never knew what beauty the world truly did hold, and I never understood WHY things happened as they did. I guess I never opened my eyes wide enough, or opened my mind up. He was building my character along, and I can't say I don't not regret letting him --- it was unfair, but then again, Life doesn't play fair.

I believe this should make up for me not even considering this journal for the last five months: Life, I press play from my pause, I'm back in the game, and I don't think I'm ever going to back down. After all, the new year's coming up (at least Rosh Hashanah), and I'll be looking forwards to something for the first time in a long time, and to be more specific, something I haven't been excited to do in an even longer time --- to live.