The Art of Disruption: Existential Horror

“One writer described it like this: ‘Ripped out of the soil of his background, his life could no longer be what it used to be. He now began a journey to deeper communion with God. But it didn’t come without tears, and it didn’t come without what seems to have been a certain existential horror.’” –Rob Bell, From Drops Like Stars, quoting Peggy Noonan’s Pope John Paul II

 

“None get to God but through trouble.” – Catherine of Aragon

 

“a certain existential horror…” I love that line. Even though all I can think of is Kafka and Gregor Samsa, I LOVE that line. That is exactly how it feels.

I mean, am I closer to God when I am suffering, when I am in a type of trouble? Of course I am! Thank God I am! And at the end of the day, do I think the horror and tears and pain, the end of what was and will never be, and the complete fear of the unknown are worth it? Yeah, I do. But does that make me feel any better when it’s 3:00 pm. and I am bored out of my mind because I don’t want anything? No. It doesn’t.

We watched Smash tonight. Debra Messing’s character is working with the other musical writer and they are trying to write a song for Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio, and they are stuck. They can’t find the words. So she asks the most important question a writer could ask in the beginning: “What do they want?”

You can’t have a story if the characters don’t want anything. And I am stuck on the freaking couch, staring into corners, at walls, at ceilings, at ceiling fans, asking myself that question every single day, and it is an existential horror.

Is it up to me? Do I have to pick what I want? Should I? I picked before and I got it all wrong? I picked for me, not for God. Can God pick for me? Will God pick for me? Will He pick something I love? Will His will interlock with mine? ….It goes on and on like this. Ever day.

 

What do I want?!

 

I remember that poem, A Love Song For J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot:

“Do I dare?

Do I dare disturb the universe?

Do I dare eat a peach?”

 

When I was in high school reading these things, I never thought I would be able to directly associate myself with them. I could think of a number of people stuck in existential horror, but me? No. Not me. I knew what I wanted and how to get it and I was willing to do almost anything to make it all come true…and that was the problem.

Donald Miller says, “Sometimes the things we want most in life are the things that will kill us.”

I agree. Is it an absolute? Of course not. But I guarantee you that what I wanted then, when I had it ALL figured out—ha!—it would have killed me. Spiritually. And literally. And I might have lost God for good.

I know, mentally, this path is my path. This is the better path. I am in a deeper communion with God. I wouldn’t change anything. But…But, what now?

W h a t   n o w ? !