(written on the 22nd and 25th, from notes)
A week ago today, my friend Cory [shared with permission], after asking him how I could be a blessing, wrote me the following: “There’s a part of me that always wishes that I could have the Stephen from Brickyard back. Part of me often thinks it would help to have him to talk to. But I don’t want to put that kind of pressure on you…”
I asked for clarification… what Stephen was that? The one with a strong testimony before a particular experience finally broke him?
His reply was: “I think of him as the Stephen who insisted on walking the straight and narrow path at all hazards. Who hunger[ed] and thirsted after righteousness.”
😞
Both of those messages stung.
But it was a good sting.
I miss being that person.
There’s been no period in my life when I had more consistent light and peace and joy and strength than the period from the summer of 2009 until sometime in 2016 or ’17, my Brickyard years among the later portion of those years and perhaps the best of those years.
But then I began to slip as the events of my life contradicted what I’d understood from God, and the doubt and fear at first trickled in and eventually flooded in, and the roller coaster began.
😕
And I’ve been on that roller coaster for the overwhelming majority of the last 10ish years.
😞
Doubt and discouragement are the primary drivers, doubt generally leading to fear, and both eventually leading to anger.
But I long to be who I was, the deeper heart now veiled behind fear and pain.
I look at my life and sometimes think of the people, from my youth up, who didn’t think much of me– Teachers and classmates in school who saw the continual acting out and the loads of awful actions and behavior. Missionaries on my mission who tolerated me to my face but… 😕. Others who assumed the worst about me…
I look at my life and think… If everyone saw me now, I’m probably exactly the failure they thought I’d be.
😞
Those aren’t helpful thoughts at all and don’t really have anything to do with what I was mentioning before about wanting to get back to living in accordance with my own integrity.
They’re just… places I sometimes go when I’m feeling low.
But I got up this morning and got going relatively quickly.
Planning a route through the nearby hills to give me a visual experience of that part of New Zealand.
The challenge was that the drive was beautiful, and I didn’t want to just drive through without taking pictures. 🙃
Which led me to stop again and again, eating up my driving time to get to church. 😅
Eventually, I talked myself out of going, reasoning that I’m not going to partake of the sacrament anyway because I’ve been relapsing seemingly almost every day, and my language has been atrocious and on and on…
Poor reasoning, but that’s what’s I did.
So I drove down the road towards my turn off into the valley I wanted to drive through.
Then I made the turnoff and headed into and through the Hakataramea Valley surrounded by farmers’ fields and smaller, more rounded mountains.
As I drove, I was quite surprised to see this little guy! I’d only seen a very few living hedgehogs, and never in the daylight.
As I went up into the hills toward the dust pass, I continued enjoying the scenery–somewhat like the eastern foothills of the Cascades in Washington state maybe.
Instead of going to church, I think I listened to some LDS YouTube channel episodes. I don’t really remember what I listened to when.
The drive took me through the valley and then up and over Hakataramea Pass, and I snapped a fair number of pictures.
At the summit of the first pass, I was surprised to see My. Cook off in the distance, not a cloud in the sky.
I wish pictures showed the vistas at the size I actually see them. But to get them the size my eyes see them, I have to zoom in about 5x, which cuts out the surrounding scenery.
So pretty much all the pictures I post feel way farther from the vista itself than I actually am.
Anyway, I hung out on top of a hillside after driving up a little dirt road and through the grass, following faint tracks.
I stayed up there for a good long time. I don’t remember what all I did. I probably worked on journal stuff a bit and probably spent a good while listening to LDS gospel-centered YouTube videos.
Eventually, I headed down, and then took another road northish before heading east over MacKenzie Pass toward the little town of Cave.
As I approached civilization, I ran into some… traffic.
🙃
I listened to a session of this last October’s General Conference, and that was nice.
I feel a calmness come back when I turn back to God. It’s just so hard for me to stay there, so easy for me to return to doubt, fear, discouragement, and anger.
I kept having the thought of getting a blessing from a local member at the church pop into my mind, so I headed over to the building, but the gate was closed, and there were no cars in the parking lot.
I did see someone in the field behind the church playing with a ball, but… I didn’t stop.
Super nice area (east Timaru)–probably the wealthiest neighborhood I’ve seen in all of New Zealand?
I did remember to check to see if there might be a place I could drop off my substantial number of recyclable containers, and amazingly, there was a place that was going to be open until 4:15, and Maps showed me that I’d arrive about 4:05, so I gave it a go.
And I made it. 🎉
It was nice to be able to get rid of a fairly large bag that’s been taking up space in my passenger front seat for a good while. 🙃
I still have a big black bag full of trash and another bag full of plastic bags, but I’m down one! 🎉
I spent a little while texting with my friend Cory about my hope of returning to Brickyard Stephen, and asking for his help in the effort.
I’m grateful to have people willing to help lift me. 🤍
I drove from Timaru south along the beach to a little freedom-camping place on the beach just south of Pareora, and I planted TGK right on the little berm between the dirt car park and the water.
I then battled through my burnout and worked on more journal catch-up work.
Oh, I’m so close!
These last few days haven’t been so good on writing day of, so I’ve got a handful of recent days that now need to be caught up as well. 🙃
But I’m so close to finishing the massive backlog of older posts.
So close.
I took some time to actually pray, kneeling on the mixture of smooth stones and sand beneath me.
I also actually took some time to read (listen to) one of my favorite chapters of the Book of Mormon.
One of the areas I’ve not been living with personal integrity is with what I’m eating. I’ve not been taking care of myself, but instead abusing my body with so much… junk.
I had one bag of potato chips left, and I started eating them, so as not to be wasteful, but then I thought, of you eat these, you’re weakening your ability to choose the way you want to in the future, so I smashed all the chips to bits and dumped the crumbs out for creatures to eat.
I guess I didn’t think about it maybe not being so good for the critters as well. 😅
I continued working on my journal catch-up efforts, are dinner, and alternated between writing and taking pictures of the sunset until it was time to crash.
I veged for a bit and called it a night.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 