Leaving

I took off and left for a place where no one was waiting for me to arrive.   No friends, no family, no familiar surroundings.   For a short time, I was leaving all this behind.   I would live in a realm where truth was hidden, where it would be harder to pin down.  This would be a place beyond security and the well-defined shadows of life which have shaded me from looking deep within to examine what really occupied the cornerstone of my heart.

This particular journey was something I wanted to do for years.  There was a bizarre fascination with the place I was headed.  Probably an obsession.  At first, I could not tell you why.  I simply found myself consumed with thoughts of Beirut, Lebanon.  Perhaps it was the mysteries that lay hidden deep within this particular nation.  It could have been the danger and terror that got the best of my curiosity . . .  the stories and lives of the American hostages, the unnecessary killings, the obliteration of a nation and city for no apparent reason.  All these particular thoughts created a driving force in my heart, haunting me with the question "Why?" 

After reading every book I could get my hands on, I still had no real answers to satisfy my questions in regards to the fighting, killings, and wars this country and city were plagued with.  Eventually, I felt I needed to travel to Beirut in order to learn more and finally obtain valid answers to my questions. Something which could only be found in Beirut.   So I pursued the possibility of entering Lebanon.  After months of research, letter writing, and making contacts, I received a visa to enter Lebanon.  

No one can impart belief to another.  Truth yes.  Doctrine yes.  History yes.  But not belief.  Belief is something we must find for ourselves.  It is a personal possession.  A life lived in conformity to accepted beliefs always makes it debatable whether a choice has ever really been made in regards to those beliefs.   In most cases, belief is something which was handed down, not chosen by a gut wrenching search with one's own soul, mind, and heart. Most of us have been shaped by our environment.  We are defined by it.  Our beliefs have been handed down and taken root in our heart without ever making a personal choice in regards to them.  And this was the main reason for my leaving  . . .  to find, to search, to know what was mine and what was handed down, to make it real.

All of us are creatures in search of something new, something genuine, something fulfilling.  Most of us find ourselves driven by some unknown force inside.  It's something that causes us to long for something real and something new.  Yet most never experience this newness and realness because they are afraid to leave.  This fear grips a heart with unshakeable force because the truth which lies inside has never been possessed.  It has lain dormant in the halls of theory and knowledge.

It is said that leaving is "Sweet Sorrow."   Sorrow because leaving signals the end of an era, a time that can be no more.  Sweet because it puts you on the threshold of something new, something that cannot be unless something is left behind.   Mixed emotions characterize leaving at its best.  And so it was with me.  Landing in Beirut was accompanied by emotions that were diametrically opposed.  Fear and faith, worry and assurance, trust and doubt, joy and sadness, pleasure and pain.  I am sure these same feelings envelop every aspect of leaving.  In the terminal, my mind wanders and I envision what I am feeling.

Standing in silence, I feel my heart pounding.  A picture flashes through my mind.  A young man is sitting in the passenger seat of a car.  His mom is in the driver's seat.  As they arrive at the airport, there is an awkward quietness.  People who have known each other for years are now finding it extremely difficult to come up with words.  Quickly, the son grabs his bags and begins his walk to the terminal.  Mom is not ready for him to go.  She scampers after him and waits for him at the edge of the ticket counter.  After checking in, the son and mom stroll slowly toward the gate.  The conversation settles around the past.  The times which once were.  The growing up years.  The first real romance.  The athletic accomplishments.  Each new sentence begins with "Remember."  There is no hint of what the future holds.  No conversation in refers to the future.  Only the past.  Yes, on this day, the past will be the main topic. And then it's time to go.  The flight is boarding.  The son, crying softly, grabs mom, hugs her, kisses her, and tells her he loves her.  Mom does the same.  He then boards his flight and ventures out on his own for the first time.  He is saying good-bye to a time that will be no more.  He is leaving.  And it hurts.  But now he will discover what is his.

I remember reading Boris Becker's feelings that he jotted in his journal after winning Wimbledon in 1985 at the age of seventeen.  One would think that this young man would be feeling as though he was on top of the world.  Surely he would be experiencing incredible feelings of adulation and joy.  A tremendous high.  On this day you would believe that Boris Becker was the happiest and most content person in the world.  After all he won the most prestigious crown in tennis.  But Boris writes in his journal that he was feeling empty and depressed after winning.  I know why he felt this way.  Not more than thirty minutes after receiving the coveted trophy, the crowd goes home.  The Stadium is silent.  The competition is over.  There remains nothing to be conquered.  It has been accomplished.  And so you wind up alone in the locker room taking a shower.  Then you grab your bag and head out the door for the last time.  You are leaving a moment in history.  And this moment will never be replayed.  Boris Becker was depressed and empty because he was leaving.  Leaving the moment, the experience, the event.  Leaving always hurts.

There is pain that always comes with leaving.  No matter what you leave it hurts. Whether it's a dream, a place, a person, a time in your life, it hurts to leave.  Leaving is hard.  Especially one aspect of leaving.  The cruelest part of leaving.  The part where you have to go.  You have run out of time.  The last minutes.  The end.  I wondered, “Why is it so hard to leave?”

The last minutes are so hard because of the fear of unanswered questions.  Can we find the same kind of fulfillment the thing being left once brought?  Can we reach the same depth of relationship with new people in our lives?  Will we ever experience romance again? Can we make it in a new environment? These questions are a few of the hundreds that plague an individual who is about to leave.  In many cases, the pain and fear that leaving brings causes multitudes of individuals to stay shackled in a prison of security.  This prison never allows people to discover who they are, and it hinders them from taking ownership of their lives to discover brand new vistas and horizons.

When I look back on my life I see many things left behind.    At one point there were certain views and opinions I would have died for.  They were needed at a certain stage in life.  They caused growth for a time.  Then I reached a day where they began to hinder.  They had to be left or they would have crippled. It was hard to leave.  Extremely hard.  But it had to be done or it would have brought stagnation and mediocrity to my life.   My leaving for Beirut followed along this same pattern.  It was either leave and discover something new or lock myself in a prison cell of doubt and wondering, chained by security.  So I chose to leave.  And it was in Beirut where I discovered  . . .   the hardest thing to leave is who we are.

Most of us want to move on and leave the securities that no longer satisfy our longings.  But we also fear the cold reality of living without them.  It's hard to leave our comfort zones.    From the time we came into this world we kicked and screamed when we left the warm and safe environment.  Back then it was our mother's womb.  Today we create and build our own wombs.  Anything can be a womb in one's life.  Our mothers' bodies were rude to us.  They forced us out.  Should we find ourselves in another womb later in life, we are the ones left to do the pushing.  And if we would grow, follow the path to someplace new, higher, better; we will have to become more heartless with ourselves.   We will have to leave.  If we are not careful, the cord that gave us life for a season could very well choke the life out of us if we do not cut it and leave.  This would leave nothing but a corpse.

Lebanon taught me much about myself.   I realized that many times I am not honest with myself.  It's easy for me to get up in front of a group of people and exercise a great amount of faith and energy for a period of time.  At times there is a desire within to have a certain reputation among those who really do not know me.  I write and lecture about trust, faith, obedience and risk and yet am plagued many times by my own shortcomings in these areas.  In many cases, what I was writing was something I learned but never owned.  I believed it in theory, but my heart was not possessed with it.  Head knowledge belief.  Something passed down.  Never owned.  Until now  .  .  . after I left.