Do not pass begin

Sometimes I wish I had married a less intelligent wife. As Michael Novak puts it: 'Seeing myself through the unblinking eyes of an intelligent, honest spouse is humiliating.' Years ago she told me that I should go into ministry and apply to become a deacon and off and on I have vacillated between agreeing and being unsure. The thing is, I guess I am under no illusions about the implications of my taking such a step. My goal of becoming an academic specialising in Ethics means that I dedicate myself to the search of truth, but it does not necessarily mean that I have to change. You can believe in the right things and still be in bondage, you can believe all the right things and still be miserable, you can believe all the right things and still be unchanged” (Marcus Borg in The Heart of Christianity). Diaconate, on the other hand means that because one enters public ministry, I would have to make very real changes to the way I live my life. And so if I am to be whole, both are necessary. I suppose this is true - regardless of whether one enters public ministry or not. I just feel so often that the old saying by TS Elliot seems to have been written specifically for me:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

If I had simply listened to my wife, I could have shortcircuited all my meaningless meanderings only to get back to the same place. My writing this novel has revealed it to me even more starkly. I really thought that this was what I was called to do, but it seems everytime I think I have the answer, it moves along. I am going to finish the novel as it is something I have really wanted to write and I enjoy, but I think it will probably be my last one. I have hit the same wall as I did in business, in my dreams when I wanted to become a tennis pro and then journalist. They are ultimately meaningless and leave nothing behind. Sure a writer, if he /she is good, leaves a deposit to be enjoyed even after his life, but a deposit of what? Entertainment? How is that more meaningful than merely living a hedonistic life? I want more. The fire that Jeremiah speaks of burns so strongly within me needs to purify me first and then I need to stop messing around, second guessing God and get on with doing His will. Leaving a legacy that for better or worse, contributes to the deposit of truth.
"I say to myself, I will not mention him, I will speak in his name no more. But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it" (Jeremiah 20:9).