A Ramble About Feeling Useless

I started watching some old Deep Space Nine episodes on CBS All Access today. It was a story arc about Major Kira, and part of it had her be relieved of her duty. Not having anywhere else to go, she was invited to a monastery on Bajor, her homeworld, for some time to devote to her spiritual development. But after being there for several days, she was beginning to go a little nuts. She was used to being active, to being needed, to constantly getting things done. At the monastery she felt useless and out of place. She kept trying to place some stones on a pathway as part of a spiritual exercise, but every time she thought it was straight up close, she would step back farther away and it would look crooked to her. She then made the comment that the pathway was fine, but it was she who was crooked. At that point, the cleric (called a "vedik") said she was ready and took her to a chamber in the monastery where she was to encounter one of her religion's most sacred items, an orb. She asked him in a bit of a panic in the orb's presence, "What am I supposed to do?" His response was something like, "Just be useless for a while."

Lately, I've been slipping into a depression. I haven't really been able to put words to why, but I've been tense, sometimes angry, sometimes on the verge of tears with angry thoughts or feelings running through my mind (you don't know how thankful I am that it is the Lord who acts and speaks when I ask, and not me). When I saw this episode of DS9, it put words to my feelings. I've been feeling useless, but more to the point I've been seeing myself as useless during this time.

Right now, I'm just "waiting". I'm waiting on word back on the pastor position I sent in for. I was trying to do sermons online for a church up north, but was asked to stop until they know what they're doing or whether they're even going to survive as a congregation. I can't return to doing the spiritual care at UCI because of the COVID-19 orders. I feel like change is coming, but I don't know how soon exactly. Heidi's taken over care of Tressa during the day due to the strict fasting and diet they're on, and due to her treatments. At most, I'm providing a warm body with a Driver's License to my son so he can continue to get driving experience until he takes his test after his birthday.

And something within me is telling me I'm useless.

There is the story of Mary and Martha in the Gospels where Martha is running herself ragged while Mary is sitting listening to Jesus, and Martha asks Jesus to tell Mary to get up and help her. Martha essentially called Mary useless, or she at least insinuated it. But Jesus tells Martha, essentially, "no". Mary's uselessness was cool with Him. Mary needed to be useless in that moment in order to sit and be with Jesus.

It might be an odd source, but that DS9 episode reminded me that it's okay to feel useless. It's even useful to be useless at times, because that's when we are able to stop and pay attention to spiritual things more. That's when we're the most vulnerable. That's when we're the most ready to encounter what we need to.

I can't imagine I'm the only one who's been feeling this way lately. If you are, stop trying to be useful for the moment. Stop trying to be busy or look busy. Stop trying to prove your worth to yourself or anyone else. Just stop and listen. Pay attention. Just sit in His presence and hear what He has to say, or just sit in His presence when no one is saying anything. Sometimes this is the most profound, and most powerful of times, when there are no more words, and no more questions. When you are and He is.

A Ramble about Obstacles to Progressing

Life lesson learned in "Lord of the Rings Online".

I recently reached level 120 while questing through the north lands of Dale and Ered Mithrin (The Gray Mountains). Naturally, I moved on to the next zone for my level which is the Vales of Anduin (absolutely beautiful landscapes btw). So, I traveled to this area and started running quests for the Beornings, big friendly Bear people (my kind of folk, "Bears", [wink, wink]). Then I started getting killed. Over and over again. As it turned out, the natural progression of difficulty in relation to your gear and level decided to take a hard incline and leave me behind feeling woefully underprepared and corpse-dragging my way through (crossing a dangerously high level zone by moving, getting killed, and then doing it all over again until you reach your goal).

Frustrated, and feeling like I'd hit a roadblock, I decided to go back to Dale and Erebor, about five levels below me, and finish out some quests there. One of the quests I ran into was simply finding some ravens which had been sent out. I went to the location on the map where the ravens were supposed to be, except I couldn't find a path up to them. I crossed raging rivers, tried scaling mountain inclines which were just too steep to climb, and nothing I did got me any closer to my goal. Frustrated, I asked questions in the chat, but no one seemed to have the same problem. I thought maybe it had been glitched because I just couldn't see the path to where I needed to go. I considered quitting this character (my main) for the moment and going back to level another one. Regardless, I shut down and did something else, eventually going to bed.

As I pondered what to do with it the next day, I decided to give the ravens one more look see. I circled the steep outcropping where the first one was supposed to be until I saw something I recognized on the minimap. A campfire. I had seen that campfire before, but not in my last go around. I knew that it was on a path that I had been on before, but not when I was looking for the raven. I went looking for that path instead of retreading the one I knew looked like it would take me to the top, but instead led to a long drop off the side. I found it, and eventually found my way to the top and the raven I was looking for.

Emboldened by this, I went looking for the second by a different way than I had tried the night before, and once more found the path. I eventually finished that quest I had only the night before thought glitched and incompletable. Then I turned my sights on the Vales of Anduin that were handing me my head every few feet. I picked up and finished a relatively easy quest which didn't look like it would lead to anything. But upon its completion, it led to a "quest" which basically had me listening to someone tell a story, upon which I would receive a pair of gauntlets which were a godsend for survivability. This chain led to another which handed me a helmet which helped even more. And suddenly, the Vales of Anduin weren't quite as punishing and unforgiving as they had been. I just had to follow the right quest chains and not be so impatient.

The life lesson here is that what looks impossible and frustrating at first may just need to be looked at from a different point of view with patience. The path may not be visible at first. You may not be able to reach what you're aiming for by what looks like the most direct route, because that's not the path intended by the Developer. You've got to look for the right "quest chains" and do them in order, no matter how insignificant they look, and regardless of whether they promise what you need at first. Sometimes you've got to just follow the chain whether it's three quests long, or fifteen before you see the piece that you need to progress further. Sometimes it's as simple as listening to a story. Sometimes it's culling dragons from a stone staircase. Lots of dragons. Sometimes it looks impossible when it's really not.

I was ready to quit and give up on that character because I was frustrated with an obstacle I didn't understand wasn't really an obstacle. If I had, I wouldn't have seen the real way forward, and I would have remained stuck at level 120 instead of moving on to 121. The only obstacle which really prevented me from progressing was my perception of the problem and my lack of understanding at the time.