in this desert of countless sorrows

I am having a black day. With my last theatre structure gone, I feel made of wind.

My therapist said, "I feel the impulse to remind you who you are: You are a monk." His eyes were steady. "I think it is important that you know someone else knows you are a monk."

It was curiously settling, in this great and swirling darkness, to hear that.

"Where in the monk's journey am I?" I asked. "Where your first Call no longer rings true," he said, "And your next Call has not yet arrived." That felt right. I am still listening to god and obeying. I just cannot see where it leads.

"This is when many people abandon their Vision," he said. "They cannot tolerate the great discomfort, so they settle for something inferior."

"I read of a Russian monk whose prayer consisted of going outside at dusk and waiting," I said. "Sometimes god came. Usually he did not. That was not the point. The waiting was the prayer."

At the end I asked for a song. We sang together, me improvising a light high harmony over his melody. He sang:

in this land of the walking wounded
in this desert of countless sorrows
i will cling to his hand today and
fear not for tomorrow

in my heart i have made this promise
with this song i declare my choice
i will walk where the shepherd
leads and heed no other voice

in the chill of my darkest hour
i am saved from my deep despair
for the father who loves his
children hears my trusting prayer

in my soul there is one light shining
from the flame of my true belief
and its embers cannot be quenched
or robbed by any thief

in the end we are not forgotten
and our journey is not in vain
for the master who bought us here
will lead us home lead us home again

I was so deep I could only hear the first two lines.

i.n...t.h.i.s...l.a.n.d...o.f...t.h.e...w.a.l.k.i.n.g...w.o.u.n.d.e.d
i.n...t.h.i.s...d.e.s.e.r.t...o.f...c.o.u.n.t.l.e.s.s...s.o.r.r.o.w.s

I went to dinner before coming back to work. As I ate, I read the book I had begun this morning, Voices of Silence, about Trappist monks.

The buddha where I'm housesitting is Kuan Yin. She's got the mother/Mary presence of Tara, but is -- like the Dalai Lama -- an emanation of Avalokitesvara. "In its proper form," says a Google entry, "It is Kuanshih Yin, which means She who harkens to the cries of the world."