Chapter 1 - "looking for myself"

“I need to go and find myself.” I’m not sure who came up with this expression, but I’ve always been drawn to it. In some ways, it makes no sense that you have to go somewhere to find yourself, because physically you’re always with yourself. And yet, I’ve always felt that there is a part of me I haven’t met before because my surroundings don’t require that part of me to function, necessitate those hibernating regions of my heart. I’m never more myself than when I’m venturing out in search for what calls forth new responses from new reservoirs within. This is what Jesus was insinuating when he said, “Unless you lose yourself, you can forget finding yourself. But when you stay put, content in your findings, you lose yourself.” And I sense that I “lose my life” when I’m content with what I’ve found. I lose it a piece at a time. A slow leak. A subtle loss of heart. It’s soul killing.

Losing heart. All these little descriptive phrases that we humans spout off when we’re looking for words to describe feelings are telling. We say them because they feel good to get off our chest. When we say that we’re losing heart, there is a pressure released in verbalizing it that way that simply saying, “I’m not doing well” doesn’t convey. Losing heart is exactly what happens to the person who forgets he or she has one. Losing heart happens while we’re living life. We could be enjoying success and losing heart. We could be making money and losing heart. We could be changing the world and losing heart. Because the heart doesn’t play by the rules. It doesn’t simply heel to our commands and follow our bodies around like a well-trained lap cat. The heart has a life unto itself. It enjoys things that don’t make sense. It veers toward activities that don’t always lead to safety. It questions things that everyone else assumes correct. It finds joy in things that don’t lead to affluence. It messes things up. Pascal says that “the heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of”. I think he’s on to something there.

And so when I thought about Montana, I felt parts of my heart twitch that had laid limp for only God knows how long. And the funny thing was that the more it didn’t make sense for me to go, the more I wanted to. It’s that kind of lopsided logic that makes you do silly things. Silly things that save your life.