The God-Sized Hole

Living in a Body

The God-Sized Hole

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The God-Sized Hole

Episode 24 -- Spiritual Crisis, Major Life Transition

Hal Walker

Jul 23, 2022

Hi. I’m Hal. I’m living with moderately severe ME/CFS. Fifteen minutes at a time, I wrote this post over the course of a week. I’m so grateful for this outlet to express myself and I’m so grateful for your caring attention. Please feel free to share.

The God-Sized Hole

I’ve been thinking a lot about God lately.

I was all by myself in my float tank yesterday and we were having a conversation. I said, “God, you must have some sort of plan for me. What possibly could be your plan in all this craziness?” Within a few moments, I got a very clear answer. “THIS is the plan, Hal. This moment is the plan. What are you gonna do with it?” For a moment, I chuckled, relaxed and I smiled. Then I dove into a spiral of fear.

Occasionally, it’s grandiose thoughts about “God’s plan” for my future that inspire me to keep going. My sister tells me, “you’ll inspire 1000’s of ME/CFS patients not to give up. With your platform, you’ll be a voice for the #millionsmissing.” In these recent times of difficulty, I regularly resort to magical thinking, “I’ll fall in love and live happily ever after in marital bliss.”

But God says, “THIS is the plan” — this moment — with all its discomfort, all its aloneness and all its illness. THIS is the only plan. There are no further plans — just further moments to unfold. The reality is that in this moment, I’m living with severe chronic illness. I’m in unrelenting physical discomfort. Walking to and from the bathroom is becoming more and more difficult and I have no idea how much worse it can get. That’s when the spiral of fear sets in. But God asks, “What are you gonna do with it?”

Whenever I would ask my Dad about God, he’d reply with a 10 minute sermon. Then he’d send me away with a book recommendation. I’m sorry to say that I rarely listened to the sermons and I never read the books. Then, for almost 25 years, I was the music director of a Unitarian-Universalist church that rarely mentioned God. All those years, I often held a deep longing for more God language. Today, I’m active in a 12-step program that talks about God all the time. To be honest, for years, I’ve struggled with all the God talk in the program. But these days, I’m open to it. I’ve got no where else to turn.

Lately, I’m getting most of my ideas about God in my float tank, my daily meditation readings and my conversations with 12-step fellows. I appreciate the principle in 12-step recovery that we don’t enter into theological discussions or arguments on the subject of religion. It’s a “spiritual” program. Each person is free to find their own understanding of a power greater than themselves. Some choose to call it “God.” Others might call it “higher power.” Everyone is free to believe or not believe what they wish.

So… when I talk about “God” here, I’m not talking about the God that you might think I’m talking about. I’m not talking about your understanding of God. I’m not talking about my Dad’s understanding. I’m talking about the God of my own (mostly lack of) understanding. There. Now that that’s clear…

I'm right smack dab in the middle of a spiritual crisis. You could call it a spiritual opportunity, I suppose, but it feels more like a crisis. The person who I thought I was is no longer. All the things that I took for granted no longer exist. I was a guy that thrived on nonstop creating. I had endless to do lists running around in my head and I was rarely satisfied with what I got done. Even though I lived with mild/moderate ME/CFS for 29 years, I’ve been more of a human doing than a human being. I still hold the faulty belief that If I do enough, then I will be enough.

I have two beds, a rest bed and a sleep/work bed. This is my rest bed.

Today, I’m living in a whole new reality and I’m grieving the loss of my previous one. The last seven years were some of the happiest and most content years of my life. I was the scooter riding, guitar strumming, ping pong playing, banakula shaking, harmonica blowing, concert giving, frisbee throwing, Go club organizing, music directing, talk show hosting, video creating, Tik Tok posting, garden growing, grocery shopping, meal preparing, solo living version of Hal. To top it all off, I was in a loving relationship with a beautiful woman who was my best friend. Now, with all of that stripped away, I’m in a painful search to find out who I am. All that stripped away, it’s just me and God floating together in the float tank and writhing together in bed. It has been excruciatingly difficult. Somehow, I have to make peace with just being. Somehow, I need to find a new version of myself. Somehow, I've got to come to terms with this reality. As I said before, I’m smack dab in the middle of a spiritual crisis. God help me.

The other day, I had an inspiring phone conversation with a 12-step fellow. It blew my mind a little bit. This guy’s words were on fire and it was my story that was coming out of his mouth. Basically, there’s this God-sized hole in me and I’ve spent my whole life trying to fill it up. I tried to fill it with muffins, coffee, sex, marijuana, musical instruments, relationships, creative projects and Tik Tok views, to name a few. But no matter how much of it all I took in, it was never enough. I was never satisfied. I’ve spent my life trying to fill this God-sized hole and the only thing that can fill it is guess what… God. And I have no idea how to talk or even think about God. Heck, I don’t even believe in God. But it all makes so much sense to me.

This fellow went on to continue telling my story. He was talking about God’s will versus my will. I’ve always known very clearly what my will is. My will is to get the thing that I want — even if it means hurting myself or others. If I get the thing that I want, then I'll be satisfied. Take, for instance, that Harpejji in the other room. During the brief window of time this Spring when I was feeling better, I got it in my little brain that I needed a harpejji. I was gonna become a harpejji player. The harpejji now sits in my office unplayed and hangs on my brain as a bit of burden. Oh my goodness.. Is this an example of doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, or what?! (see Hal, the Imaginary Harpist)

My harpejji awaits the old version of Hal

God’s will is different. Maybe God’s will is not about acquiring things or arranging circumstances. Maybe God’s will is what is. Maybe It’s about wanting what I have and finding the good right where I am. Take for instance, this illness. Someday, I’ll gather up the gumption to share with you all the blessings that ME/CFS has brought into my life. God's will requires great compromise and I’m usually not up to the challenge. But for today, I want to be done pulling the strings. All I have to do now is float down the river of life, smile, compromise and trust God. Sheesh. Can I say “Thy will be done” and really mean it?

That phone conversation really spoke to me. But five minutes later, I got a call from another fellow. She started by asking me a bunch of questions about my condition and I followed by answering. Each time, she would reply, "ooo, that sounds bad." She asked, "Do you have anyone helping you?" and I said "yes, I have a full-time caretaker." She said, "Oh, gosh, that does sound bad." Everything I told her she was like, "Ooo, that sounds bad. I'll pray for you.” I left that call really shook. Reminded of how “bad” it really is, I dialed my sister and cried my heart out for a few minutes.

I'm in a major life transition. A life transition that I didn't choose. From Hal Walker, the super man musician who can do everything, I’m transitioning to something else and I don’t yet know what that is. But I’ll tell you. I've been hanging on to the old identity with every fiber of my being. For the last year, I’ve been trying to squeeze out every last little bit of creativity before it’s too late — including this post right here. I imagine that all that pushing has played some role in the progression of this illness.

I have moments of hope though. I’ve learned that when I fight, the illness always wins. The only way to beat ME/CFS is to get underneath it and to surrender to it. Really, there is no beating it. For my whole life, I've been hungrily searching for more and it’s time to lay back and bask in what I have. This illness is presenting me with an opportunity to find another path. There is another path for Hal Walker. It’s not gonna be easy. The grief and the fear are often overwhelming, but at times, I'm hopeful.

Two weeks ago, it became very clear to me that I was in need of full-time care again. I called a friend to help face the daunting task of piecing together volunteers. On that very same day, out of the blue, I got a Facebook message from my friend Heidi letting me know that our Kenyan musician friend, Mango, needed work and a place to stay for the next couple months. He came over the next day to talk details and he’s been living here ever since. Mango gives me a foot massage every morning and a full body massage every night. Within the first week, he deep cleaned my whole house. He has a wonderful smile and a great sense of humor. I couldn’t ask for better chemistry with a live-in helper. Mango is very clear that it’s God that brought us together. I’m willing to go along with that. Thank you, God. Thank you.