I think I am beginning to feel closer to Christ.

I want to say that carefully.

Not dramatically.

Not like everything is suddenly fixed.

Not like the dark night has ended and the door has flown open and the altar is blazing again.

But something feels different.

Something has turned.

For so long, I have wanted a manual for this kind of thing.

A guide.

A map.

A holy troubleshooting chart.

If your soul feels abandoned, turn to page forty-seven.
If prayer tastes like cardboard, repeat this psalm three times.
If the altar is behind glass, follow these steps.
If you cannot feel Christ, wait six to eight weeks and check your spiritual settings.

But there is no manual.

At least not the kind I want.

There are saints. There are mystics. There are Scriptures. There are prayers. There are elders who have walked through their own night and left behind lanterns. But no one can hand you the exact map of your own soul.

No one can tell you precisely how Christ will return to the room.

No one can tell you what the locked door is made of.

No one can tell you which part of the darkness is wound, which part is mystery, which part is fear, which part is God working beyond the reach of ordinary feeling.

You have to walk it.

And I hate that.

But maybe I am starting to understand it.

The turn has gone deeply inward now.

That is the only way I know to describe it.

At first, so much of this dark night felt external.

The failed road.

The empty ministry.

The lack of a building.

The lack of a congregation.

The fear in the country.

The cruelty of people.

The Church wounds.

The politics.

The closed doors.

The absence of response.

The silence.

All of that is real.

But now something has shifted deeper.

The question is becoming less only, “Where is God out there?”

And more:

Where is Christ meeting me in here?

Where is the fracture inside me?

Where is the soul still afraid to receive?

Where is the heart still braced against love?

Where is the priest in me wounded?

Where is the child in me still waiting outside the house?

Where is the part of me that cannot reconcile God with what God’s people have done?

Where is the part of me that still wants Christ but does not know how to trust the room He is standing in?

That feels like the beginning of something.

Not easy.

Not soft.

Not instantly comforting.

But true.

I feel like I am trying to make sense of how, internally, I rectify God with my spiritual self.

That is a strange sentence, but it is the right one.

Rectify.

Bring into alignment.

Bring into truthful relation.

Not force.

Not fake.

Not pretend the wound is not there.

Not slap religious language over the crack and call it healed.

But slowly, honestly, painfully, begin to let God and the deepest part of me face each other again.

For a long time, God and my spiritual self felt separated.

God somewhere behind the locked door.

My soul somewhere outside it.

My heart folded in on itself.

My mind racing.

My body tired.

My priesthood standing there with empty hands.

My child-self waiting for someone to come back and hold him.

And now I wonder if Christ has been closer to that whole mess than I could feel.

Maybe not in the way I wanted.

Maybe not with the warmth I remembered.

Maybe not with the clear voice I begged for.

But closer than nothing.

Closer than absence.

Closer than the void.

Maybe Christ has been present in the very act of turning inward.

Maybe He has been standing in the place I was afraid to look.

Maybe the door was not only between me and God.

Maybe there was also a door inside me.

A door to the wounded chapel.

A door to the room where the old self died.

A door to the part of my soul that still knows how to receive lilies and roses opening in the dark.

Maybe the flowers at the locked door were not the whole answer.

Maybe they were the beginning of receptivity.

A sign that something in me could open again.

Petal by petal.

Wound by wound.

Prayer by prayer.

I do not want to overstate it.

I am not suddenly full of certainty.

I still have questions.

I still have anger.

I still grieve.

I still do not understand why so much has happened the way it has.

I still wish Christ would simply speak plainly and say:

Here.
This is what I am doing.
This is where the road is.
This is how the priesthood continues.
This is why the silence came.
This is how you come home.

But maybe part of coming closer to Christ is learning to recognize Him without demanding that He arrive in the old form.

That is hard.

Because I loved the old warmth.

I loved the old sense of safety.

I loved the feeling of being held.

I loved the spiritual communication that seemed constant and alive.

I want that back.

But perhaps Christ is not only restoring what was.

Perhaps He is teaching me how to know Him deeper than the form I lost.

Not replacing love with absence.

Not saying the warmth did not matter.

But drawing me into a place where faith is no longer only feeling, and love is no longer only certainty, and priesthood is no longer only visible work.

Maybe.

I still say maybe.

But tonight, maybe does not feel like despair.

Tonight, maybe feels like a small opening.

Like a crack in the door.

Like light under the threshold.

Like a flower opening beside stone.

Like the first breath after being underwater too long.

I think this is a good beginning.

Not the end.

Not the answer.

Not the full return.

But a beginning.

A turn inward.

A movement toward Christ.

A willingness to let the soul be examined without despising it.

A willingness to let God come near the wound without immediately accusing Him of causing it.

A willingness to listen for Christ not only in thunder, altar, Eucharist, and obvious signs, but in the quiet rearranging of the inner house.

Maybe this is how the manual would begin, if there were one:

Do not rush the door.
Do not fake the light.
Do not despise the small opening.
Let Christ meet you where the fracture is.
Let the soul tell the truth.
Let the heart open slowly.
Let the old self die without calling it failure.
Let the new self be born without demanding it know how to walk yet.

And above all:

Keep listening.

So that is where I am tonight.

Not healed.

Not finished.

Not fully returned.

But closer.

A little closer.

And after so much silence, even a little closer feels like grace.