Dearest Rachel –
One of the reasons why I’m hoping to find a ‘Megumi’ for myself is because I don’t trust myself to make the ‘right’ decision. Left to my own devices, I know I’m more likely to make the asocial, selfish choice far more often than not (consider, just as an example, how often you see the first person pronouns being used in these letters). Having someone at my shoulder to suggest that it might be better for all concerned for me to set aside what I might prefer in the moment for the greater good would do me (and the sphere I inhabit) a world of good, which I have very little faith in myself to achieve. I tend to think that I need an external conscience, rather than having to rely on the factory-installed model that I have built inside myself.
Then again, for all I know, I might be giving myself too little credit when it comes to doing the right thing; I leave you to be the judge, especially if you have been keeping an eye on me like I’ve been asking you to all this time.
This past weekend has been a bit of a test of those factory settings. Kerstin’s youngest daughter was getting baptized, and she sent out a message to the group chat, inviting anyone who was willing to come celebrate with them to join them yesterday morning at her daughter’s church (which she herself attends off-and-on; you might remember it – I think I recall your puzzlement at this, seeing as she literally lives next door to the flagship location of our own church).
On most weekends, this would be a non-issue; more often than not, I have commitments in the booth that preclude me from being anywhere else but our own church location – and that for all four services (which is what makes it logistically easy for me to fast over those weekends, since I’m not at home for all that time, and unable to prepare anything for myself. Ironically, there’s a member of the worship team who nearly every weekend will bring some form of breakfast in for the team, and he and his wife are good cooks, so I still have to deal with temptation all the same). However, it so happens that the month of August is freer than most for me, with this being the first of three consecutive weeks of being off-assignment. So, if I wanted to go and be there for her and her daughter, I could do it without any issue.
This decision couldn’t be made in a vacuum, however. There is also the fact that the folks rely on Daniel and me to bring them a bulletin from church each week, so we would need to go to our church as well as Kerstin’s. Again, this wouldn’t be too much of a hardship; we could go to our service on Saturday evening and the baptismal service on Sunday.
What it came down to was a matter of wanting to. I won’t say that this felt like an obligation – much on the order of watching the latest Doctor Who episode with you once I’d downloaded it for you – but it did feel more like something I ought to do more than I really wanted to do it. It’s hard to put into words in a way that doesn’t sound selfish, but I’m sure you can relate to the idea of “why go to church twice of a weekend when you don’t have to?”
Again, if you were here, I think you’d be a little more insistent about it being the “right” thing to do. And deep down, I think I knew that it was; it just felt too much like going out of my way. It’s not like I couldn’t make the space in my schedule; I just wasn’t quite feeling it the way I knew I should.
So I left it up to Daniel, since he would be joining me on these trips. But you know him; he’s even less into leaving the house if he doesn’t have to than I am. And while he didn’t have any objection to going out, he also didn’t apply any additional force on me to compel me to head out to the Saturday service, which would be the point at which I’d decide whether we were or weren’t going to be there to see them Sunday morning. It wasn’t until a half-hour before the Saturday service was to start that I finally got up from my chair, announced that we were going, and we headed out.
Yes, I eventually made the “right” decision – and after joining her, her daughter, and more of their family and friends for brunch afterwards, it was confirmed in my mind that it had been the right decision – but it was a near run thing, as Wellington said of Waterloo. Were you around, it would have been less up to my own balky conscience, and would have been done with a greater measure of conviction, since it would have been at your behest. Likewise, I tend to believe that – assuming she’s out there and I can find her – Megumi would be equally able to press me into the correct decision as well, without the onus being entirely up to me. Just because I chose well this time around is no guarantee that I will in every situation; somehow, I expect that either of you would nudge me closer to the proper path more often than II would tread it on my own. All of which is why I continue to seek out a replacement to you, in hopes of keeping myself more honest than I can do on my own.
But until that day comes, honey, all I can do is ask that you continue to keep an eye on me, to nudge me in that direction as best you can, and wish me luck along the way, as it’s pretty clear I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 