Rant of a Closet Ascetic?

I hope no one bothers to read this post.

Asceticism, or the abstinence from various worldly pleasures, has a long history in the Church. Today I think it's regarded as more of a novelty than anything, although I occassionally hear a sermon on fasting from time to time. In any case, it centers on the idea that we can hone our spiritual senses by depriving our physical senses by various degrees.

Had I the choice, I would take it to the extreme and do away with the body completely. I'm frequently struck by a distinct revulsion of having to reside in a body. It's slow, impudent, and disgusting. It's slow because I'm constantly limited by its inability to accomplish the motions which I desire from it. This can be remedied to an extent by tedious and frustrating practice. It's impudent in that it presumes to command me through constant desires which can only be put off for a time at best. Would that I could do away with desire, but more on that later. Finally, it's disgusting because it is messy and foul. It takes in pleasant substances and emits putrid ones. It generates unpleasant odors which require repeated tending lest they become noxious. It is susceptible to an endless array of poisons and diseases and decay mechanisms.

There is great beauty in math and physics and the inner workings of the universe. The precision and harmony of it all astounds me every time I think about it. There is great beauty and order in music, even in the sometimes discordant and arhythmic stuff I listen to. There is tremendous art in the universe everywhere you look. I will even concede that there are some amazing processes at work within this corpse of mine, (and all of this points to God's genius, to be sure) but I am daily put off by its willful lusts and repugnant secretions.

How I long for the sterile incorporeality of the angels and the heavenly beings! It would be so nice to be as light the itself, pure and precise, untethered to the whims of this piece of meat I inhabit--intellect uninterrupted by peevish desire.

I really think it's desire that I'm most repulsed by. And I mean purely physical desires...food, sleep, sex, etc. I have no problems with desire for justice, or love, or approval, or God Himself. Only I constantly find that my physical desires shove their way to the front of the line, rudely supplanting any nobler desires in their insistent demands to be met. It positively evinces hatred in my heart when I consider it! I want to tear the flesh away from my soul and be rid of it forever!

But this runs against Biblical theology. Oh yes, God gave his own Son a body like mine to inhabit and suffer inside and die in in order to accomplish my salvation. When he was resurrected, he was resurrected into a body, albeit a transfigured one. (I wonder what that transfigured body is like. Does it stink when it sweats? Does it want sex? Does it hunger for food? Does it need to shit after a meal?) So my hatred of my body is a hatred of how God has made me. Well, sue me. I didn't choose this. Had I been able to know a priori what it would be like I might have politely declined.

Perhaps my diatribe has more to do with the fact I'm trapped in a fallen body than anything. The physical desires that constantly demand my attention are only so belligerent because my mortal flesh lives in constant rebellion against God, or mastry by any force. It desires to do as it wills and opposition be damned. Then the failure is mine for not having the willpower to suppress it. That idea brings me no comfort.

This probably has everything to do with Paul going round and round in Romans about doing what he doesn't want to do and not doing what he wants to do. Story of my life, and maybe yours too. But what frustrates me the most is God's apparent apathy to rectify this situation. Uncountable times I've cried out to God for freedom from or control over the desires of the flesh. Exactly zero times has this ever happened the way I needed it to. I recall reaching the conclusion when I was a teenager (regarding sex, then, but it has broader applicability now) that if desire in my members won't be mastered then it is better to cut it off. I still lean in that direction.

What more does my soul need to learn from being persistently overruled by this rotten shell? I know that I am fallen, that I am sinful. I know that I can do nothing holy of myself. I know that I must depend on God for sustenance and health and life. I know these things! Why then, must I still suffer under the duress of this detestable clay? If I can't change things, WHY THE FUCK DOESN'T GOD DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT? I've only been asking Him to for years!

I want to please God. I want holiness, and purity of thought and action. I want to be what God intended me to be BUT NOTHING CHANGES no matter what happens. All I want is clarity and peace. Is there freedom in death? Something in my soul won't let me seek that as an option, though I am tempted to find something reckless to do that I might speed myself towards death if it brings that liberation.

I'm horribly frustrated these days. I've made no progress as a person or a Christian in years. Indeed I feel like I'm even regressing, losing the profit of previous soul labor, and I don't understand why. My prayers are weak and selfish. My faith is emaciated, and only clings to the very basics. I'm no servant, except of myself. I'm not in any shape to support a wife, or raise children, or lead someone to Christ, or teach the Gospel, or even be much of a friend to anyone. I'm harsh, and critical, and pessimistic, and disappointed, and impatient, and cross. There's a smouldering anger at everything and nothing that lies just below the surface and boils forth at the slightest provocation. It's not a violent anger, just a spiteful, dolorous anger. I can feel it burning in my chest now even as I type. It makes my soul writhe and ache within me.

I barely even want to try anymore. Each day is either boredom, routine, restlessness, or all of those. I would seek God--I know I need Him desperately--but He holds even less interest for me than my smattering of half-attended-to hobbies. I'm less eager to spend time with Him than the last of my friends. Some folks are simply enraptured at the mere thought of the Lord. I struggle to even remember Him during the day. A.W. Tozer used to spend hours at a time face down, spread eagle on the floor of his office in silent worship of God. I wish ANYTHING were that captivating, let alone God Himself.

Why can't I see it? I feel like I'm somehow missing the point. I know what I believe about God and about Christ and about how it affects me, and I do believe it. That isn't for debate. What I can't grasp is why it hasn't changed me. Maybe my perceptions of what being saved is like are wrong. Maybe it doesn't change anything in this life. But that feels wrong. My friend Mabi has changed dramatically in the last 9 months as a result of a major overhaul of his faith. Meanwhile mine's hardly idling. It's hard not to be a little jealous.

I don't know what to do. I'm not expecting any miracle answers here, if anywhere. I should probably get counseling, but in the back of my head it seems like that would ultimately be a waste of time. I've never seen anything more than temporary improvements from anything I've tried, and that includes seeking God, praying, Bible study, and the like, which means the fundamental problems have never been solved. It's hard to even articulate them, although this post was largely an exercise to attempt it. But it's late now, and I do have to get out of bed tomorrow, whether I want to or not.