From my journal, December 21, 2006:
101 Metaphors for Discernment: 1) a river; 2) riding the bumper cars in an amusement park; 3) dreams remembered; 4) dreams forgotten; 5) studying for the big exam; 6) listening to Handel’s Messiah on CD; 7) shopping for shoes that really fit; 8) seeing the Milky Way on a clear summer’s night; 9) the collect for Proper 28 in the Book of Common Prayer; 10) perpetual adolescence; 11) . . .

Well, I’ll keep working on the list. It’s time for me to decide whether to stay in China, at Lian Da, for the third year. #1 is on the list because it’s the stock metaphor for everything. #2 comes closest to my immediate experience. I liken my homesickness to a bad knee. It hurts a little all the time, but it’s easy to grow accustomed to it. Limp along, even sprint when necessary. Bump. A freshman student tells me she hasn’t seen her mother in four months, and I’m like her mother right now. Bump. My dean insists that I attend a government-sponsored reception instead of the countryside wedding of two beloved former students. Bump. My best Chinese friend gets married, and I hold hands companionably with her mother after the wedding, sharing a world of feeling without and beyond words. Bump. Bump. Bump.

Yesterday the afternoon was mild (above freezing for a change) and I took my first good walk in days. I looped around past the big open air food market, along the sewer canal. Bad call! The modern-sewer excavation has crossed the canal to the near side, and construction has caused incredible street congestion. At one point, a multi-directional snarl of big cargo trucks, cars, vans, bicycles, pedi-carts and foot traffic had simply halted in a clump about a hundred meters wide. Try to wrap your mind around congestion so thick that no one can even walk through it. I did observe one nimble guy vaulting over vehicles; it should be an Olympic event. My luck, I got stuck standing beside densely-packed crates of half-grown dogs awaiting slaughter. Many were curled up in silent resignation; others whined; still others yipped and wagged their tails in naive optimism. The street drains were clogged with the fur of their fallen comrades. I searched impatiently for the chink in the traffic that would let me hurry away. And I begged God to let this be the "sign," the message that I don’t belong here, that it’s time for me to go home to a cleaner, saner world. Then I saw my opening, stepped with care over a heap of leeks, and trudged on. And another metaphor was born: 11) a narrow path toward an unspecified destination. I know that I belong here, even if I don’t know why.