when to leave

On Sunday, I go to Centre Christus - a Jesuit retreat center in Kigali, Rwanda. I walk there from Papyrus. A long morning walk. I am going to mass at Centre Christus. I tell people it is because I like the music but it is not because. Small room. Low ceilings. I am alone and then there are many. On thin wooden benches with no aisles. Mass starts and it occurs to me I want to leave. It occurs to me - too much. I am in the back of a room on the wooden bench. Packed next to the nicely dressed. Against off-white brick. There is singing, yes, and I like it. Everything is singing because I don't know the language. You can't leave when it occurs to you you want to leave. You stay to stay. I tell myself it is the lack of space that makes me stay, but it is not because. It occurs to me if there is no inherent redemptive thing in suffering. If suffering is itself, without interpretation. Then perhaps there are many things that are themselves, and not for something else. Love for the sake of love, for instance. That to be only yourself is to be a gift, for instance. Different from trying to give something. It is just a shape of thinking. To what end?