The crazy part of the season is how the bleak and stark and brutality of humanity stand hand in hand with hope and joy and miracles under a snow frosted pine along the side of the road. The cars are flying by at a breakneck pace and never even see the tree, let alone the beauty of the bittersweet lying crumpled on the ground like yesterday's news.
But that's how it is. We don't see. We don't want to see. We don't let ourselves see.
We prefer deception. We seek it out and create it if we can't find some pre-made in cellophane wrap at the drug store.
You shake your head, trying to lie through it, believing your own lie. It's always, in the moment, easier to believe that the first shock of pain, of reality, of dealing with something, anything, head on, face first is so utterly terrible, the pain so blinding, so scorching, so deadly that it will undo you and so you walk on past. You trick yourself, create your own illusions to live under.
But the weight of it all will crush you alive. Those illusions, those fakes, take your life, slowly and more fiercely than the pain of facing a demon head on will ever be. And the most brutal part is the demons we chose to ignore, the ones we lie ourselves into believing we've faced and conquered, multiply under the cloak of the illusion. Any time we get brave enough to even take a little peek, we feel it stirring and we know instantly how much worse it will be now.
Time made it harder not easier. It wasn't forgotten. It's not gotten over. It's fermented instead. It became more and more powerful and now is eating you alive.
It's hard to live lies and be a shell. It's hard to play a role and be an actor every minute.
It is terror to take off all the lies, the masks and simply be, scars, sins and all, but it's where the freedom lies. Peace is on the other side of that terror.
Life is simply a flip side coin. One side peace the other side bitterness. Everything has it's opposite and we faulted, flawed, broken humans always, always, seem to pick the wrong side, the harder side, deluding ourselves that this is better, this is easier, this hurts less, it harms fewer people. We drive ourselves into being the martyr with a sick sort of righteousness thinking this is what God would have us do.
Maybe.
But I don't think so. That's not the God I meet when I'm in prayer or in my Bible. it's not. God doesn't want me to be a lie that looks all pretty and perfect and Godly and pulled together according to whatever twisted image I have in my mind of what everyone else is holding me up to or what they hold themselves up to or who they think I should be. It's all a trick mirror and smoke screen.
God's not into false images, including our own.
I think God would rather find me down on my face in the muck of my own life, than prissed up in the front of the church claiming to have lived the words in the Book. I think a greater testimony than words would be to live out my life, let everyone see God come and wipe the slime off my face, look into my eyes and say, I still love you. Come home. Come back. Let's begin again. Here is my grace, take it in place of your brokenness.
Far greater I believe. But what do I know.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
#142
Time to get back on the pony..15 minutes no stops. Here's the story start:
When the winter arrived he was grateful for
the anonymous way it covered over everything. He was grateful for the way silence was like a cloak over everything. Voices were quieter, people faked kindness and he'd take it. Sometimes fake kindness is better than none and he had little in his life,so fake was just fine with him. The winter brought the snow, the ice. It held beauty in it's starkness. It's crystal, like a nature glass works outside his windows. He lived for the fireplace. The crunch of the snow underfoot and the blanket of snow on the ground. It made the brown and barren somehow seem so much better. The cold was like a constant slap in the face and for now it was what he felt he deserved, needed. It was the season. The holiday part of it was a chore, but it too brought out some fake connections. There were suddenly invitations from people that the rest of the year could have cared less if he lived or died. Now suddenly they wanted him to come to their elaborate homes and eat their cocktail meatballs and drink micro brews he'd never heard of and secretly dumped down the bathroom sink because they tasted vaguely of feet and toilets. He was thrilled and dismayed at the odd cards that filled up his mailbox, strangers really, frightening pictures of someone elses savior, a concept he couldn't grasp, just because he didn't want to, didn't care. He was content in his vacuum, not happy, but content. It was a space all his own and undisturbed. It was his. Very little was his. Everyone was always pulling at him, pushing his head under the water, but in the winter, everyone took a break getting caught up in the glamour of the holiday season. Twinkling lights seemed to make every ones mean flicker in and out. I mean not everyone, there were plenty who simply took this opportunity to be even more bitter and drink harder. But those were not his people. He knew they were not. He quietly kept his bitterness to himself, his drinking done in the dark of his own apartment. There was no need to flaunt brokenness. Somehow it was better savored alone. It's a long way down. He knew it well. He'd been down a long, long item. Almost too long. The winter also offered up the possibility. The ice the snow the storms, tragedy was always right there, waiting behind the next slip, the next car skidding across the ice, the next power failure, the next slip on the ice and skull crushing blow to the frozen concrete. He always hoped a little in the winter. Hoped that his end would come and he would not see another spring. Spring held no promise for him. There was no rebirth in his life. It was just repetitive failings and the spring just rubbed it in that he had failed the winter and not allowed it to finish him. Somehow his luck was wrong and he had let himself come out the other side alive. It was not his plan but somehow it never worked out according to his plan. He loved winter. Looked forward to it. But it always thwarted his plans. When the thaws came he obsessively watched the weather to make sure he'd have one last opportunity. He took advantage of every last winter storm. He was always the one out driving when the weather announcers said if you can avoid it in any way, stay off the roads and indoors. That was a code for him to go get in his car in short sleeves, run it until there was no gas left and look for the black ice on the freeway, but every time, it would clear, it would thaw and he would end up at a Mobil or a Kwik Trip filling up and heading home. In the end, he'd be pulling into his garage, then going into the house and taking a shower reserving him self, stealing his resolve knowing that a spring was coming, just right around the corner. There would be a spring. This winter was just around the corner. The fall days were at their ends. The frost was there now in the morning. He was longing for the bleak to arrive. It was his long lost friend, his comfort in the crystal frozen across the window glass. The lost footing on the sidewalk ice a welcome feeling, that lurch, that letting go and hoping for a skull crunching blow on the frozen cement. This was going to be his winter.
When the winter arrived he was grateful for
the anonymous way it covered over everything. He was grateful for the way silence was like a cloak over everything. Voices were quieter, people faked kindness and he'd take it. Sometimes fake kindness is better than none and he had little in his life,so fake was just fine with him. The winter brought the snow, the ice. It held beauty in it's starkness. It's crystal, like a nature glass works outside his windows. He lived for the fireplace. The crunch of the snow underfoot and the blanket of snow on the ground. It made the brown and barren somehow seem so much better. The cold was like a constant slap in the face and for now it was what he felt he deserved, needed. It was the season. The holiday part of it was a chore, but it too brought out some fake connections. There were suddenly invitations from people that the rest of the year could have cared less if he lived or died. Now suddenly they wanted him to come to their elaborate homes and eat their cocktail meatballs and drink micro brews he'd never heard of and secretly dumped down the bathroom sink because they tasted vaguely of feet and toilets. He was thrilled and dismayed at the odd cards that filled up his mailbox, strangers really, frightening pictures of someone elses savior, a concept he couldn't grasp, just because he didn't want to, didn't care. He was content in his vacuum, not happy, but content. It was a space all his own and undisturbed. It was his. Very little was his. Everyone was always pulling at him, pushing his head under the water, but in the winter, everyone took a break getting caught up in the glamour of the holiday season. Twinkling lights seemed to make every ones mean flicker in and out. I mean not everyone, there were plenty who simply took this opportunity to be even more bitter and drink harder. But those were not his people. He knew they were not. He quietly kept his bitterness to himself, his drinking done in the dark of his own apartment. There was no need to flaunt brokenness. Somehow it was better savored alone. It's a long way down. He knew it well. He'd been down a long, long item. Almost too long. The winter also offered up the possibility. The ice the snow the storms, tragedy was always right there, waiting behind the next slip, the next car skidding across the ice, the next power failure, the next slip on the ice and skull crushing blow to the frozen concrete. He always hoped a little in the winter. Hoped that his end would come and he would not see another spring. Spring held no promise for him. There was no rebirth in his life. It was just repetitive failings and the spring just rubbed it in that he had failed the winter and not allowed it to finish him. Somehow his luck was wrong and he had let himself come out the other side alive. It was not his plan but somehow it never worked out according to his plan. He loved winter. Looked forward to it. But it always thwarted his plans. When the thaws came he obsessively watched the weather to make sure he'd have one last opportunity. He took advantage of every last winter storm. He was always the one out driving when the weather announcers said if you can avoid it in any way, stay off the roads and indoors. That was a code for him to go get in his car in short sleeves, run it until there was no gas left and look for the black ice on the freeway, but every time, it would clear, it would thaw and he would end up at a Mobil or a Kwik Trip filling up and heading home. In the end, he'd be pulling into his garage, then going into the house and taking a shower reserving him self, stealing his resolve knowing that a spring was coming, just right around the corner. There would be a spring. This winter was just around the corner. The fall days were at their ends. The frost was there now in the morning. He was longing for the bleak to arrive. It was his long lost friend, his comfort in the crystal frozen across the window glass. The lost footing on the sidewalk ice a welcome feeling, that lurch, that letting go and hoping for a skull crunching blow on the frozen cement. This was going to be his winter.
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