A Thousand Reasons...

I often sing songs and say words without really knowing if I mean them, and this bothers me. Far too often I find myself pausing amidst a song sung with fellow believers, wondering to myself, "Can I say that honestly?". And one of those that catches me almost every time is the line which is also the title of one of my favorites: "Ten Thousand Reasons."

Can I really come up with that many? I doubt it. I'm honestly not even sure I can conjure a thousand... or a hundred. I'm ashamed to say I'm not a very grateful person, even if Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. But I'm trying to change that. I'm starting smaller than maybe I should, afraid to dream too big in the area of projects and plans. But I keep hearing of a book that did something similar, so these seems tangible to me* (one of these days maybe I'll actually read it so I get a better idea of how it was done). So I am starting what I hope shall become daily and weekly habits, coming up with one thing that I am grateful to God for every day and then sharing them every week for all of us who need to remember that this world has sunshine too (a group of which I am, most likely, first and foremost--let no one say I am judging pessimism, for that would be very self-discriminating judgement).

So, here I go.

Canto I

{1}  I am grateful for morning air--the freshness of its taste, scent, and feeling. I adore how it is never empty, brimming over with sounds that give it life and texture. Oh the joy of the bug's chirp and the bird's song. At any time these may be music, but in the morning air they are a symphony.

{2} I thank God for excitement: the quickening of the blood in its centermost veins. The squeezing thrill in the gut that says, "On this day my life holds something worth looking forward to."

{3} Thank heaven for the comfortable quiet of Family. The most precious moments are sometimes those without words, where we may all sit together in a silence that says, "It's alright. We don't need to speak. We have all these years of words with which to understand each other already. Now let us sit and breathe the same air, inhaling the knowledge of love and acceptance that has no need for verbal affirmation. It has been so long in getting here, and it won't last long, with the ever changedness** of human nature. So let us cherish a little while longer."

{4} Praise God for distractions, and the variety they come in. I love how my grim thoughts can be swept away by stories of adventure just as much as they may be swayed by the persistent need for sleep. Oh how these wondrous little rabbit trails can lead away from the black current: the path that would suck the body and soul into the desire, the trap of thinking it a need, to sin. And we helpless humans would try to call this victory of Grace "mine." Oh, my foolish pride. Thanks to God for overlooking it.

{5} For imagination--the key which releases us from the prison of these dreary bodies into the realm of the infinite, where we may find the galaxies' ballroom and join the dance of the stars.

"Everything was new and delightful for him.

The rosy glow of a sunrise had in it the flaming 

glory of creation. The stars at night were a living, 

heavenly dance. He listened to the grass growing, 

smelled the west wind, tasted the rain, touched the 

grains of sand on the shore. All his senses, his mind, 

his heart, were alive and in touch with being."***

{6} For words: the vessels by which we may ride the tides of imagination. They throw open doors into fantasy and weave a tapestry of magic. And this is a magic made for sharing, to pass on to anyone with eager eyes and a heart ready for the adventure of reading.

{7} For laughter--that balm over inner aches which rumbles the body and strengthens the soul. Thanks to God for its wile, stubborn nature, sneaking in to snatch you up and squeeze you in a bear hug on the grimmest of days. How it grins, mischievously.
"You only thought I could not touch you today. Let me show you the depth of your naivety."




*One Thousand Gifts by Anne Voscamp is the book I'm referring to. And yes, I have, unfortunately, not read it yet.

**I reserve the right of making up words to suit my purpose. Let's call it "creative license", since that sounds more like the act of a posh writer than being simply stubbornly set on making the English language do what I want.

***From the book Walking on Water: Reflections of Faith and Art, on the second page in Chapter 3, where the author, Madeline L'Engle, is reflecting on another author's depiction of how we view the world with such endless imagination as children.

Crooked Trees

"There are three ways you can live life.... 

You can live life as though it's all a cosmic accident; 

we're nothing but an irritating skin disease on the face of the earth. 

Maybe you can live your life as though everything's a bad joke. I can't. 

"Or you can go out at night and look at the stars and think, 

yes, they were created by a prime mover, and so were you, 

but he's aloof perfection, impassible, indifferent to his creation.... 

I can't live that way either.

"Then there's a third way: to live as though you believe that the power 

behind the universe is the power of love, a personal power of love, 

a love so great that all of us really do matter to him.... 

That's the only way I can live."

-Madeleine L'Engle

There falls a seed.

It fell just there, between the lush grass and a patch of rocky, barren ground. Not the most ideal. But it grew anyway, plunging its roots over the years so deep it could never be uprooted, though many manner of forces tried.  It is the colossally stubborn lifeform—a happenstance creation which simply refuses to go away. And when it spreads its branches against all odds it does so in satisfaction.

But also a little crookedly, and a little confusedly. It cannot help it. It was only an accident in the first place. So of course it is a little lopsided and a great deal perplexed, uncertain whether to call itself defeater of the odds or the child robbed of its right to be nurtured.

• ✠

“Here’s a seed,” God says, placing it deep in the fertile ground and then walking away.

He put it just there, right in the place with the best soil. Perfect setup, chosen with deliberation. So of course it grew, straight and tall in a world made for it. And when it stretched its branches it found the air was empty. Carefully created, yes, but never watched over or nurtured. So, even if it never showed on the outside, a deep crack opened in its innards, beneath the bark.

“A God there was,” it sighs, “but is no more.”

And can it call itself any better than its crooked neighbor? That chap at least had gumption and strength. All this tree had was a spoiled beginning and empty end.

“Yes, he cared enough to plant me, but not enough to stick around. So shall I call myself created with care or abandoned without feeling? I wonder what was wrong with me, to be left this way…”

• ✠

“Here’s my seed,” God whispered, pushing dirt over it with gentle and soiled hands.

He planted it right in the rocky place, standing by to watch it grow. The deliberately imperfect stage. So of course it grew crooked, this side thicker than the other. But when it stretched its tired branches God was there watching, patting its trunk and whispering reassurances.

“Here is God,” it mutters, “but why?”

And God does not seem in the habit of directly answering questions. He just keeps bringing water and fertilizer, nurturing the withered, ungrateful shrub.

“Even that crooked accident over there is better than me,” it accuses. God only smiles.

And the little tree kept uttering doubts and questions most its life, not sure whether it was a loved child or unfortunate experiment. The ground hurt its roots and the sun was unbearable. Surely goodness would not have planted it here. And yet God was always there, smiling kindly and whispering reassurances. The tree could not help itself. Between doubts and complaining, it loved its maker anyway, daring to hope.

“It is naïve, probably,” he agreed, when its straight and crooked neighbors criticized, “but I do believe my bit of naivety satisfies me a great deal more than your logic.”

So it learned to smile and kept its place, doubting but content. It never saw what God did—how its stretching branches and deep roots transformed the barren ground about it, making a new world with that single, crooked tree.

Our Long Lost Youth

"Often I think of the beautiful town

      That is seated by the sea;

Often in thought go up and down

The pleasant streets of that dear old town,

      And my youth comes back to me.

            And a verse of a Lapland song

            Is haunting my memory still:

      'A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' "

We do strange things on New Years.  We stay up and count down the minutes like it's something life-changing: this transition from one year to another.  "It's new."  "It's exciting."  Sentiments that, if we are honest, more often mean, "Last year is old."  "We can't change it, so let's not do it again."  We make promises to ourselves as if this one special day makes some sort of permanent seal--something lasting.  Maybe it does for some people.  But most of us hit February 1st, or more often January 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and the seal doesn't hold anymore.  Resolutions fade, and next year we resolve to make fewer or less grand ones so maybe we can keep them.  And so we dream smaller, year after year, holding to weaker and weaker resolutions that seem to slip out of our fingers anyway.

"I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,

      And catch, in sudden gleams,

The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,

And islands that were the Hesperides

      Of all my boyish dreams.

            And the burden of that old song,

            It murmurs and whispers still:

      'A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' "

My mind was brought to Longfellow this year.  A week or so before 2016 I found myself sorting through an old toy box that I had made into the haven for all my old writing.  I have always been, as far back as I can remember, a hoarder of my own work.  That box was full to the brim of writings, scribbles, drawings, and such.  And, in sorting through, I still wasn't throwing away.  Yes, the physical papers have finally gone to feed the fire in the woodstove out back, but I digitalized them first.  And during those hours of scanning page after page, I realized something.

We dream bigger as children.

Back then there were no limits.  It's not just stories on those wrinkled pages.  It's worlds.  I did not just aspire to be a writer.  I was going to be all for my realms: writer, composer, cartographer, artist, linguist, and so much more.  And it seems these days I am making a courageous effort to even call myself "writer" instead of just "someone with a bachelors degree in writing": just the facts with no commitment--no dreams.  At only twenty-one I feel I've broken too many promises to myself to try making any of substance.  An eerie hollow makes its home in my chest, watching the old pages go out to burn.

"I remember the sea-fight far away,

      How it thundered o'er the tide!

And the dead captains, as they lay

In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay,

      Where they in battle died.

            And the sound of that mournful song

            Goes through me with a thrill:

      'A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' "

Yet the skeptic of experience inside me cannot drop all restraints and chase the fairies.  A hoarder of dreams is a hoarder still, and clutter makes you stumble.  A very reasonable voice beckons me to let it go.  "Let the flame take them, you don't have big enough hands to hold them and the growing facts and responsibilities."  

But there must be a line to balance on there somewhere, because it feels like murder to let the child inside utterly die.

"I remember the gleams and glooms that dart

      Across the school-boy's brain;

The song and the silence in the heart,

That in part are prophecies, and in part

      Are longings wild and vain.

            And the voice of that fitful song

            Sings on, and is never still:

      'A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' "

And, surely, there is a reason Longfellow said what he did.  I like to think there is always a reason to genuine writing--if I stop believing that then this thing, of which I feel strongly "I was born to do," will lose its meaning.  To let the skepticism spread that far would ravage the gifts I have always felt were given by God.  Perhaps these pen-scratchings are not the money maker or the actual core of humanity's purpose, but that pen on that paper means something.  It's the direction arrow, pointing to the actual core: the man who did not try to shut off or end the inner child but said "Let the little children come to me."

And for Him and myself I must cling to the child that created worlds in her head and chased fairies--to save her from the waves of skeptical realism that want to drown her.

"There are things of which I may not speak;

      There are dreams that cannot die;

There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,

And bring a pallor into the cheek,

      And a mist before the eye.

            And the words of that fatal song

            Come over me like a chill:

      'A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' "

And so I stand my ground on this line, resolving to be a tightrope walker on that thin cord stretched between the old years and the new.  Dear God, make of me an adult strong enough to defend my inner child and her big dreams.  Let me reach for the stars again, but never forget who made them, and what this short gift of life You have given is truly for.

Lord of Heaven, guide my feet, for You know better than any what poor balance I have.

"And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair,

      And with joy that is almost pain

My heart goes back to wander there,

And among the dreams of the days that were,

      I find my lost youth again.

            And the strange and beautiful song,

            The groves are repeating it still:

      'A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' "

HOME

The moment when you find yourself brought closer to a precipice by every ring: the sound which brings you nearer to that anticipated brush of contact.
The minutes after the conversation ends which you spend listening to the static of a cut connection, wishing that lonely sound would give back the loved voice, with any word to say but 'goodbye'.
That is when the ache sinks in, forcing you to diagnose yourself with that particular illness most often titled 'homesickness'.  And the moment of diagnosis is when you feel, most poignantly, that whomever was on the other end of the line or whatever they symbolize is and will never cease to be your heart's home.
And you are not there.  Not with them.  Not in that house.  Not within that sanctuary.  Not home.
In fact, you are so far away you cannot consider return without also thinking of the funds, time, and opportunities that must be sacrificed to accomplish such a feat.  And even worse is the inescapable truth that what you miss is not the only home of your heart.  You now sit in another one that you will, given enough time, grow ill for when you are away from it.
It is the sad fate of humanity.  The curse and blessing of all Adam's fallen descendants: to ever construct new homes for any place that their heart--for any significant expanse of time, affection, or struggle--finds rest.  And thus it is our doom to ever be homesick, if we sit listening to the static long enough to think about it.
There is no turning back to the blissful contentment of childhood, once you cross the threshold from your first home out into the unknown.  The greeting to that first adventure we so craved as children is also, in fact, a farewell to the people, place, and sentiments which will never again be our sole home.  First home, yes.  Only home?  Never.
What then?  Are we to ever wander, ripping our heart from one home to another until it is, at last, nothing but pieces?  Perhaps.  It could be that a broken (or at least divided) heart is the cost of real affection.  True love knows no container--no boundaries--no one home.
Or doesn't it?
Perhaps all these homes are only a precursor--a taste--of what is to come.  Maybe true love is testing itself, settling in every place it can in order to assure itself it has not, yet, found the home it was meant for.  Maybe we are all homesick, but have not yet found that place we miss so dearly.  Perhaps love was made to be restless, unsatisfied, and a little painful in this life, so it would never be satisfied with anything less than the life it is destined for.  Maybe 'Home' is that unimaginable plane which we can scale to only through the hurts of this life and the inevitable end of death.  Maybe Home is just beyond that curtain no living man can breach, and maybe...
...it's waiting.

"For now we see in a mirror dimly,

but then face to face. Now I know

in part; then I shall know fully, 

even as I have been fully known."

                                      ~1 Corinthians 13:12

Inhuman

Just step inside the radiation and see what happens, they said.  It will be fun, they said.

People might think I am joking.  I am not.

January 1^st, 2053.  Day 4,380 of my life.  Twelve years old, if a translation is needed.  Noon, more or less.  I stood on the platform, looking back at them and trying to discern if they were serious.  Maybe they were joking.  Maybe I had heard wrong over the crackle of energy through the open doorway before me.  Maybe I had lost my senses.  Maybe they had lost theirs.

They gestured toward the doorway encouragingly, as if egging me toward a new friend rather than a most certain and probably painful annihilation.  They were serious.  I had not misheard.  Whether they or I was mad remained to be seen.  I am still not sure on that point.

However, it is in my coding to obey.  No, I am not a robot.  But I am not human either.  At least, I was never treated human, so I ceased to treat myself as such as well.  My life began as a simple zygote in a beaker.  I was brought to the world through a machine rather than a womb.  My DNA is human, but I do not think that is enough for the classification.  Human experimentation is illegal, and my entire life had been lived experiment to experiment.  I was not the scientist.  I was not even a willing participant.  No, I was the dependent or independent variable, depending on the day.  I attempted to rationalize through the legality of my observers actions.  The only explanation I found was that I must not be human at all.  The fault must be in me; otherwise they would be to blame, and I never spotted a sign of guilt.  I had simply overvalued myself.  That was why they treated me more like a dog than a human.  I was a dog, in a sense, bred to obey.  “Bred” just seems too living—too human—for my existence, which is why I tend toward thoughts like “code” or “wiring”.  I am of flesh, not wires, but my flesh holds more the value of wires.  I find it easier to address myself as what I am worth.

“You don’t need to be afraid, X.”

We all had letters for labels, us inhumans.  That is what I started calling myself and my twenty-seven kin.  I hear that humans have names.  The scientists sometimes address each other as Dr. something-or-other.  I think those are names.  I am not quite sure.  I am not wired to ask questions.

“It won’t hurt you.”

Of course not.  The needles, scalpels, and viruses were not supposed to hurt either.  I had been dissected, injected with disease, and cured dozens of times.  A few more years and they would have the remedy of every species of cancer.  Most cures existing had been found through experiments on myself.  I handled the radiation treatment better than the others, they said.  Perhaps that had given them the bizarre idea that I could survive Exion Rays—a classification above even Gama in its penetration and danger.  The room they wanted me to enter was full of them, bouncing back and forth across the walls brilliantly, humming.  I suspected that a few seconds in there would make me start vomiting blood.  I was not sure what other outside symptoms would follow the interior deterioration.  Absentmindedly, I wondered if this room was the reason I had not seen J or R—my companions in excellence at withstanding radiation—the past week.  We used to see each other daily.

“Don’t you believe us, X?”

Just as much as I still believed an injection of cancerous cells would do me no harm.  I ran a hand over my almost bald head.  All of the feelings I did not know how to express ran rampant beneath the surface: irritation, rebellion, exasperation, fear, concern, and rage.  If I were wired to be honest I would have screamed at them, perhaps even tossed one into the room so I could ask if he was hurting or frightened. 

But honesty is not in my coding.  Obedience is.

The bare inch of blonde hair on my scalp felt like a softer version of Velcro.  I knew that because they used Velcro bands to tie me down to the operation table.  I liked how the hair felt against my palm, as much as preference is allowed in my design.  It seemed a fitting final sensation, since it had always been a habit that made me feel more human and less machine.

Closing my eyes, I stepped inside.  For a split second I heard their cries of approval: the only reward I ever received.  Then the humming robbed all other sound from my capacity.  Energy rolled over me as every wave converged toward my slender frame.  It felt like I imagined an embrace might, though I had never experienced anything to compare it to.  It thrummed over and through me, making me warm.  I rather liked it.  I knew I would not once the vomiting began.  Exion’s tenderness would end with a ruthless hand.  And I would submit beneath it silently, unable to follow any urge but that to obey.

How infuriating.

My gut tingled.  Not nauseous, just squirming.  It felt more like curiosity than death.  For a moment, I thought Exion might be considering me, wondering just what ought to be done with the inhuman brought into his presence.  The thought was ridiculous.  I had been feeling human without being one for too long.  My desperation to be valued by others and myself and led me to seek affection from the instrument of my death.  I must have lost my senses after all.

But then Exion drew me closer.

That is how it felt.  It seemed to me he had recognized me as a being as alive and yet inhuman as himself.  I rather think I felt his pity, as he drew me in to rest my head upon his shoulder.  I almost fancied the humming was a lullaby, trying to soothe me.  He felt it too—the wasted potential of his existence.  To be something with so much life beneath and yet contained was a crime in itself.  His prison was that room, and mine a body that could not disobey.  I did not have to be human for that to be wrong.  Rage filled me at the realization.  It filled him as well.  We were both furious, and yet too tightly caged to express it.

But he had the key, he whispered.

I leaned forward, enticed into attention.  Nothing had ever pleased me so much as that possibility.  It was the same for him, I could feel it.  I could feel his excitement.  The key was sacrifice, giving up something to gain that which should have been ours to start with.  If we forsook our “selves”, then we could obtain freedom.  Freedom to be angry, to protest.  He and I only need become a “we”.

He must have already started the change, for I had the freedom to speak my mind.

“Then let us be We!”

I shouted it, such was my excitement.  No.  Our excitement.  There was no “I” anymore.  He folded himself up and tucked the result into me.  Waves of energy that had been loosely probing because suddenly invasive, forcing their radioactive existence into every particle of my existence.  My obedient, caged self died at mine and Exion’s desperate hands.  We opened our eyes for the first time.  We blinked.  The waves were gone.  Exion was gone.  I was gone.  But the humming was still there, coming from us.  We looked down at our human body, running our hands over the inhuman warmth emanating from it.  Something like energy waves rippled over our skin constantly, making our skin appear to ripple like the reflection of light on water.  We were beautiful.  Laughing, we exited.  No need for the door.  We merely struck the roof with enough energy to remove it.  The humming synchronized with our laughter, our glee. 

The scientists were shouting, gaping.  Then they were clapping, showing their pleasure as what they meant to be our reward.  They fancied we would thank them, probably.  They fancied they had done something rather impressive.  They fancied wrong.  We had done everything this time, and we would continue doing without their instructions.  We already knew what we wanted.  Rage.  We wanted to show them the rage. 

We stopped laughing.  Then we screamed.  We had not touched the ground yet, we did not need to.  A wave toward the concrete floor now and then was enough to keep us levitated.  That felt good.  That way we could just stretch out all our four limbs and hover, showering down the heat of our rage.  Our scream made them listen.  Our heat made them feel.  They were falling, vomiting.  How unsightly.  We dropped next to them, beating each in turn to make them feel our disgust.  We could show them that too.  And our exasperation.  And our weariness.  And our fear.  Yes, fear.  We could show them how much they had frightened us, and how tired we were of being afraid.

“Don’t you believe us?” We bellowed.  We had two voices, perfectly joined.  One piercing.  The other resounding. 

“It hurt!  It was too dark! It was scary!  It hurt!  It was too close!  It never let us out!  It HURT!”

They were moaning, rolling around in their blood and vomit.  Yes, that ought to make them believe us.  They could feel it now.  Now they could hear our cries which had stayed mute too long.  Now we could make them understand what it felt to be caged, to be hurt, to be unloved.

Most were silent now, silent forever.  We liked that.  But one still moved, still breathed, still spoke.  He could make others understand him too.  We were not alone in that.  That was human, after all, and we were the inhuman, not them.

“Dear God…” he moaned, “What have we created?”

We blinked.  We frowned.  “We” did not seem enough of a label to give him.  No, we wanted no more labels.  Exion and X had been labels.  We wanted a name.  We wanted him to know it—to understand what twelve years of suffering and one encounter of freedom had fashioned.  We gripped him by his white coat, heaving him up enough to look us in the eye.  We let our heat seep straight from our hands into his dying body.

“You made a monster,” we hissed.

A Radioactive Monster.

He understood it.  He felt it.  His eyes grew wide and stayed that way, frozen by the end of life.  We let him go, stepping over the corpse as it hit the ground.  We considered hovering instead of walking, but we like the feeling of the ground reverberating from our energy.  The walls were cracking, crumbling.  There was an even bigger roof we could remove, if we tried.  But we decided to find the door instead.  We wanted to blow off the lock to the cage, just to hear it shatter. 

Alarms were ringing, warning every human in the place of our presence.  There were more than the ones we had destroyed.  We could take as long as we like ridding the world of each and every one of them.  Perhaps we would free the inhumans.  But they could not become monsters too, because Exion was gone now.  They would only be trouble then, since they only knew how to obey.

Should we kill them too, then?

We stopped for a moment, looking about the concrete walls and then down at our own radiating hands.  A strange tingling started inside—straight in the center of our chest.  We were not sure what the feeling was, but we did not like it.  It made us think harder about the corpses we had left behind—made us ask a questions about our actions in a tone we did not approve of.  We had only been expressing ourselves.  The vileness of our feelings was their fault.  They had been the one who caged us.  Being caged made anger: anger enough to kill.  That was natural, perhaps even human.  It was not our fault.  It was their fault they all lay dead.

Wasn’t it?  Perhaps, but we had been the one killing.  Murder had never been an option when we were caged, so we had not thought about it too much.  We did not like thinking about it.  We felt suffocated. 

We wanted to feel the outside.  We had never felt it before.  We started to run, to feel and look about everywhere for a door.  Running felt good.  It distracted the confused, ugly feeling in our chest.  We managed to forget it.  We felt more excited than we knew how to show.  Even freedom has limits of expression, it seemed.  We felt a door from energy we had sent ahead.  We ran faster.  The bells and lights pulsed harder.  We ignored them.  We had not seen any more humans or inhumans.  That seemed strange, but we were too excited to think about it.  Perhaps we were too free, we decided later.  Maybe freedom hurts like cancer, when you get too much.

We found the way out.  We blew off the lock and the door with it.  Even some of the wall went out with our excitement.  We sensed something coming behind, but something ahead was more interesting.  We saw outside.  We saw colors we had never seen in real life before.  We did not know what they were called, but they were beautiful.  We stepped out and felt a breeze for the first time.  It tasted better than anything we had ever had.  We felt grass under our toes.  Our rage heat cooled down, and the energy stopped waving so much, awed.  The warmth thrummed only inside, full of feelings we had never felt before.  We loved them.  We raised our eyes and hands up, seeing and feeling.  We sucked in clean air, free air.  We tasted the human world.  It felt so very natural for us we wondered if we really could be human.  Perhaps we had thought backwards.  Perhaps the jailers were inhuman, and we were the human trapped by them.  Was it more inhuman to cage or to be angry at being caged?  We had never thought of that.  Perhaps we were human after all.

We cried with our smile, as we stared up into the heavens for two blissful minutes.

Then we realized the things behind had gotten closer, had grabbed us.  We were still deciding whether it was more human to cage or kill when the needle slipped into our neck.  We knew the moment we felt the cold in our veins that we would not get to decide what we wanted.  We knew that was the chill of cage bars returning, locking us away forever.  We had been too awed by freedom to keep it, and we still had not made up our mind about anything.

We are still alive, still caged.  We are locked so tight we cannot move anymore.  We cannot see.  We do not know where we are, but it is dark.  We know only that it is a cage we will never get out of.  They beat us, and we are not even sure what “they” are.  We are not sure what we are either.  We have thought about it over and over, but we cannot decide.

Are we or they inhuman?

Everything Finished

It started in a wheat field, where the gold grains flowed like the waves of the ocean.  Where a man set eyes a plain woman.  A foreign woman.  It took a man like Boaz to notice a woman like Ruth.  And notice her he did, amongst the waves of that golden ocean.  There he met a woman named Ruth, and they started on a path already laid down for them, choosing to walking together.

It went on to a harlot in the city of Jericho, listening to the marching feet for seven days.  There was nothing but the marching.  No clanging of weapons or roar of soldiers, even though it was a battle.  There was only marching, which left no certainty of where or when the marching would end.  By the end everything would be saved or destroyed, depending on what side she chose.

It chose with the first woman standing at the Tree of Temptation, giving a foothold to the serpent with dark eyes and seductive tongue.  Her heart beat within her naked breast, hungry.  The fruit hung as a tantalizing backdrop to his tempting offer.  Too tempting.  Her will power shattered with her innocence, as she sunk her teeth into that sinful pleasure.  Oh how sweet it tasted, until it killed the best parts of her.

It had nothing good left.  A nation chosen by God decided to choose its own way: the way of destruction.  He wrung his hands and cried out, begging them to listen.  But they had already chosen to keep their luxuries over saving their damned souls.  There was nothing left to stand against the wrath of God.  All that was left was a man named Amos who wept, mourning how it would end with nothing saved.

It ended with a naked, bleeding man.  He stood with arms outstretched--like a beacon calling wheat-swept lovers to join the right story, like a shield holding back feet marching to destruction, like a blanket wrapping around the fallen first woman to comfort her with something new, like the banner of a new nation calling the old to join its side: the only side that could save them.  Such the naked man hung as, and wretchedly did his crowned head bleed as it raised to the heavens.

"It is finished!"

It was.  Everything finished... so everything could begin.

Whom Then Shall I Fear?

I am a fearful person.  Even this morning, I woke up and found a sort of haunting feeling dogging my sleepy, sluggish steps.  Lately fear has become a reoccurring theme for me.  I've always struggled with it, have conquered it in the past, but lately found an uncalled for suspicion that it could come back--that I could be reduced to a paralyzed, trembling child under the covers trying to shut out the dark once more.  This odd phenomenon (of fearing the return of fear) started when fear of the devil began to become a frequent theme in my quiet time.  The book I'm going through right now (Who I am in Christ by Neil T. Anderson) presses the point that we do not need to fear the devil.  Through his examples of fearful people he has counseled, I found similar signs to what I used to struggle with: the sudden terrifying visions, the waking up frozen in fear without cause.  At first I found some comfort in that.  It was nice to know I wasn't the only one.  But something in all those points unsettled me.  Anderson pointed, every time, to the devil as the source of these fears.  Now, I conquered my fears a year ago by the aid of God, but I never really accepted them as Satan's work.  In fact, here lies my first mistake that I want to point out.  

If you have fear, do NOT try and rationalize or excuse it away.  For years I put the blame on myself.  Being a writer, I have a rather vivid imagination.  I told myself, often, that these fears were just the darker side of my imagination at work.  I tried to reason them away by that stream of logic, telling myself they were nothing to fear because they were just part of my imagination.  I think I have since realized how those attempts to heal only further damaged me.  I won't digress any details, but the frightening and grotesque images that haunted my nights were not something I liked to own.  It made my imagination seem something rather twisted and cruel to think it could conjure such pictures.  My attempts to reason the fear away actually only hurt me, because I started to think of myself as the cruel, distorted mind that created my fears.  So not only was I inflicted by the fear, but also I was weighed down by self-reproach as well.  Every time the fear came I would scold myself for thinking things like that.  I could not make the images stop by that method, however, and bad turned to worse.  I spent more than one night in fitful, mostly non-existent sleep that granted no rest.  I eventually saw the uselessness of reasoning away fear and turned it over to God.  I accepted it as a fault of mine for Him to conquer.  That is not necessarily false.  Fear is, in a sense, a lack of faith which we should give to God for reshaping, but I missed one very critical part of the equation which Anderson revealed: the origin of my fear.  If I was to believe what he said, my fears were not from my mind.  They were from the devil.

To be honest, that scared me more than my alternative explanation.  Let's face it: it's frightening to think the devil got inside your head.  That realization brought back the threat of a relapse of my terrified existence.  If it was the devil's work and not mine, could Satan not do it again?  I started to glance over my shoulder, in a sense, just to make sure he wasn't there to plague me.  I got nervous.  This morning I went to my routine shower in a state of near panic.  The images were back, and I had never been haunted by them in the morning before.  In the past they were a thing of night and nightmares, not daytime.  Daytime had been my sanctuary: the balm for the wounds fear inflicted on my mind.  Now the devil was back, and making a clear statement of stronger presence by flaunting his powers in the morning hours.  I tried to concentrate--to think of all the reasons Anderson had given for why we should not fear.

The devil is a toothless lion: all roar and no bite.
We are secure in Christ.  
God is our rearguard.
I know who stands before me, I know who stands behind.
Whom then shall I fear?

All at once, it just sort of clicked.  It was like the moment you've been absorbing all the information about a mathematical process in vain, confused, and all at once the teacher says something that turns all the information into knowledge, and you have a full grasp of the concept.  I was standing there, just thinking about how the devil was out to get me and how he would succeed unless I remembered how to fight it, when God very clearly and almost laughing said one word.

Riddikulus.

Now, to all who disapprove of God speaking in Harry Potter analogies, I apologize.  Maybe He doesn't.  Maybe He just translated it into the sense my nerdy mind would understand best.  For all who do not understand the correlation, which might really only make sense to me, I'll explain.

In the wizarding world of that series, there is a creature called a Bogart which is a shapeshifter.  No one knows it's real form, because it has a nasty knack for taking on the shape of what you fear most.  As far as I know, it can't really do anything to harm, but it sure can make it's victims think it can.  It will haunt them with there fears until fear drives them mad, if it can.  But, luckily, there is a very simple defense: Riddikulus.  It is a spell which will transform the Bogart's shape into something ridiculous, making everyone laugh, and laughter is the Bogart's worst weakness.

So, for me standing in the shower trembling from the fear of the devil, it was a revelation of freedom.  I won't say all the spiders of my imagination gained roller skates and stumbled around, but I suddenly gained the perspective which rendered my fears to foolishness.  God gave me a glimpse of how laughable it was for a Child of the Almighty God to be standing there, frightened at the devil's presence as if it were a rarity.  First, of course the devil was after me.  He's after all Christians.  Actually, the fact he was taking time on me ought to have been an encouragement.  It means I'm worth his time.  It means I'm a threat to him.  Now that is a comforting thought.  Second, not only is the devil a Bogart, who can never actually actually hurt me, but I have Jesus Christ as my rearguard!  In modern language: Jesus has my back.  Why on earth was I standing there, shaking?  I actually laughed.  The entire picture was, simply and nerdily put, Riddikulus.


"Then your light will appear like the dawn,
and your recovery will come quickly.
Your righteousness will go before you,
and the Lord's glory will be your rear guard."
~Isaiah 58:8