4/21/22
(To learn who Great Guy is, please use the ‘Cast Of Characters’ tab on the home page.)
Good Day Good Person,
How is your week going? Were there times – hopefully the vast majority of them – (or even a moment) when you knew you were ok?
Have you ever been fired from a volunteer job?
I can now add that to my ever expanding list of life experiences. Don’t really have the time to get into the details right now but what I’m learning is, I won’t let that (nor the person who did it) nor everything else I’m dealing with lately, steal the determination that I am a good person who has a positive purpose in life.
I’ve also had a helluva (literally) memory come up that’s still being processed. I think it’s in direct response to the question I’ve been repeatedly asking God, and/or my own psyche for quite sometime now: Why is it, after all the breakthroughs and victories and work I’ve been doing to heal, do I still have such a problem with trust? Especially with Great Guy, and all good men, really.
That’s probably what the next post will be about.
In the post dated 4/5/22, “Learning What Love Is Part II” I wrote about sending letters out to a few people who either caused some of the later childhood abuse, or were effected by how I handled it when I got into recovery to heal from all of it. I’ve received a personal response from one each of both those camps. Still working through what I’m learning, how to proceed from here. That, too, will come up again soon.
But right now I’m supposed to be working on a talk I’ll be ‘practicing’ in a couple of days for a few people who will critique it (kindly)(I hope!) to prepare me to give it in a month for a retreat I’ll be helping out at.
So, in order to get back to that I’m going to ‘resurrect’ one of the earliest poems that was posted to this blog. It’s titled “Resurrection”. It’s one of those that when I started writing it I thought it was just going to be about the pain and confusion I was feeling at that time. (It was written quite a few years ago, right after I got into recovery.)
It ended up morphing into what I consider to be a promise from God. The first part is about the pain, the middle part turned into a ‘forecast’ (or so it seems) of the road I would be (metaphorically) taking to heal, then that last part would be the promise that says if I (imperfectly) stayed the course then I will eventually experience my own resurrection of heart, being to give and receive love, and live life, to the fullest.
I really believe I’m making significant progress towards that promise lately. Hallelujah!!!!
Resurrection
Oppression -
like a malevolent lover,
settles back around me.
It’s darkness wraps me up, insinuating itself into my limbs.
It slides itself inside of me to release it’s poisons and acids,
and I feel it within me, filling up all the available spaces.
After years of this affair the acids gnaw at my insides,
reducing my heart and soul to slowly burning embers;
fires of passion are quickly smothered by his tired listless demands blanketing my psyche.
Somehow, I realize how this relationship has taken me over, made me so codependent on this
emptiness, aloneness.
I try to look outside of our embrace for a spark,
something, anything, to show me there’s more to this life,
like - maybe? - hope
I look to the left and then to the right
but all I see are darkened hallways with no exits.
Finally, I look up and see pinpricks of light, but they’re so far away;
and for one brief moment of giddiness I ask someone - I think they call Him God -
to show me the hope, the possibilities behind each star.
But before He could answer me my jealous lover was calling me back.
explaining to me how much work it would take to get to my star.
So, with the energy he requires of me, I lay back and let oppression take me, down,
where he wants me.
I’m his obsession, he’s my one possession;
we melt together again, as one.
It’s not the same, I feel restless, uneasy. I let him pull me back into his embrace, but he’s stifling
me. He asks me, “Why? We’ve always had such a comfortable relationship.
Why can’t you be satisfied with what we have? What makes you think you deserve anything
more?”
I can’t come up with an answer, so I glance up and see those points of light,
which are now dots, a little bigger and brighter.
I pull way from his grasp, his wearying heat, his familiarity, and I look around;
I feel cool air from a breeze that originates from the Lights, but it’s a new sensation
so it frightens me, sends me scurrying back to my old stagnant shelter.
I hear Someone whisper my name,
trying to ease me from my master’s clasp once again.
With oppression’s hand on my shoulder, I take a few steps away from him
and see the radiating dots are closer, more inviting.
With darkness clinging to me, I head towards the light
and for a while I dance between them,
The Illumination with no definition and the darkness, all I’ve ever really known.
I eventually realize the Light and dark are playing havoc with my embers;
the Light fans them into flames with it’s breeze,
and the darkness suffocates them with it’s heavy, sweltering air.
So, I must make a choice; fear claws at me to keep me where it wants me while
The Breeze and Illumination beckon to me,
and I choose the path They show me.
It’s a constant struggle at first - especially when my old ‘lover’ tries to taunt me back;
I feel obliged to acknowledge his existence for it would be rude not to,
we’ve been such intimate acquaintances for so long.
I try to look back less and less though,
because I now realize how much I let him despise me,
and I am no longer comfortable with that knowledge.
The exertion of the climb resurrects my heart out of it’s embers,
and my heart, in turn, jumpstarts my soul,
this ignites a flame I will never allow to be extinguished again.
I do my best to keep looking up towards the biggest Star.
It keeps getting bigger and brighter, but never blinding.
As I keep my eyes focused on it,
I see an image taking shape in the center of it.
Instead of turning away as ignorance and fear may have once dictated,
I am stumbling towards it.
My crippling fears are being whisked away by the Breeze
and I am able to walk straighter towards The Radiance,
and the sweet Voice that is gently calling to me.
As I am getting closer I finally, fully realize the image in my Light
is of an entity I’ve heard of, a Being called ‘Jesus’.
I think I’ll call him ‘Savior’.
Thank You my Savior. AMEN!
c. 2019
