365
days have passed with this thought in mind, a theme I cannot escape, and these
thoughts and observations may have been on my heart for much longer, but they
haven’t burned as white hot as they have as of late. As I look to the next few
months I wonder how to make peace knowing I seem too damaged to take in or not
damaged enough? This is the strange enigma that is communicated to those who
stand on the fringes, silently. Perhaps it is done so unknowingly. But in all
humility I can muster, I know I’m not perfect, I know I can be poisonous or
wretched, but I also know I can give and bring life, love, beauty, and I long
for a life that exchanges both, good and bad. In a struggle to find a home, a
place I could retreat, recover from daily work and battles, I have heard the
words in my heart to trust, to risky m fears of humans and their forgetting to
let their yes be yes and their no be no in their lying and selfishness. I heard
the words in my heart to give people a chance, to risk, to make a leap not
knowing if I would land safely, I thought real love cannot exist without trust,
real love cannot exist without humility and full knowledge that we are not
perfect and accepting your neighbor means everything they are.
However the hardest thing for me this past year has been
realizing that as much as I know this a little bit, enough to talk myself down from
rage and hurt it seems like others do not know this at all. We seem to be ready
and willing to burn our neighbor down for their faults, and yet also put others
on a pedestal of marble and gold trim just as easily. So I guess now I am
thinking humility is something that should be an outward as well an inward
expression, and this is what I have meant and felt all the times I have said we
need to treat each other as human, not subhuman creatures who are unworthy of
forgiveness or grace, not superhuman beings who can do no wrong, who know all
and do all perfectly, flawlessly. This seems like common knowledge, but is it
common practice? I ask over the past few months how many times did you put
someone down for their opinion over the drama of Ferguson? How many times did
you praise and exalt someone for the same issue? How many times did you say
someone is a lost cause or someone is so amazing, and wonderful without
weighting out the depth of your words?
Aright, I guess here’s where I will draw this closer to
home, this is where I’m aiming at, I am a damaged person, who fears commitment
and very much cannot commit even when there is a deep and fervent will. No when
there is a will there is not always a way. Last year I left one community of
support in my faith feeling God pushing me away from there for many reasons,
and fully content to do so, to be honest, it was because I felt alone, forgotten
and overlooked, yet soberly knowing in my heart this is something I will
potentially battle my entire life. My soul has scars, deep ones that I have
trusted to God’s hand to heal and I He told me I needed to trust others in
order for Him to do the work. Because many of my hurts involved people, some
who followed Him some who did not, as much as I wanted to write off the world
it’s a deep conviction in my heart that saying “let the world burn” is the
opposite of love, and since God is love I would be writing Him out of my life
as well, a sacrifice I am not willing to make. In obedience I started looking
for another home, another community to have a network, a resting place, and a
place I could draw close to others and know them, love them, fearing what we
all probably fear they would see my scars and never look back, knowing I have
potential to do the same to them. Though it wasn’t hard to find a place I
wanted to be rooted at all. In reality I found two, very fertile soiled communities
who had beautiful dynamics, and who were both wonderful and warming, welcoming
that is until I realized they were physically out of my reach.
As I wrote before, you may or may not have read it; I have experienced
a draw bridge when it comes to relationships. This is because I can easily travel
to where I need to go (work and home etc.) but I cannot easily travel to where
I want to go. As much as I wanted to plant my roots and soak up the sun in
either of these communities and their hearty (yet imperfect soil) they are far
from me. Week after week, month after month, I had to fight, beg, cry, and pray
for a physical connection to them, and though once in their presence my heart,
mind and soul felt connected I always had to go back, and face the isolation
again until the next battle of travel. The main reason I stayed in a community
that I had outgrown was because I could be self-reliant and trust my own two feet
to get where I needed to go, it was close, we met within a mile of my dwelling
place, and I could comfortably hide my fears, and be dutiful and diligent and
forget my hearts desires, while I was there, all the while feeling like a liar,
a hypocrite, and a shadow of myself. I knew no one really knew me, but it was
such a large and congested community it didn’t matter. It was easy to wear a
mask, even when I wanted to encourage others not to do likewise.
That is where I have been for the last year, being called
out by God to stop wearing a mask and be known, for whom He made me, the woman
He has shaped with the beautiful life He has given me as I lived out every
step. This time away from people has been one of nostalgia and the longing in
my heart for true connection, a real exchange of good and bad with other humans
has grown ever more ardent and fierce. It is easy to slip through the cracks
when there is no one watching, when there are plenty of folks to stand in the
spot light and take charge. It is easy to skirt by and live alone while saying
to oneself you are not alone, but I have never been the type of person who
agreed to skittish friendships and superficial encounters and call them real
and true. Do I think we can have deep and real friendships with everyone we
come across, maybe, should we probably not, we all have those who are easier to
connect with, but I bring this to mind, as I spent a few years where God gave
me a handful of people to care for and watch over, as a friend said to me a few
weeks ago, love is a choice. She was speaking of romantic love, but I will
argue that we choose to love everyone we love in our lives.
We can choose to love or not love our parents, children,
siblings, friends and strangers. Some may say love of our families comes
natural, because we are blood related we have ties that are unable to be
severed, okay, but if they hurt you do you forgive them as you would anyone
else who hurts you? I know I have been more sever in withholding forgiveness
from my family, and finally I had to ask myself why? Why were those hurts so
close to my heart? I expected unconditional love, and therefore thought that
meant no mistakes, no errors, no humanity… Isn’t that what we grow up learning
about love? That it is perfect, selfless, kind, patient I can’t quote, but most
of you know the definition, this is what we expect about love, and when we are
hurt by those we love a lot of times we choose to not love. Thus I feel it is
the same with others who are not our family we must choose to love them,
forgive them, sacrifice ourselves for them, smash down our selfishness and
pride, so as I realized I would never commit to somewhere I could hide, and
somewhere I could fain reality and in my heart I knew they would never love me
for the same reasons, because I was not a whole person there, I left that
community. The trouble is, however, I find myself to be unlovable, because of
my life and my situation, and in my heart of hearts I feel like that isn’t the
case, that I was made to be loved, and love others, but somewhere in the
idealism I live, and the reality I endure, these two don’t connect.
I see a community at large that treats others as projects,
business ventures, commodities, even as they fight for those who are in need to
not have this oppression, I feel we are all trapped in a system that only knows
this way of functioning. Our lives consist of decisions that weigh the
favorable and the unfavorable, that look at the outcome of our choices and how
they affect our comfort, our functionality, our ease. As much as I was told,
and wanted to trust, that I could have a way to reach over the void, that the
bridge would be let down so I could cross from this desolate island to a world
rich in opportunities and support. The doors closed in my face over and over
again, and quite frankly it hurt. The idea that I was not needy enough came to
mind, as I saw others have a way to cross over, as I saw others receive a love
offering of sacrifice (though I know not the toil on the part of the receiving
end) and the thought that I was not enough came to mind as I saw that I was
always taking, always asking, always feeling like a beggar and pleader, and
this was more than pride that hurt. It wasn’t about how humiliating it is to
ask and ask and ask and ask for a ride, it was how I have nothing to offer in
return. “Why would they want me around?” I asked. Is that true? Maybe, maybe
not, should is matter in a community based on love? No, but I wasn’t even
around enough to communicate this hurt, or fear because I can’t trust what I
don’t know, and that was probably my biggest error, but I was also never sought
out.
It has been months since I have visited either community,
and no effort has been made to ask why. Maybe there is hear say, because I don’t
live in a vacuum, but can I really trust that, can I really think they know
what darkness I face unless they are asking? No, I cannot. Just as I see a good
friend of mine live her days and nights in a lonely struggle for basic food and
shelter I cannot even invite her to a home to rest her weary soul because I don’t
have one myself and even if I did, I cannot promise to not put her through the
same pain I live in fighting to find a way there. Moreover I am a practical
person (sometimes) and as much as some have advised I just take the matters
into my own hands and make my own community to call home I am in no way mature
enough or supported enough or ready to do such a thing. I don’t even know what
a real community should look like, why would I want to start one? Honestly I’ve
seen the results of someone who was left to fend for herself doing such a
thing, and as her heart is in ashes and I, with her, am blotting out the cinders
that are still glowing because of it I wonder if anyone noticed how she was
sent to build a palace with a deck of cards, or how she was thrown out of a
nest as a hatch-ling.
Even still I believe the hearts of these communities are
genuine, I wouldn’t want to be with them if it was otherwise, but their actions
communicate the opposite of what their hearts may actually be, and I wish this
were not the case. I was scared to write any of this because in pride did not
want to make it a “cry for help.” I did not want to bring it to attention and
then be the only thing that brought a scale off the eyes of another, yet
something in me knows that unless truth is told we die, we cannot forgive, we
cannot grow, we cannot reconcile. I hate the thought of anyone being wasteful
for my case, what is easy and what is logical seems right, it seems obvious,
but sometimes I ask, was dying for the sins of a whole race of people who did
not deserve pardon just so they could be loved unhindered easy? Sometimes those
of us who are stuck in a desolate land just want a helping hand, because I am
too weak to help myself, because I am not privileged enough to be fearless and
trusting or bold. I even hurt someone dear and close to my heart this week because
of all the hurts and fears that come with my simply asking for a ride, and they
might or might not know it, but I know I hurt them in my heart, and that to me
is enough. As I age another year today my wish is to be able to love another
wholly, to be given that chance by being loved enough to be sought out, and
that may not happen, but I am leaving my heart open and risking to hope and
maybe hurt again even though I was ready to write off the world a few days ago, and I hope we can grow together away from a world that is all business and closer to a world that is love, forgiveness and grace.
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