Sacrifice

Maxine stood in the gas station and tapped the carton of cigarettes. There were three left. Without thinking too hard she pulled out one of them and lit it. She had smoked her entire life. At least she didn’t remember a time without these long pale friends.

The mood was not happy. After this pack was done there could be no more.

Her daughter had screamed at her, “If you never smoked again, we would all be better off.” There was a basement full, a shaft full, of people who would be better off.

The street rippled before her as she walked. She chanted, “light, last cigarette/ last light cigarette/ last light ever cigarette.”

On the ground in the gutter under the window behind the warehouse lay a little black shriveled thing on its back. Something had to die.

The Return

In time everything that is hidden will be revealed.
(Paraphrase, Mat. 4:22 or Luke 8:17)

So, I don’t think you noticed but I’ve gotta tell you that, for the past three weeks or so I’ve been kind of deranged. It’s bad. I’m still deranged but I’m now publicly acknowledging my condition which is the first step to recovery.

What I mean to say is that, the pressures of living in a construction site, running a show, dealing with leaking fluids from my truck, and realizing that I need to get my glasses updated, oh right, and thinking I might need to take classes or something because really I should get a day job; it’s all adding up. Honestly, I’m not handling it the way I “should” partly because I’m disillusioned with the concept of should, or at least I’m more disillusioned than not.

The thing that disturbs me is the anger. The anger is there and I don’t know why anymore.

If I dig down to the root of this disturbance I think I see the old identity crisis that began when I was five and had to define myself to other people for the first time. Things would be so much better if I didn’t have to explain myself and I could do whatever just because it’s the kind of thing I do. Well, at least that’s part A of the crisis.

The other part is my own inexperience. Yeah, I’m kinda socially dumb. So that leads to painful situations for me and other people. I avoided conflict at all cost when I was a kid because it was too much for me to handle. I didn’t have a vocabulary for it. Though I avoided it, the conflicts still happened. People were the primary source of conflict so I stayed away from them. Um, that wasn’t the best solution but what did I know? I couldn’t think of anything better.

Spending a lot of time alone isn’t bad, I guess, but to the extent that I did it wasn’t terribly healthy. The battle in my mind was fierce. Really the thought battles are the most damaging. I thought that if I stayed away from people I would never feel pain not realizing that if I stayed away from people I wouldn’t be comforted either and that is a sort of dull pain. There’s a saying, I think it’s Russian or something, “I hurt, I must be alive.” It tells the truth. When I stop listening to the lie that life should be free of pain and take an, “oh well” attitude toward it I can be very entertaining and that is positive. That lessens the burden of living in this world.

However, being entertaining to mask pain, though a classic coping strategy, doesn’t work forever at some point it becomes annoying. I think that’s why it’s harder to succeed in comedy. The line between hilarious and annoying is extremely thin.

Anyway, I didn’t expect to say so much in this sitting and I sort of forgot the point. So, yeah.

Not Really the one Under Attack

After much thought and being caught without words, though I know what I ought to say, I sit to write this. It’s the only way I can think of to clearly say what I feel losing as little meaning as possible. In my experience when something is written the reader takes time to understand it but when it’s spoken it slips away.

Many times below deck Dark Star has asked me how I stay calm despite the chaos and anger. I have never given her a complete answer because it isn’t one secret thing that can be told in a sentence or it is but it takes forever to explain. Honestly, I don’t handle it. That is my secret. Someone else handles it.

I’m free to let the darts go because I’m not really the one under attack. They are miserable and lash out in a feral manor because they are wounded not because we did or said anything. I can see how hard it is to be immersed in their environment clearly seeing the damage but unable to do anything to stop it.

Harmony is a better place to live.

Acknowledging the limited role we can play in this scene is essential to surviving it. Learning our own faults and humbly asking for forgiveness is the first step toward harmony. Not holding the attacks in but letting them free in acts of kindness and mindfulness are ways we avoid being deeply wounded ourselves. By abdicating the burden to someone else and refusing to be ruled by feelings I no longer live in the hating place. It is Christ in me who is wounded and acts.

You can experience this too but the training is brutal. Life will never be simple but you will come to do and survive more than you thought possible because the burden will not be yours.

The problem I have with Vanity is that I don’t know how to be kind to her. The rest of you are more transparent to me. I know what attentions I need to pay to you. But she is isolated in a mind foreign to me; that I’ve been slow to figure out. Clearly, if this ship is to cruise forever, I must learn what kindness is to her.

It’s occurred to me that Smurfet stopped enjoying work around the time Vanity came. Watching that dynamic, their mutual jealousy, is sickening. That is the worst relationship in the room. My prescription would be for one to shut up and listen and the other to fight for herself. But these are things out of my control.

When the crisis comes I pray that I can speak my mind in love. I want to be the first on the scene. I don’t think Mother Bear understands the conflict in the same light that I do and it would be very different to have me yelling instead of her. We’re sort of used to that.

Sleep well friends I’ll see you on the morrow.

Rasing Sun

Now is a sensitive time. A Brother of mine has been called up to higher duty. My personal contact with him was limited but I know his work and it was good. The summon was sudden. No time to pack. The assignment keeps him from coming our way again.

I have not lost hope. I do not ask you to stop your petitions.

The grater miracle than his return would be our letting go and allowing the Light and Love he represents live vivid in our own selves. There will never be another Sunday we live through without knowing it's not a thing or a measure of time but a person who dances in the light of new rising.

Why cling to a body? In letting go the spirit can rise if we let it. My hope is in seeing him again in the fullness of the final healing. That will be the most glorious dance of all. I'm impatient for it.

Boundry Stone

You shouldn't be so tightly ruled by your emotions. It's not that I don't care it's just I could never care enough to satisfy you. I does the work a disservice to put your own sense of entitlement and wounded pride first. to diffuse your wound you would wound me. Wasting time on a vendetta that in the end ruins more than it can heal. It may shock you to learn that your emotions mean very little to me. I'm not cold hearted but I also know that I'm not responsible for your anxiety. What you find mean in me is seen by everyone else in a different light.

deep experiment

What if the Pope converted to Islam?