I sit here this evening, my life a shambles. Everything has been torn up and shredded. Betrayal by those closest to me, best intentions of mine treated like I had used nuclear weapons, my invocation to “trust me” falling on deaf ears.
Some of you think I use hyperbole. I only wish I did. I had intended to start my new season of blogging by being totally frank, even with the naming of names as appropriate, but this story cuts so close that I don’t think I could name names even as dark and frank as I intended to be. So more of my old self still exists than I had expected (one score for you, Jordan, you are right and I was wrong, or at least you are partially right).
But when one’s best friend chooses to believe the worst of you, taking the words of another person, instead of taking your own assurances that the other person had totally misunderstood your intentions, which leads to the same best friend convincing your spouse to call the police on you — because she trusts the best friend because you trusted the best friend, life has taken a topsy turvy that is way beyond Alice Through the Looking Glass.
When all this forces you to extremes that are then further misunderstood, those who best loved me tore my life and fabric apart in their attempt to save it, in fear I might otherwise tear apart the bones and sinews of others.
I had counseled that best friend, who had confided in me of a time in his life where he had contemplated ending it all if nothing came to rescue him within a certain dayspan. That something did, a friend of mine who introduced me to my best friend. When I learned that story, I told him the one about a relative of mine who had tried to end it all, feeling useless and that others would be better off without him. My relative fortunately did not succeed, nor did he give himself crippling injury. But I shared to my friend that it is NEVER better for those left behind, no matter what you might think, and to NEVER contemplate that move as a serious thing again.
But I did contemplate it, on my most fateful day. Oh, I spoke of the potentials, and hypotheticals, to realize how easy such things are to talk and say, and how such words can become powerful. But they were said only to form my totally repudiation of such ideas and tactics. And once again people did not hear, nor understand, nor trust.
And so because people let their fears fuel them, and I let my intensity to impart the truth escalate the volume of the dialogue to be heard above the yelling and fury of others, They broke with me into the echo chamber of their own fears, instead of the clarity of Holmsian Logic. My attempts to bring it back to physical reality drove them to fully break with me, and I almost ended up two states away in exile, or a police holding cell.
Now I am back home, the events of the previous day enforcing a certain prison, a certain straight jacket of movements, the metaphorical shambles of my life all around me. All the plans I had for progress, all the motivation for success, have been robbed from my psyche. I find myself seemingly aimless and alone, surrounded by those who care most for me, yet for the moment who seem to understand me the least.
And yet I turn to Scribbling in the Sand …
Amidst a mob of madmen
She stood frightened and alone
As hate filled voices hissed at him
That she should now be stoned
But in the air around him
Hung a vast and wordless love
Who knows what luminous lesson
He was in the middle of
At first he faced the fury
Of their self righteous scorn
But then he stooped and at once became
The calm eye of the storm
It was his wordless answer
To their dark and cruel demand
The lifetime in a moment
As he scribbled in the sand
It was silence it was music
It was art it was absurd
He stooped and shouted volumes
Without saying a single word
The same finger
Of the strong hand
That had written ten commands
For now was simply scribbling in the sand
Within the space of space and time
He scribbled in the sand
They cam e to hear and see as much
As they could understand
Now bound by cords of kindness
They couldn’t cast a single stone
And Jesus and the women found that they were all alone
It was silence it was music
It was art it was absurd
He stooped and shouted volumes
Without saying a single word
The same finger
Of the strong hand
That had written ten commands
For now was simply scribbling in the sand
Could that same finger come
And trace my souls sacred sand
And make some unexpected space
Where I could understand
That my own condemnation pierced
And broke that gentle hand
That scratched the words I’ll never know
Written in the sand
It was silence it was music
It was art it was absurd
He stooped and shouted volumes
Without saying a single word
The same finger
Of the strong hand
That had written ten commands
For now was simply scribbling in the sand
The same finger
Of the strong hand
That had written ten commands
For now was simply scribbling in the sand
I was attempting to shout volumes, and I had failed, but in the silence, I am finding the art and beauty and creation of life anew. Hope never dies when one is with the one who Scribbles in the Sand. Hubris unending not in me but in the absurd Word.
At The Rainbow 