I mentioned in other posts that I’m trying to get to know myself a wee bit better. Emotions; passions; the hidden bits and pieces that we human folks work so hard to keep locked up. I don’t know why this has become something of a necessary project with me. Perhaps, the effort of keeping the beasties at bay is just becoming to tiring for me.
We all do it. It’s nothing new. Bill Shakespeare wrote in the play As You Like It, “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players…” If we’re honest with ourselves, we KNOW that’s absolutely true.
The ancient Greeks used masks in their dramas to indicate, not only who the character was, but also what kind of character it was.
We still do this today.
As I sat this morning in prayer, I talked to Yahweh about this. I said, “This is me.” Then, quoting the great sage Popeye, I told God, “I am what I am, and that’s all that I am.” Then, I told God, “It’s Yours. All the darkness and the beasties that are within.”
Now, such confession is well-known in Churchy circles. Folks beat their breasts and cry out to the Void, “O, Lord! I am a Sinner! Please forgive me and take my life for Your Glory!” Or, something like that.
These folks then get to make some new masks. Masks of piety and righteousness. Masks that allow them to communicate spiritual-sounding platitudes while concealing the reality.
The Beasties still live.
But, the masks allow us to appear as something we really aren’t. We can say, “It’s not about the money at all. It’s about the Ministry!“ Or, “God gave me this book so that He can use it for His Glory!” (Whatever that really means.) I could go on and on and on, ad nauseum. But, I’m sure that you get the point.
We are, for the most part, False.
Let that sink in for a moment.
In virtually all of our social dealings, we put on personas that we think will fool those around us and portray as as ‘good’ and ‘virtuous.’ Hell, no one want to appear in negative light! It’s human nature!
And, it keeps the peace and allows us to actually interact with one another without strangling each other. So, masks do serve a social purpose, I guess.
Where the real rub lies, though, is when we actually start to believe that what the masks portray is the true reality.
I’m not a selfish S.O.B.! Look, I deny my own needs every single day! I am “Altruistic Man”! Yippee!
Not only do we delude ourselves, we try to delude God.
(Spoiler Alert: God’s not fooled.)
Yet, we continue to think that if God just gives us an injection of Holy Spirit we will, in fact, become that other person. We believe that somewhere deep down inside there really is a Divine spark that will transform us into a person saturated with and dripping with Godly virtue.
Not happening, is it?
I mean, when we take off the mask we’re still ourselves. Aren’t we? We’re still selfish and carnal and angry and, and, and…
We are not going to become anything that we have not always been.
Human.
And, that’s OK!
God never asked us to become “Virtue Person,” or “Spiritual Person.”
We are asked to be honest. With ourselves. With others. With God. Because, God loves us as we are. Dirt under our fingernails and everything. We have no reason to hide. No need to be anything other than who we are. Period.
Maybe, we should all just sit back and get to know ourselves. To accept and love ourselves.
Part of me wishes that we had never met. The rational “get your head in the real world” part. That voice that speaks with a shaking head and wagging finger, “I told you to mind your own business! This is a bad idea!”
But, of course I didn’t listen. I never do.
They say that the heart wants what the heart wants. (Whoever ‘They’ are.)
Now, I have seen fields of green grass speckled with White and Purple flowers. I’ve inhaled deeply of the fragrances that waft about after the morning dew Has slaked the thirst of the plant spirits; Yarrow…Comfrey.
Sol, rising to His strength, warms me and illuminates my path. Pollen, floating, infuses the air with the sweet taste of Honeysuckle.
Now, I Know things. Your face, your hair, the shape of your eyes, Etched indelibly into the deep crevasses of my mind. Written into the very fabric of my soul.
How, then, is it possible to Unknow? Can I Unkown me? Is it conceivable that I could Unknow love?
No.
Would that I had voice to sing you to the stars! My tongue would form the words of praise to our Love So that all in the Cosmos could see and hear And Share, together with us, this Gift Given
I promised myself that I was going to take time this weekend to reflect; to write. Oh, well, maybe next week.
A little over a week ago I was at a memorial for one of my aunts. She walked on last February after a long life ‘being Joan.’ At the memorial I had the privilege of sharing a prayer. That gave me opportunity to think about Joan, (Pronounced: Jo-ANN), and how she influenced me. I promised myself that I wouldn’t get all verklempt and teary-eyed. Of course, that didn’t work out very well. During the time we were all gathered, remembering, cousins catching up, grandkids wandering around, I stood and watched. The wife of one of my cousins came up and said, “You’re just taking all of this in, aren’t you?” Yeah, I guess that I was. We never gather as family anymore. Unless, it’s to bury someone.
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of taking apart a golf ball, then you may understand a little of how I felt. A golf ball, at least they used to be, was nothing but a loooonnnnggg rubber band wound tightly around some core. This is then covered with a tough rubber coating with dimples. Dimples? Really? They couldn’t come up with a better description? Anyway, after the cover is removed you can begin to pull off bits of rubber band. Eventually, you get to a point where the band begins to unravel itself. All of that pent-up potential energy lets go and the ball takes on a life of its own. It’s driven to unravel until the hidden core is revealed. That’s kind of how I felt. Emotional tension. Potential energy awaiting release. Tight. Ready to explode with all of my emotional guts unraveling on the floor.
I’ve been waiting, now, for more than a week to try and decompress. To somehow release that energy in some kind of constructive way. Some kind of, maybe, life-giving way. But, like so many other things, life sometimes just gets in the way.
All that to say, I am still waiting to pull on that last piece of the rubber band. To release the tension that is built up in my gut.
But, not today.
Perhaps I’ll think about it tomorrow. Because as Scarlette O’Hara said, “After all, tomorrow is another day!”
There is a myth that states that people only use about 10% of their mental resources. That idea has fueled many science fiction books and movies. I’m reminded of an old episode of the Outer Limits where David McCallum was the subject of an experiment. In the episode human evolution was sped up. He developed enhanced mental abilities. We all knew that because his head grew larger to accommodate the increased brain mass.
Even though the myth about brain usage persists, I think that many of us do have a piece of us that is woefully underutilized. And, I think that this deficiency is a tragedy.
Human Potential.
Yep. Simple.
Let me share a little of what I mean using myself as an example. Note: I’m not saying that everyone falls into this. But, it certainly is common.
I am what some folks would call a “Creative.” I guess that means that I have an artistic side that hangs over my belt, or something. One person I knew would refer to those like me as ‘sensitive musicians.’ He used that as a pejorative. In fact, people who aren’t artists or musicians or writers or whatever do tend to hold us up to some degree of ridicule. (Actually, I think they fear us. But, that’s another story.) Believe me, we are acutely aware of the criticisms aimed at us. For some reason we are especially susceptible to these critiques. So, many times when presented with the option of living inside of our imaginations where we build worlds and launch symphonies or keeping some sort of peace with normal people, we simply acquiesce and do nothing.
Lost potential.
There are other times when our minds are so full that our heads and hearts feel like they’re going to explode. But, so many times we’re just not allowed to open the tap and let the pressure out. Eventually, the effects of stuffing our creativity turns us into mannequins. We’re not much good for anything except gathering dust and hanging clothes on.
Again, potential…Poof!
In my case, I get to come home every night and plop my skinny butt into a chair and watch television. Now, that doesn’t sound like a terrible thing, right? I work all day and some think that it’s a nice thing to get home and chillax. You know, unwind after a long day and all of that stuff. The problem is that I really hate the television. It can pretty much turn into a mind-numbing activity that I’m pretty sure was invented by aliens to lull us into a comfortable stupor so that they could show up and take over the world. But, I take part in this daily exercise in futility for one reason. To keep the peace. Like so many other creatives, we don’t do well with conflict. I avoid it like the plague. But, at what cost? Well, there’s the obvious cost of my own piece of mind and happiness. There may be a larger cost that no one ever really considers.
The loss to societies and cultures.
What do you think the world would look like if Michelangelo had given into critics? “Sorry, Pope Julius, it’s not a good time for me. Too many demands on my time. After all, I have to watch the water in the river flow past. Nothing better than that.”
What would I do if given the chance? Write? Make music? Think? All of these? No, these things don’t look like they would produce a lot. Is the loss of these things worth the cost of keeping the peace?
I don’t know.
I guess we’ll never know. I have to watch the news now.
Which Stars in the Heavens are the ones who have Crossed us? They set the boundaries of our hearts before we could even smile at one another.
And, what a smile You have!
Your eyes glow from an unseen internal fire that blazes forth Threatening to consume my heart.
Yet, it is not to be. The Heavens have spoken, “No love for You!” they say while rolling around laughing. “How presumptuous of those mere mortals! They actually thought that their lives matter! Ha! We’ll show them that their loves are worth less than the stardust that created them.”
A Bard once wrote: But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.
Such love must be allowed to transcend th’ eternal dictates of the Heavens!
“Aye! Ya canna go there,” the grizzled, old mariner said. “Ya sail west you’ll find beasties that’ll eet ya!”
We smile when we read about the myth of the flat Earth with monsters at the edge awaiting some hapless ship. How quaint and, well, ignorant.
It’s kind of interesting that we tend to mythologize things that we are ignorant about. I read that there were actually people in the early days of space exploration who wondered whether or not we would actually find Heaven.
Until we explore, the unknown can become a larger-than-life Beastie waiting to consume and destroy.
The unknown doesn’t need to be “somewhere out there”; over the rainbow. It can hide deep within. Somewhere in the dark crevasses of our heart there linger creatures with sharp, knife-like teeth and 6″ claws waiting to rip us apart and discard our hearts like so much refuse.
At least, that’s what it can feel like.
Emotions and passions steam and roil like liquid in a witch’s cauldron. “Eye of newt, tongue of bat, and a drop of virgin’s blood.” Ha ha ha!!!
What would happen, though, if we actually set our rudder Inward? Rather than searching the heavens or travelling to the edge of the world to find truth, we set a course for the deepest recesses of our own heart? Would we find beasties there just waiting to rip us apart? Would we find some kind of Heaven with angelic choruses singing Beethoven?
Or, would we find a light? Gentle as a child who needs to be held and honored and cherished? Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not advocating for that ‘Inner Child,’ New Age stuff. But, I am calling for an interior reckoning that so few of us undertake.
My own recent experiences with emotional upheaval, (more like 9.2 quake followed by 50 ft. tsunami), bears some of this out. I am beginning to understand that as much as I really need a person in whom I can confide and share my thoughts and feelings with, I am also required to do the hard and necessary interior explorations.
Yeah, there may be beasties in there. I need to confront those and deal with them. But, who knows? Maybe in the end I’ll find the lurking dragons more like “Puff” than Godzilla.
On Saturday we went to a small town in North Central Ohio. We went there in order to celebrate the life of one my aunts who passed late last winter. It seems that the only time we all get together anymore is when someone ‘walks on.’
I hope to share some of my reflections on this gathering later this week. Today, however, I want to touch on just one point of being “Family.”
We wanted our side of the family to all be present for this. It would be good for everyone to touch base. However, my son had to work. So, we picked up his wife and our grandson and headed southwest.
This would be the first time our grandson had met most of these folks. We’re not exactly active when it comes to keeping up.
As we were driving, he became a bit impatient because it takes about an hour and a half to get to the place. And, he’s not used to sitting still in a car for that long. Plus, I think he may have been just a tad nervous about what was going to happen.
We drove past old, rusted hulks of cars and farm equipment, falling down barns, and acre after acre of soy bean and oats ripening in the Autumn sun. After a while his Mother asked if he would like to live out here. “No,” he replied, “there’s nothing to do.” Yep, the response you’d expect from a 9 yr. old from the city.
When we arrived the room was filling up with a lot of people. My Aunt and Uncle’s family is well-known in this tiny burg out in the middle of nowhere.
We greeted everyone and began to rekindle long smoldering relationships and introducing our grandson. Soon, he was sitting quietly with his mother playing something on his phone.
Now, I was a bit concerned that he would become bored and restless and start getting antsy. But, he remained calm for the duration of the celebration.
After, we all went to one of my cousin’s home to continue catching up. My cousin’s home is on a small lake where he keeps a boat. Some of the other kids were down by the water fishing and hanging out. So, I asked him if he’d like to go down and have look.
We walked down to the dock where the boat was tied up. He got aboard and steadied himself on the gently rolling deck. He got to watch some of the kids reel in a few fish. He helped them keep track of their bait and, pretty much, observe. This was a completely new experience for him.
Soon, my cousin decided to take some of the kids out on the boat so they could do some tubing. My wife went and took our grandson with her. They watched as all of the kids took their turn being dragged across the surface of the water, bouncing and swerving over the wake. Soon, all of the kids had a turn except for our grandson. He has no experience being in the water like that. When the other kids started to say that it was his turn, my wife said that he looked like a deer caught in headlights. My cousin noticed and said, “It’s ok. Maybe next time.” They returned to shore.
Soon after I noticed him out in the large yard playing games with some of the other kids. Pretty amazing how kids just sort of ‘get it’ when it comes to playing together.
When it was finally time to leave, we said our goodbyes and started the trip home. It had been a long day for all of us and we were quite ready to get home to rest.
As we were driving he said, “I never knew that I had so much family.” Yeah, that’s pretty much it.
Family.
His mother asked him again if he would like to live out there.
