Blessings & Curses: Part 1

Part of the beauty & heartache, the blessing & curse, of being human is our limitations. We are fallible. There is no guarantee that anything we say or do is ever 100% true or 100% false.... we perhaps always live in the mixture of the in-betweens....

....have been pondering what I wrote last night. In the moment I was convinced of it.... & maybe still am. Maybe everything we speak is our truth (or carries the possibility of truth) of what we believe in that moment. Does that mean it is real truth, absolute truth? There are no guarantees....The Truth is a constant. There is one reality of what (or rather, who) is Truth... but for us, here in the temporal plane, here caught in time & space, it is 'our' truth that can shape us & guide us in the moments. We hope, we long to be true, to be part of what is real, but again, we are never sure that we line up always with what is true.....

...last night I wrote passionately (though rather disjointedly) in repentance of the ways I stifle people around me, the ways that my desire to protect can sometimes choke others, prevent them from growth, from taking on their own responsibilities & living out of their own core....

...today I've questioned a lot of that. Is that really me? Do I really do that? Why? Maybe I don't? Maybe I have good motives for everything I do? Maybe not?

.... there is such a fine line in knowing our motivation, our motives, for any action. How do we know when we act out of love, true, blazing, unconditional, unadulterated love & when we act out of self-love, some extension of trying to stroke our egos or to build up ourselves... How do we know when we are acting out of fear, trying to save our own skins or our own desires, or when our fear moves us to act on someone's behalf..... Last night in the midst of thinking about me trying to keep the cup of suffering from those around me, Sherry was reading about Job breaking the teeth of the wicked & rescuing the innocent from their jaws, about his battles for justice. Where is the line between keeping someone from the cross & their destiny through the path of suffering & the place of fighting for them, defending them, living up to our own destinies as deliverers....

& so yeah, I still believe my apologies & repentance from last night. There are definitely places & people that I've stifled, not out of bad motives, just out of forgetting to trust & being more concerned with safety than growth & freedom.... but last night there was likely a lot of places where I took the "I'm the devil" thing maybe a bit too far... I forgot the dichotomy, the living in constant tension - always balancing the opposites off...

I've concluded today that I will be both an incredible parent & a horrible parent & I will flip flop between the two in grand phlegmatic fashion.... one moment I'll smother my kids & they'll hate me, the next I'll be so free with them that they'll feel like the floor has dropped out from under them. Then in the next moment I'll be there to love them, to listen, to hear their hearts & they'll know that their dad loves them deeply & then in the next moments, I'll encourage them to reach for the stars & dream & watch them take risks & soar & go, 'that's my daughter, or 'that's my son' (& yeah, maybe I should start saving now so I can pay their therapy bills).....

...but in the end, I am just me. I have flashes of truth, abysses of error & most of my days spent somewhere in between...I live in moments of love so pure it makes you weep for the sheer beauty of it, in moments of pride, arrogance & avarice so vile that it twists your stomach in knots & again, most days I live somewhere in between....

....and so when I speak, I will speak often in blacks & whites, trying to make great summarization statements - "at the end of the day", I say & then launch into some tirade about what I think is true.... & then in the next moment I'll go, well, wait, maybe that's not the case....

...as a true perceiver, one who sees only in shades of greys (or, as I prefer to say it, in 'rainbows'), I should probably try less to sum up humanity, to try to explain things for all of us & instead just talk about my journey... speak 'my' truth.... if it resonates with someone & feels like their truth, or even better, if it sounds like The Truth, then, well that's great.... but I've really got to watch myself in trying to explain things.....

... I long for those I care about to see the truth of who they are (& yeah, this is sort of my wish for humanity).... being able to see people through the eyes of love changes forever how you perceive them.... & I listen to a humanity who seems so unable to truly see who they are & I keep trying to tell people, crying like a voice in the wilderness, but yeah, nobody really believes you 'cause you're talking about stuff they can't see.....

...and the reality is that I live with the same vision problems... I can't see me as others do, I can't see (though am starting to) the Kirk that is a beloved friend & son & brother.... (Again, this is much, much better than it's ever been, but still not where I want it to be.... though it feels like it's on the edge a lot of days - close & just waiting to get tipped over)....

...& yeah, I realize that again, the Truth is that we are loved. We are made in the image of God & chosen by Him. We are the bride of Christ, the one who captivates His heart with even one glance from our eyes.... but this truth means nothing until it gets inside us, until we own it - until the weight of it rests on our heart & sets us free to soar... this is the only place where it will matter, this is the rock on which Christ builds His church - the place where the Truth of heaven meets with the confession of human hearts.... Where 'our' truth starts to align with His Truth....

& so yeah, I am one voice of many... there are moments where I resonate with the sound of The Voice, there are moments where I sound like the accuser, there are moments where I sound like Job crying for a mediator, or where I join with the voices of others - the one, the thousands, the humanity of history - in groaning, longing for more, for deliverance, for love.... & yeah, as I prayed last night, I have to really start to 'own' my voice again.... to remember that I don't speak for others or speak for humanity... I speak for me.... I tell my story 'cause it's the story I am given... but yeah, if it happens to resonate with something more, then great....

.... I chose this title of 'Red Pill Manifesto' hoping to script some great book that would make a declaration of revolution - something calling us to, as in the movie the Matrix, to take the red pill & break free from illusions & realize who we truly are. I sort of tried to start the first chapter on the book & it all went in the crapper.... & I sort of realized that I can't write that story, that declaration. I can write my story... I can declare my own freedom, the freedom granted through love at the cross... I can speak of my own revolution to throw off the chains of self-hatred, of false-humility & of all that holds me back from being who I truly am....

...and so yeah, whatever... this all sort of went sideways of where it was intended to go.... & I'm not sure where it's going now.... other than that the inspiration has lifted & I'm back in my room without the weight of vision & image flooding my head... words dripping off my fingertips.... I could fight to try to get something back. I wonder if I did something wrong or took a wrong turn a few paragraphs back (shortly after the one voice & the part about joining the voice of the accuser). I wonder if I stopped believing in the words, or got hungry, or my mind wandered.... but the words are mist now.... & I am sort of hungry.... nachos & batman beyond here I come... (though I may be back).