But hurt’s my thing … it’s my home, it’s the only thing I know. I’m safe and sound and sure of myself when pain’s around. It’s not that I want it … it’s that I have it, and so I don’t have to fear that it will come … it’s here.
Running Backwards
Taking a close look at where you’ve been may shed some light on where you’re going.
Physically, my approach to fighting was to have my opponent inflict as much pain on me as possible before I would deal a deciding blow against him. I needed to nurse an uncontrollable desire to prove my opponents ability to produce damage or serious pain, was impudent.
It wasn’t enough to avoid him… I believe it more honorable to take a beating instead of running to avoid the beating. And, while that beating is being thrust upon you, pay it no mind while you proceed to destroy the one trying, in vain, to give you that beating.
Mentally, these battles were fought on different ground. Yes, you take the advantage, I’ll make my struggle with less resources or less money. If I get too far ahead of my own “norm” I’ll sabotage myself, so I can fall back again, where I feel comfortable.
If I’m playing chess, I’ll lose my Queen on purpose and fight from behind. In football, when you give me the ball, I lower my head and run towards, not away, from those wanting to tackle me. With women, I dared them to tell me the most painful truths about my inadequacies. I encouraged them to inflict pain on me in the most devastating manner.
Spiritually, I could not be hurt. God could not turn his back on me because I played God. Everything I did was right because I said it was right. Then, where was I, when my nine year old daughter wrote on a torn piece of envelope, this child’s version of the Ten Commandments:
- Do not have another Lord.
- Do not put anything in the place of God.
- Do not think lightly of the Lord.
- Worship the Lord on the seventh day.
- Love and obey your mom and dad.
- You should not kill.
- Be faithful to everybody.
- You should not steal.
- Don’t lie.
- Don’t want something that is not yours.
I wrote the following on that same piece of envelope and I tucked it away:
Can you see the streak
tears make on a cheek
once they’ve all dried
long after she’s cried
I can
Can’t you see the wear
in a elders’ gentle fear
whenever I try my best
To fit in with the rest
I can
Can you see hope die
In your little girls eye
or voice tiny and sad
‘Please don’t go, Dad’
I can
I can
I can take it…
Sadness, like anger, is just an exploded view of someone’s fear. But I can stand anger, go on get mad at me but please don’t be sad. I much rather you be mad, enraged and strike out and hurt me right here but please, don’t hurt me inside, by you being sad.
A person who is angry is afraid that they might be hurt, so they strike out first, with a word or a deed or some defense that they think they need, to pass through life safe and sound and unhurt.
But hurt’s my thing … it’s my home, it’s the only thing I know. I’m safe and sound and sure of myself when pain’s around. It’s not that I want it … it’s that I have it, and so I don’t have to fear that it will come … it’s here.
I need not be anxious about it’s arrival but instead all I need to do is feel it, embrace it, and begin a process pretending to erase it. You see… I don’t really want it to go. It’s what gives me the feeling that I’m alive. Without pain what would I feel? I would feel what I have always felt when I was without pain, nothing. And the feeling of nothing scares me.
I am able to experience so many wonderful things through pain, I can experience the knowledge that I am invincible. Because as long as I feel, I am still alive … I am still here. You did not destroy me… you can’t destroy me. If you could, I would be destroyed. So yes, bring it on … get me to my greatest possible pain, because when you push me to my ultimate pain… the fact will remain… nothing more can hurt me… that’s right, because I’m familiar with that point at which I can be hurt no further.
But then again, maybe the experience of feeling is because I am alive. I know I’m alive when I feel … and, the only feeling I know well, is pain. But, I wonder if there are other feelings … I’ve heard of Joy, and people talk of something called Happiness. Could those have anything to do with feeling? Could they be made to relate to the awareness of living? And what was that I heard of once… Bliss?
AHA, so then… what you’re saying is that…
Living is very painful when you live without the love of Jesus Christ
Joy and Happiness … those are pretty cool. And Bliss? That’s cool too.
BUT the Peace that passeth all understanding, the Peace of God delivered
to us through the Love of His son Jesus Christ, that’s what we’re after, the
Peace. Because without peace, we have nothing, had nothing, will always
have nothing, and we’ll always be nothing. We, just plain… miss the boat.
