double standards

double standards
Originally uploaded by dampies.

“Why don’t you just ask me to do what you want me to do? Why all this…nonsense of ‘what should I do about…?’ You know you really want me to take him to school!”

I really regret my tone now. I know why it irritates me that she asks me in that roundabout way. I do not respond well to manipulation. And one person’s manipulation is another man’s diplomacy.

I feel the stitches between my mask and my heart working loose. Later I hate myself. Preparing a talk about spiritual worship; I am a case study for the failure thereof. Some things you just can’t find nice words to say. I am a hypocrite, that’s for sure. I preach each week about this stuff. I encourage and I cajole, finding nice spiritual words to make people obey. Yet my own heart cannot even obey.

But of course this is the rub. There is a great big split in my heart. That is the point, isn’t it? i am split right down the middle. And that is what this journey is about; To heal that split. There is a great big rip right down the fabric of my being. My mind worships submission and my heart worships independence. There is no way to gloss over it… there is, right now, just no way that I will allow myself to be uprooted from the safety of my angerblackhole. My will can do its damndest, but my heart firmly believes that unless I take care of myself there is no way I will survive.

Working out my salvation in fear and trembling… hokaai!

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

dear God

all this talk about darkness. yet you wait patiently in my heart...after all, that is what in-dwelling means; i worship the one within, the Other. i stir up within me the presence of peace. you pass all understanding. i pay homage to the heavenly one. i enter the gate. you have called and chosen me. WORSHIP: waiting on you, my heart inhaled, my mind mingled with yours, my soul satisfied with your soothing silence. o most high, o dearest divine -- display yourself to me. and i bow low, knowing this was what i am meant to be... your footstool. humiliation? no! your dwelling place. your rest. i love you! me in you and you in me...and heaven holds its breath. sweet Mercy, you have given me your Self. spoken in words of tender, tender proximity: "you are my son. I AM well pleased with you. come, that I may minister to your misery. dress your disaster in glory..."

yes, I worship you, my Heart!

merde (anag: me red)

merde
Originally uploaded by dampies.

2005/06/27 8.45 am

“I take it you are there?”

I was mildly annoyed. She knew that I worried. Every morning when she left to take kids to school or to go anywhere for that matter, I said a ritual, yet heartfelt prayer. “The Lord protect you on the road!”. This included protection from “negligence, accident, stupidity, violence, road rage, rape, and anything not covered by these descriptions”.

“Yes, I am sorry my love. We got here just before 6. There was very little traffic on the roads. Must be because of school holidays!”

As usual I tried to swallow my irritation. At the age of 45 it should be over my deep fear of losing those I love. I suppose she is a buffer to me against the chaos of aloneness. I relish being alone when she is coming back but I cannot imagine what it would be like to be without her. It is a bit humiliating to be so dependent on one person (or 3 people -- this includes my daughter and my son, who are mini bastions against the void of being alone -- little deposits that insure that she will come back again, not matter how much later.)

I hate it when she drives at night. It is not as if I can imagine all the bad things that can happen to her, or something like that. It just makes me uncomfortable. There is a sort of unease that drains the light out of me. A metallic taste of nothingness that instantly pervades my heart. I know it and I want to avoid it at all costs.

Then I remember the three weeks of (unnamed space -- identified by absence of anchors -- adrift in a inter-stellar anomaly field -- thank God for science fiction) that stare me in the gizzard. The Lord only knows what will happen in these 3 weeks. While she is away visiting her sister in Kiwi land, our daughter in tow, I will be home with our disabled son. What qualifies a sweet little seven-year old (cute but mute -- and anyhow the personification of all my lifelong struggle against helplessness and redundancy) to hold me back from the lip of the abyss? Truly i will face my nemesis. We will see if Jesus really meets me in the pit of our deepest despair

world's fool

scaryme
Originally uploaded by dampies.

i stood there by the precipice
my whole life lived by hit-and-miss
i couldn't see drop beneath my feet
at the heels of life had i been yapping
been sippin' at life and merely lapping
my life up to now was based on self-deceit

the more i thought the more i wondered
if moments fleet and lightly squandered
mean anything at all and if then, what
but more and more comes the sharp reminder
you gotta be cruel if you wanna be kinder
you give and you get to about the same degree...


where is freedom?
the promise you made was a lie
the games that you play take my freedom away
show me a man who is free...

but i'm putting my foot down now and it's final
i no longer care to subscribe to the rules!
if you think you can make me believe they protect me
you take me, my dear friend, for no less than a fool

Rocky Horror Show

And crawling on the planet's face
Some insects called the human race
Lost in time, and lost in space
And meaning

SEEMS LIKE IT DOESN'T IT....But it's not true. Here is the meaning of life. People, hearts, beauty. Serendipity and happenstance

And here you are just looking into my eyes
And there I see the love you can't disguise
You gather my inside your loving arms to day
you don't go away
you choose to stay...
Holy are you Lord,
Holy are you Lord
Holy are you Lord,
Oh my Delight!

Later...

Facing the black hole is fear personified. I am scared I will lose control of my bodily functions if I face the fear and pain that are covered by the rage. I cannot even want to want to go there. When the buffers of everyday life are removed, all that stares me in the face is the faceless chaos. It is not all bad. For the most part everything is fine. I love life and my family. But deep deep down there is an ocean of unpredictable chaos; a monolith of being disposable. And so I fight against the void…Selah

sorrow is not soon forgotten
nor bitterness, deceit-begotten
sadness is not often sweeter
than trust that's freely given
foolisheness is a weak reminder
that cruelty is seldom kinder

I squeel with exhileration and fear as my older brother speeds me around the playground on my tricycle. The weeping willow chortles uncharacteristically as we brushed his drooping tendrils. Then a HIS voice whips out of the wintry blue. "Come here!" it commands, not angry just inescapable. Behind the old tree we go and the tender caress of the old tree becomes the castigations of a confused father: *It is not right to scream like that. I am sure you will remember...*

I do. Here I sit white-knuckled -- my anger resisting the vortex which sucks me hungrily in. HE is the black hole. Around his careless and flagrant life my whole existence is arranged. *I will not be swallowed, that I promise you! I would rather die than let you suck me in* so my rage, which protects me still, and which I wield with icy precision to ward off the threat of nothingness, whips out of control and scars those I most love. *you will not see me hurt. I would rather die than let you win*

Fuck you I need you so much to say I may be...