All For More (Or Less)

And so, I have to ask . . .
What have you seen that made you change the way you see the world?
What happened?
What changed? Or what snapped?
What broke and never went back into place?

It has always been hard for me to believe in the terms of God, or God the Father. It has always been too curious for me to look around and see the hurt or the destruction of our everyday life.
How could there be something all-knowing, and all-great, yet here we are, living on this rock, which is third from the sun.

I think about the terms that arise when something is justifiable, like justifiable outrage or justifiable homicide.
I think about the terms that form the castle laws to which I have a right to protect myself and my property. Yet, what is my property?
What is mine?
What does it mean to defend oneself after the fact because after the fact means the threats are gone, yet I found that I was always protecting myself from another intrusion and preemptively attacking to keep myself from ever being a victim again.

We are gathered here today, all of us, to witness another day of life and experimentation.
This is nothing more than a new day amongst trillions. We go and we try and we run and we make our way to the end of another evening.
This is life.
There is a beginning, a middle, and an end to everything.

However, there is no reason for me to bother the courts with the obvious truth that life is both an everyday occurrence and both eventual and inevitable. 

With that being mentioned, I have never been comfortable being alone, or sitting in the presence of The Holy Spirit.
I never believed that anything about me was either beautiful or redeemable. Yet, I understand that this is a misunderstanding of my own beauty and this is all due to inaccurate lessons from an inaccurate view from my deceived perception.

And too, I know there were times when I found myself in the worst of places and facing the worst of circumstances. And somehow, there was some kind of presence, which is the only way I can explain this.
I remember being outside of a church, after the midnight of Christmas Eve. I was moved buy the clearing of the late night sky.
The moon was full and the moonlight beamed down, strong, like a sign that called from the Angels above to which that, yes, Christ was born.

However, I was too far from Bethlehem. I was too far from the spirit of hope and far from the wise men and too blind to be guided by the north star.
I know about the words in Romans, and how, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath risen Him from the dead, then though shalt be saved.”
But who would save me?
What was left to save anyway?
What about the blood that was spilt?
What about the life that was torn and ripped from its roots?
How would I ever be saved after destroying the lands that were intended to be my gifts?
How was I to survive, only to topple over and die while remaining alive?

I was sick with a common social virus. I was cold too, dressed like a homeless kid, and walking the streets in my neighborhood with a poison in my bloodstream that kills millions while keeping them alive. 

There were too many bouts like this. And there were too many times when my demons were exposed and the light burned me like an antiseptic to infections of my soul.
I was infected.
Perhaps I have always been infected.
Or maybe this was contagious. Maybe the way this was passed down to me through disappointments and unresolved traumas were enough to infect my system and cause me to think that I am the infection – that I am the rot of the Earth, and that I am the lowest form or the underbelly of the serpent who slivers on its belly to carry on its deception.

I have heard the chimes of bells on Sunday mornings, after waking from an unfortunate night behind me.
I have noticed the kindness of others when the greet each other on the mornings after their mass and say, “Peace be with you,” and also with your spirit.
But me?
How would I survive in this place?
Would the host and the sacraments save me?
Eat this, this is my body.
Drink this, this is my blood.
But I was not raised to believe this; and I had never come to the ground, on my knees, and plead for The Savior to save me.

There was always something to this, and there was always something out there, always some kind of moment that would come with an internal reminder and moral awareness to which I knew that deep down, I was losing myself to the demons who sought to destroy me from within.

I have often thought about the terms of revenge. I thought about the promise from Romans and Deuteronomy, “Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord. I will repay!”
I am reminded of a man who revealed his truth to me. He wore this as a tattoo across his chest.
I am reminded of his story and how he replied to mine with encouragement. 

I would have otherwise been fine to die.
But he said no.
Not today.

There has always been some kind of moral or holy mirror around me to which I knew the shame and the regret of my truth.
I saw my reflection in these mirrors the same as Adam or Eve when facing The Creator after eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge.
I covered up. Same as Adam and Eve.
And again, I agree with Mark Twain because, “Man is the only animal that blushes—or needs to.”

I blushed. I let my head fall because it was too hard to look up or face the day of a new morning’s light.

Even when I tried to die at my own hand, there was something divine about this intervention. Otherwise, my attempt would be listed in a different column.

I remember too—
I remember a cold morning in an old church, far away from my usual stomping grounds and my comfort zone.
I was out of my element.
Everything about my life was changing. My friends were revealed to be enemies and the people who I assumed were enemies were the only friends I had left.

My Father was my first hero, yet he had passed. Everything I thought and hoped to have between my Father and I was dead as well.  And this too, his death and my life was something that proved the truths of our mortality. 
Time waits for no one, they say.
But the devils are timeless and so are the Angels, so is The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. And the selfless love from The Holy Mother.
All are timeless and all are unconditional.

I remember sitting alone that Saturday morning
The church was empty and quiet. The brightness of the sky was blinding, and the sun was free from clouds or an interruption of any kind. The sun was full and bright but without warmth. 

I could hear the sharpness of the cold wind as it blew outside. It was a cold, cold day in February, to the point where the cold was unthinkable to me.
The winter air was like the kind that seeped through the cracks of my winter jacket and chilled my bones.
My hands were cold. My toes were frozen.
My heart was sunken, and my spirit was as low as it could be.

Nothing could save me.
Nothing could fix or repair my heart.

I sat alone in the rear pew at the back of some old church. As I mentioned, I was in a faraway town known as Callicoon, New York.
I was far younger than I am now. I was cleaned up from the street junk and the synthetic poisons which I tried to perfect in my system. I tried to use these poisons to create an acceptable tolerance so that I could maintain my own version of spiritual enlightenment.
My euphoria was more like a cocoon, warming like a blanket and protecting me from the elements while rotting me like a body in its figurative coffin.

I was looking for my own salvation, which came at a cost, and the price was infinite. The cost of doing business was always changing which led me to the desperate sacrifices that could only pertain to the devil and his soldiers.
No one else does business like this. Then again, no one else offers this kind of credit line either.

The demons and I had too many interactions and I had signed on the dotted line too many times. This meant I defaulted on too many contracts, each one to further degrade my soul, and each signature was more like another foot towards the depths of my own damnation.

Was I compromised?
Did I agree to terms without being clear?
Was I overly emotional?
Did I think too much and destroy myself from within?
I was all the above, no different from anyone else is all the above (at times).

The idea of being lost and found or to be saved as a retch or to sing the words that “I once was lost, but now I’m found,” was not something I could understand or accept.
Besides, what God and what kind of spirit would ever accept me into their gates.
Not even The Mother would be enough to warm the coldness in my soul. Or at least, so I thought.

I remember all of this and I remember all of this too well.
I go back to that morning in that Upstate church..
The lights were off and so was the heat. 
But the high ceilings and the white walls were crossed with the bright blue sky and the sunlight through the windows. This gave the sanctuary a gloomy sense of brightness to me.
All was way too clear.
And again, all was quiet.
All I could hear was the wind outside. All I could feel was the chill in my bones and the coldness in my hands and feet.

Everything was bright. And all was true.
And all ahead of me, such as the altar where The Son of Man was nailed on the cross, head tilted downward after His death, arms outstretched, one foot over the other, and bleeding like the sacrificial Lamb of God.
There it was, me in the presence of too much emotion.
“Bless me Father, a sinner.”

I swear that to me, this was like facing a mirror to see myself. I saw who I was. I saw who I had become. I saw the depths of my sins, and I saw the truth of my selfishness.
I saw that I betrayed everyone, including me.

How could I pray now?
Who would save me?
How could I believe that someone like me could be saved or accepted? Or as I had always believed, who would see me as someone who deserved to be wanted and welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven.

I was “the retched.”

I thought about the deception or my secrets and the hatred in my heart. I thought about my ongoing lies and scams and the frequent lies, which I used to mask my truths. The truth was this – I was far from good, further from pure, and in my best assumption, I was the furthest from anyone who deserved to be blessed or graced with love and kindness.

Why else would I have been used as I was by those who I was told I could trust?
Why else would I have been touched in unwanted ways?
Why else would I be used or discarded  for someone else’s pleasure?
If I was any better, then why would I allow myself to stay in this role?
Why would I allow myself to fit and play the part of some unwanted human being?

I had to face my truths here. I had to see myself, as I was and face all that I had done.
And more, I had to accept that life was changing. All that was comfortable had turned upside down.
My youth as I knew it was gone.
My Father was gone.
My way of living was taken away from me and all of my comforts were removed, as if to be exorcised to purge me from my demons, —only, I believed that my demons were unwilling to let me go.

I have faced internal battles like this before. I have faced countless other battles since then.
I am a sinner. And yes, it is within me to sin the same as it is within us all to sin.

I was told that unless I leash my tongue and crucify my flesh on a daily basis, it is within me to sin.
I was told that I could be saved.
But I was never comfortable with the terms.
I was never clean or pure enough and hence, each time I found myself in the presence of something spiritual, I ran as if the purity of holy water would burn me like the demons who melted in the flesh of their personal hells.

I am not here to find out if I am good enough. I have not come to see if I am a valid candidate for salvation. I am not sure if my confessions or my attempts to amend my past or to be absolved will be satisfying in the end.
But either way, I am here.
I am not sure if any of this will grant me an entry into The Kingdom of Heaven.
No.
More importantly, at this point, my aim and efforts are simply to pull myself out of my own personal hell.
I am here so that I can live, breathe, love, and learn to exist on this earth for the rest of my days.

Am I guilty?
I am guilty of the worst crimes which are emotional murders in the first, second, and third degree.
I have committed each of the seven deadly sins. Yet, somehow, I am here—still trying to stand and still trying to redeem myself.
I am looking to improve so that I can face down my own demons and crush them beneath my boots as I stand up and walk away.

I tell you that I am here to see the beautiful side of this world. I am here to love. I am here to humble myself, like I would on one knee.
I am here to notice the sunlight at dawn.
I am here to see the sunset. I am free to look upwards and notice the sky without the regrettable contents of emotional downfalls and depressing regrets.

The court addressed my opening statements:

The judge looked down from their bench and over the tops of their eyeglasses with their disapproving stare.
“You are accused of crimes of the heart, slander, emotional assault, criminal impersonation of an appropriate lover, fraud of the heart, infidelity of each degree, and conspiracy to defraud, interpersonal terrorism, sabotage, emotional arson, and emotional kidnapping and taking others hostage as a means of personal, social, intimate, and physical improvement. How do you plead?”

Your Honor,
As I stand before you and my accusers, the prosecutors, and the jury of my so-called peers, who are not my peers by any means – I have defended my case with an honest and humble tone.
Therefore, my plea stands.
I plead not guilty, guilty, and no contest to all the said charges against me.

I am not less or more guilty and therefore, since no one among us is without sin, I question the courts and ask, “who among you will be the one to cast the first stone?”

The judge responded, “Well, there is certainly enough evidence against you to send this to trial.”
The judge asked, “Are you willing to go to trial?”

Aren’t we all on trial, Your Honor?

“Point noted.” Replied the judge.
“Prepare your defense.”

I am . . .