Friday, March 14, 2008

God's Henchman

Is it even possible to get back through memory’s haze to see and feel the way it was? Can I remember seeing the world from inside the Garden before I got kicked out? I grab onto a fiery sinew of string inside of me. It runs through my intestines. It goes deep - twisted down through my guts - hidden from sight and rarely even felt. “It’s nothing really. No big deal. Not worth letting bother me. There’s people with real problems out there – how can I whine about this little annoyance?”

I’ve got an ugly mouth ulcer today; a canker sore. Not a cold sore on the lips where it can be seen. No, my suffering is unseen behind my smiles. When I smile or talk the open sores rub against my teeth and are atagonized. I never get just one. There’s usually a batch of them. They usually start with a small nick in the skin. I chew on the inside of my cheeks or my fork slips and jabs me in the gums or sometimes it’s just too much acidic food that wears a little patch raw. And when they start, they pop up like mushrooms over night. “Hey – where’d that one new come from?”

Are they the surfaced end of the string? Is their annoying, almost-surfaced pain connected with the ulcers on my soul? I know that down in there somewhere there’s a canker that never really heals up. Don’t ask me how I know. It’s not like I feel pain down there.

It’s only as tangible as that wisp of smoke that’s all that’s left of a dream as you come awake. The waking snuffs out the candlelight from the place where you just were – and now eyes open - how you were and who you were and what you were doing – is extinguished and a sunlight of a new day floods in. It’s lost. What can you do? There’s no way back there – except maybe with this string of pain that makes itself hard to ignore every so often?

Something happens in my week – a bitter exchange, a disagreement that turns sour; a misunderstanding that gets my heart beating fast and my mind racing - annoying and distracting – but not serious enough to make me stop doing what needs doing. So, I push it down inside – sending salt down to the wound. That little cut in my soul flares and ignites that string like a fuse with a slow burn - an acid flame comes back up the string. It turns my stomach and I don’t know why. It is days later - after the incident - and I have long forgotten quickly pushing it down. The first sore in my mouth splits open. A dream offers only clues.

I Knew. I knew while we were doing it that we were uncovering some hidden and adult thing. It was exciting and gave us great pleasure at the time – not physical, sexual pleasure – I suppose we were too young for that. It was more about satisfying a curiosity; an itch. It was an adventure. Hidden, warm, in our cozy bunk bed with my little sister there as a nurse; we took turns being Doctor then patient, the three of us, examining each others’ private parts. It was the first time I had a close up look at a clitoris. I suppose I hadn’t been that curious before. It’s not like my sister and I hadn’t had lots of baths together as babies and toddlers. But now I was climbing over a hill, about to venture down into the expansive new vista waiting.

But it’s not a choice you get to make is it? You don’t get to choose to stay in childhood. It’s more like a rising flood in the River of Time. A child’s natural curiosity is fed by more and more raindrops of information until, before you know it, the river lifts you up and spits you out on the bank of adulthood.

Our session ended innocently just the way our other games would end. It was lunchtime and my cousin Sheila headed home. I suppose I’ll never know just how her parents caught wind of our game. Did she have some guilt or shame about it? Did my little snake scare her? Did she tell her sisters – wanting to prove how grown up she was? Did she share with her Mom some new knowledge she’d gained that morning in the Garden? Maybe she made her Dad choke on his macaroni and cheese with a question about penises?

Knowing Sheila there were some emotional power games going on. She could be nasty and vengeful as well as fun and loving. One day her sun would shine on you, and the next – lightning bolts out of a blue sky. Once she’d sniffed out what a powerful emotional reaction our little game had in her family, I’ll bet she’d turned me over to her Dad as the guilty one.

I don’t know where my Dad was. If he’d been there Uncle Don’t would have been a little cooler. But just my Mom was there – my Uncle’s little sister - and me and my little sister - when he stormed into our cottage that sunny afternoon. We were standing in the kitchen. I was washing the lunch dishes and Wendy was drying. Mom was putting things away in the fridge. He didn’t knock or call out a hello. He just let himself in and surprised our busy little crew with his sudden presence.

Uncle Don’t liked to appear like he was laid back and relaxed. He would tell stories about people that would make the adults laugh. Those stories always made me wonder if the people in his stories knew how much he despised them. His chuckles, his amusement at his own superior wit, would come from somewhere deep in his chest – paid out from a well-guarded bank. Everyone loved him. He was just like his father they said - would do anything for anyone. I stayed out of his way.

But that day I was cornered. At the sink with Wendy behind me and only my Mom between me and him, he unleashed some sour fiery accusations my way. I don’t remember what he said. I just have a dream-like image of the four of us there. It feels like the wolf was in the door of the three little pigs’ cabin. I feel a sudden bonfire of shame burning in my head and I feel a piercing stab in my loins. Not in my balls, not in my belly button, but right in between. Where a baby would grow if I was a woman.

Not to be overly dramatic about it but – my childhood got aborted just then. No wonder it makes me so fucking angry to face that scene. It was the day I got fucked by the adult world. Others can tell stories of actual physical molestations by adults. No doubt you have your own story of the day you got screwed over and spit out on the bank of adulthood. It’s a story no one wants to tell or really wants to hear. No wonder it’s been hidden under layers and layers of years and years of making sure I never again get trapped like that. It explains a lot. It tells the whole story I guess.

Whatever I tell you now about the rest of my life and times is simply an illustration of the effects of this experience. The Day I realized I was naked. The Day I got kicked out of the Garden of Eden. The rage that stings still from the hot piercing wound my soul received. If it wasn’t my Uncle Don’t, it would have been someone else. He was the Angel with the fiery sword sent by God; God’s Henchman who stands guard at the garden wall.

“Way Down in the Hole”
When you walk through the garden
you gotta watch your back
well I beg your pardon
walk the straight and narrow track

if you walk with Jesus
he's gonna save your soul
you gotta keep the devil
way down in the hole

he's got the fire and the fury
at his command
well you don't have to worry
if you hold on to Jesus hand

we'll all be safe from Satan
when the thunder rolls
just gotta help me keep the devil
way down in the hole

All the angels sing about
Jesus' mighty sword
and they'll shield you with their wings
and keep you close to the lord

don't pay heed to temptation
for his hands are so cold
you gotta help me keep the devil
way down in the hole

Tom Waits



I do battle with him every time I take on a fight for someone hurt by a big deaf authority figure. I keep reaching out and grabbing that fiery sword thinking drunkenly that this time I’ll disarm God’s Henchman. Thinking I can get back to the place where we are free to be - just be. It’s why I drown the sting with whatever’s at hand. Too much food, too much sleep, too much drink, too much work, too much bullshit.

Then for a while I play it their way. I play the game by the rules. And I play it well. Oh-so-well you’d think I was made for the game. In all the ways I’m ashamed of - I’m just like him. I play the game like a self-satisfied, righteous, sarcastic – I’ll cut you if you cross me – fat cat. Everybody loves me – that’s my goal when I get stuck in that headspace. People like to think I’d do anything for anybody. They like to think that I’m different from them; different from their kids and relatives. They want to know someone who doesn’t get trapped and tortured by demons – who’s risen above it all.

I play it like Uncle Don’t until I can’t stand it anymore and I’m driven staggering back to the edge of the Garden to take another swipe at God’s Henchman. Then, someone’ll take a stab at me – not liking the angry stand I’ve taken. The daggers’ tip is poisoned. It finds its way down there to the wound and flares up into a full blown mouth ulcer that lasts for days and weeks.

So, if that’s the nightmare of my life. What’s the dream? What keeps me laughing and buoyed and bobbing along? The river goes on. It winds along the banks of where I live now. And while I keep failing to get back to its source – so far – I can always take a dip. I can dive in to the cool, clear waters and wash off the bullshit of the day’s work. Every so often I play hooky and go and splash around with a pal – pretending that we’ll never end up on that bank again; clothed and armed and oh so serious about building a better world or mousetrap or home for our kids; safe from those who would fuck them up. The river is the source of life that starts in the Garden and never ends. While there’s no going back, there’s salvation there running downstream.

The Promised Land

This holiest of holy places
found, re-membered,
where the beginning, the end,
and the everlasting is

Some times, we come upon
this hidden place in the middle of
the day’s street
and stop

through child’s eyes we see
rediscover
the buried treasure
the dream we forgot was real

my lion’s ravenous hunger
my lamb’s trembling fear
is lost, swept away
in the everflowing

The stream that begins in glory
thunders down mountainous egos
sweeps the valleys mess
in prophetic floods of truth

and rushes corrupted to the wild garden place
where the trees leaves are for the healing
of all nations
-beginning with my hurts and hungers and yours

and a little child shall lead us
heroically to re-imagine
the impossible forgotten world
beyond the angel’s flaming sword

into the furnace’s refining fire
into the cross’s redeeming execution
struck dumb in reverence
restoring creation

Eden resurrected
I promise
don’t forget
-thus saith the Lord

Alleycat Reeve
inspired by Robert Milner’s imagination on canvas
October 2007