Sunday, March 23, 2008
Burnished Life
We all have them - scars, wounds. Just moving through life assures us of damage.
The pain of an abusive childhood, the confusions of divorce, solitude through the loss of a job, physical injury, and the growing limitations of getting older all can keep us from the elusive joy of success.
Something tells us that we are supposed to be happy, healthy, and whole. We strive for it, pursue it and then there are the times when we seem completely separated from this deserved joy. Life's pleasure eludes us and we become too familiar with suffering.
I have often and long thought of this question - Why is joy often painfully elusive. I do not have an answer. I do have some experience and an observation.
It might help you to know of some of the scars, wounds and blows upon my life. My father died at age 36 (I was 6) of a massive heart attack leaving a gapping hole in my family and leaving me with a life-time of an absent father. I have walked through a critical and dangerous illness with my first child. I am divorced and remarried. I have watch four children grow in our blended (meaning there were two broken families) family. I fell into drug addiction, lost my career, professional credentials and bearings. I have physical conditions that bring me pain everyday. I have lost jobs, destroyed relationships, abused others and violated most of the values I believe to be important. My step-sister was raped and murdered when I was 15. My sister and brother are addicts in addiction or recovery depending on when you read this. And yet, my life today is good and I am happy more days than I am not.
It is my experience that in the face of my life's difficulties and among my own ill placed choices I have always known that a larger and benevolent presence was at work in life. My journey has certainly taken me toward and away from the Divine, but I have never doubted the Divine's existence. In my darkest moments I guess I knew that I could choose to not be a part of this larger benevolence, but my choice did not mean it wasn’t there nonetheless.
My observation is that my life has endured even the worst I have experienced. In fact, I can affirm that I have more than endured, but am thriving. Why? I'm not sure I can tell you why. I can tell you this - the scars and wounds that remain are the remnants of life's polishing of me. Perhaps polishing is too bright of a term. I have been burnished by life. In much the same way a welder may burnish metal to strengthen a contact, or a sculptor might burnish a piece of bronze to refract light in a particular way, life has rubbed and burnished me. The result is a being that cannot be mistaken for anything more than a man, a human being, like others, who has found some admiration of his scars and the peculiar sheen they reflect.
I feel triumphant because of my burnished life. Careful here or you will misunderstand me. It isn't because of what I have done to arrive at this moment. It is true enough that I am proud of the choices that have allowed me to live, but if I had been so wonderful I would have made much better choices that could have brought me to this point more directly - or could they? I feel triumphant because there is a peculiar, divine alchemy that has found in my choices and life's circumstances a limited and brazenly beautiful person.
It is also my belief and hope at this moment that anyone can find such beauty and solid joy in their burnished life.
Posted by: Theophany at 8:22 PM
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We all have them - scars, wounds. Just moving through life assures us of damage.
The pain of an abusive childhood, the confusions of divorce, solitude through the loss of a job, physical injury, and the growing limitations of getting older all can keep us from the elusive joy of success.
Something tells us that we are supposed to be happy, healthy, and whole. We strive for it, pursue it and then there are the times when we seem completely separated from this deserved joy. Life's pleasure eludes us and we become too familiar with suffering.
I have often and long thought of this question - Why is joy often painfully elusive. I do not have an answer. I do have some experience and an observation.
It might help you to know of some of the scars, wounds and blows upon my life. My father died at age 36 (I was 6) of a massive heart attack leaving a gapping hole in my family and leaving me with a life-time of an absent father. I have walked through a critical and dangerous illness with my first child. I am divorced and remarried. I have watch four children grow in our blended (meaning there were two broken families) family. I fell into drug addiction, lost my career, professional credentials and bearings. I have physical conditions that bring me pain everyday. I have lost jobs, destroyed relationships, abused others and violated most of the values I believe to be important. My step-sister was raped and murdered when I was 15. My sister and brother are addicts in addiction or recovery depending on when you read this. And yet, my life today is good and I am happy more days than I am not.
It is my experience that in the face of my life's difficulties and among my own ill placed choices I have always known that a larger and benevolent presence was at work in life. My journey has certainly taken me toward and away from the Divine, but I have never doubted the Divine's existence. In my darkest moments I guess I knew that I could choose to not be a part of this larger benevolence, but my choice did not mean it wasn’t there nonetheless.
My observation is that my life has endured even the worst I have experienced. In fact, I can affirm that I have more than endured, but am thriving. Why? I'm not sure I can tell you why. I can tell you this - the scars and wounds that remain are the remnants of life's polishing of me. Perhaps polishing is too bright of a term. I have been burnished by life. In much the same way a welder may burnish metal to strengthen a contact, or a sculptor might burnish a piece of bronze to refract light in a particular way, life has rubbed and burnished me. The result is a being that cannot be mistaken for anything more than a man, a human being, like others, who has found some admiration of his scars and the peculiar sheen they reflect.
I feel triumphant because of my burnished life. Careful here or you will misunderstand me. It isn't because of what I have done to arrive at this moment. It is true enough that I am proud of the choices that have allowed me to live, but if I had been so wonderful I would have made much better choices that could have brought me to this point more directly - or could they? I feel triumphant because there is a peculiar, divine alchemy that has found in my choices and life's circumstances a limited and brazenly beautiful person.
It is also my belief and hope at this moment that anyone can find such beauty and solid joy in their burnished life.
Posted by: Theophany at 8:22 PM
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Thursday, January 31, 2008
Upon Seeing "August Rush."
When the creative passion manifests itself within a human child in so great a magnitude that the child is compelled to create, and when that compulsion is made known through the power of creative genius, we call it beautiful, touching, profound.
I am pained, in agony. For what is crueler than to encase that immense passion within the flesh and psyche of a man and provide him with no prodigy-like form through which to have expression?
I am an artist without a canvas, a singer with no voice and a master with no craft. I meander about the art of creating and dabble in the alchemy of beauty, yet my very soul aches still with a song to be sung that cannot find a note of harmony in this un-tuned voice.
In anger and tears I cry, "There is something that big in me and I have no craft to get it out!" How cruel.
Posted by: Theophany at 7:45 PM
|
When the creative passion manifests itself within a human child in so great a magnitude that the child is compelled to create, and when that compulsion is made known through the power of creative genius, we call it beautiful, touching, profound.
I am pained, in agony. For what is crueler than to encase that immense passion within the flesh and psyche of a man and provide him with no prodigy-like form through which to have expression?
I am an artist without a canvas, a singer with no voice and a master with no craft. I meander about the art of creating and dabble in the alchemy of beauty, yet my very soul aches still with a song to be sung that cannot find a note of harmony in this un-tuned voice.
In anger and tears I cry, "There is something that big in me and I have no craft to get it out!" How cruel.
Labels: adventures, feelings, recovery
Posted by: Theophany at 7:45 PM
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Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Advent
Be it internal chaos or external over stimulus or something altogether different, I find no real joy in this impending holiday season.
I am happy enough. I am satisfied enough. I am painfully aware of how many things are not and are never going to be what I desire. My acceptance is low. My serenity, tentative. I am approaching apathy on many fronts.
I want to eat cake and drink whole milk. I want to spend money and own new things. I want to feel different and that for me is always a dangerous thing.
I have lived with this awareness awhile. I am tired of it. I am tired of struggling with me and knowing that neither the struggle or my failure will successfully save me from me.
These are dark personal days in need of light.
Posted by: Theophany at 11:24 AM
|
Be it internal chaos or external over stimulus or something altogether different, I find no real joy in this impending holiday season.
I am happy enough. I am satisfied enough. I am painfully aware of how many things are not and are never going to be what I desire. My acceptance is low. My serenity, tentative. I am approaching apathy on many fronts.
I want to eat cake and drink whole milk. I want to spend money and own new things. I want to feel different and that for me is always a dangerous thing.
I have lived with this awareness awhile. I am tired of it. I am tired of struggling with me and knowing that neither the struggle or my failure will successfully save me from me.
These are dark personal days in need of light.
Posted by: Theophany at 11:24 AM
|
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Vigilant
The insane rhythm of self destruction is easy
Natural
Instinctual swirls in the sand
Traced by the hand of an ancient
Child
The vigilant discord of self care is demanding
Foreign
Learned rubbing on the tombstones
Scrapped by the gnarled fingers of youthful
Maturity
We keep what we have only with vigilance
-Theo
Today is the eight year anniversary of my recovery from drug addiction.
Posted by: Theophany at 7:45 PM
|
The insane rhythm of self destruction is easy
Natural
Instinctual swirls in the sand
Traced by the hand of an ancient
Child
The vigilant discord of self care is demanding
Foreign
Learned rubbing on the tombstones
Scrapped by the gnarled fingers of youthful
Maturity
We keep what we have only with vigilance
-Theo
Today is the eight year anniversary of my recovery from drug addiction.
Posted by: Theophany at 7:45 PM
|