March 13, 2007

  • A Letter

    Dear God,
              It’s been a few years since I’ve attempted any kind of communication with you.You have the ability to look into my past, so if you see the pattern that emerges I hope you won’t take it personally. If it means anything, I still fold my hands together and place them against my chin when I’m deep in thought. Perhaps it is comparing apples to oranges, but even though I no longer retain a belief in the teachings of your son, I do believe you sent him here. I do believe in you. There was a time when I hoped that maintaining a belief in you would be enough to get a ‘pass’ on the lack of belief in your son’s teachings and the Holy Spirits influence. But, I understand the trinity, and understand that to reject one(or in my case two) is to reject all. I understand and accept the consequences of that. What I hope is that perhaps you would still be willing to answer a few questions before letting me continue my spiral.
                  As i’m sure you are aware, I’ve been in a very bad mood for the past three or four days. There are days where being alone is not such a bad thing. Friday night was an instance of a day where being alone was a bad thing. What I am wondering is not so much why I am alone, but why the factors in place that cause it must be ones over which I have no influence.
               Because I am afraid to drive, I feel like an invalid in this world. Because I feel like an invalid, I have never yet been able to accept myself as I am. Because I have never been able to accept myself, I have never had anything but a foundation of sand on which to build a potential relationship. Because I am aware of this, I no longer attempt to build them. Thus, I remain the everlasting shadow.
                 The wise man builds his house upon the rock, as the verse goes. When I believed in you, I had no rock. When I didn’t believe in you, I had no rock. My soul was always sand, and it always seemed to me that no one cared about that. I was angry at you and your world for that. You know the curses I threw your way. Why did you find it necessary to refuse to me the gift of a soul like a rock?
                 You know my journals contain essays upon essays about validation. This society in which you saw fit to bring forth my life values the automobile above all else. I have seen republicans and democrats. I have seen blacks and whites. I have seen gays and straights. I have seen the poor and the rich. I have seen the American and Immigrant. I have seen the thiest and the athiest. I have seen the capitalist and the socialist. I have seen the elite and the appalachian. They all fight amonst each other, yet on one common ground do they stand. I do not have that common ground. In order to flee from invalidity, I attempted to jump onboard the environmental bandwagon. I believe in their cause as a matter of convenience, not as a matter of truth. Within their ranks I sought refuge, but I believed not in their cause. Their cause was noble. Mine was fear. This fear I have not been able to escape for ten years. Why did you see fit to give me the gift of fear? 
                   I have tried many times to offer validation to others in the hopes that one day it would be returned to me. “I’m scared,” she once said to me. “Scared? Of what?” I said to her. “Everything.” she said with a cracking voice. “I wish I was a hallucination,” said another. “Why?” I said to her. “Because then I would be happy.” she said with a cracking voice. “I was raped.” She once told me. “I don’t see you any different,” I said in reply. You see God? You have visited hardships upon others in this world. Those three had wounds in their eyes that surpass even my own. I tried to do your will and offer them the validation they were hoping to be given. I remember them still, remember their eyes, their inflections, I remember their pain. Why do you forget mine? I give away that which I am refused. Why do you refuse it to me?
                  Michael has been driving for nearly four years now. Our mother, a follower of yours, once told me he felt terribly guilty because he was doing that which his older brother would not. I did your will and sat down with him beside that soccer field and told him that we are different people who will make different choices in life – and that’s okay. Marcus is now close to turning 16, and to getting his license. Although he has not required the direct talk, the jokes we make back forth communicate the message(and he is smart enough to pick up the subtlety) that he is okay. Should a more direct talk appear to be needed, he will get it. My question of you is, why do you refuse to give me the okay? For a time I saw your son as if he was my older brother, where was his okay? Instead I received lectures about all the meaningless nonsense that causes strife amongst high school society and, when magnified to scale, amongst the rest of society. Trifles you offered me! Have peace about gum under the seat! Be not that which wears baggy pants. Trifles! Your servants chose to question my characters rather than heal the broken soul! Why did you choose this path for me? Is a broken soul the only vessel through which your communique can be sent to other broken souls? Is that it? If that is so, then you have achieved your purpose. How many souls must I reach before you send someone to reach mine?
                 Please do not take it as a sign of disrespect if I choose not to see your son as that person. I have seen the effect his followers have on the world. I, one whose ego could crush a man without blinking, am more Christian than they. It is not a supernatural being I request of you. It is not even for a heaven-sent angel. All I ask for is just one girl who hears what I have to say and says, ‘okay’. Is that so much to ask?
                   My Dear God, I believe you are there. I believe in what your son did for those within my family who believe in him. I believe I achieve good things in this world. If not in your name, I do not refute the ones who declare me a man of faith. I may have no faith in myself, but I do have faith in the simple bit of good caused by an attentive ear. That is all I ask of you, an attentive ear. “I have never been able to accept myself, and fear that I will always be alone” is my postsecret. Her, “That’s okay.” Where is she?

    A servant, fallen and unfaithful, but a servant nonetheless,

    Dan