A MEDITATION RECALING THE STORY OF JOB INTERWOVEN WITH THE BEATITUDES
Some people go through life, cursed, as children, from birth,
With loving, supportive financially comfortable families,
Safe secure households, neighborhoods, and communities,
Wonderful and like-minded family friends who
watch out for these cursed children
And know what limits have been set on them
And promptly act when those boundaries are crossed,
Whether or not crossed intentionally or
crossed accidentally,
And furthermore, they will report these
trespasses to the judge, jury, and executioner
(In most families, these responsibilities are
delegated to and hats worn by mother).
Why cursed at first? Because ultimately, LIFE intervenes,
Circumstances are turned topsy-turvy, and
What was once comfortable and familiar, is ripped away,
As if torn from bone like flesh being devoured
by jackals, hyenas, and zombies.
And, for all appearances, lost and gone forever,
Despite the honorable, dedicated intentions of
father, mother, aunts, uncles,
grand parents, cherished friends, fellow congregants,
business associates, etc, etc, etc.
Loss of employment
the loss of a job – even the loss of a career
(The computer revolution has obsoleted entire industries,
(and those employed therein; These jobs are not returning, ever;
(One must learn to reinvent one's self, perhaps
(Many times, and perhaps at ever shorter intervals of times in between).
Loss of loved ones
Death (suicide being the most brutal form
(to those accursed and left living thereof,
(Something, sadly, was wrong all the long
(We just never saw it coming, until the beloved one is
(Now too far and too long gone to be healed, much less revived.
(Suicide is the second leading cause of death
(of our accursed children, aged 15-24).
(Could it be that being born into what for all appearances
(is a very healthy and Nurturing environment,
(could it be the accursed children are not subsequently prepared to
(Cope with these simple truths: That much of life is about loss –
(That much of life is about failure, and that our bond
(to all of humanity, now, and in All times and at all places
(is that the singular commonality of our experiences is
(Woven together with our losses, and bundled up
(with our failures, and neither loss nor
(Failure is worth the taking of one's own life. We stumble, we fall,
(All of us stumble and fall – We are expected, compelled to,
(and demanded by the Universe to ARISE and CRAWL
(so that we might once again WALK and then RUN;
(So that ultimately we might once again FLY,
(sailing among the heavens, angel-like grace.)
Loss of good health
(Disease knows no socio-economic barriers
(as the revelers in Edgar All Poe's The Mask of Red Death
(would discover: No racial divides, no gender Differentiations.
(The cursed children of doctors too, and maybe even especially,
(Fall victim to the willful, wanton, in plain sight
(secret poisoning of our mother earth
(And their own childrens' weakened immunological systems.
(Cancer the indiscriminate killer; the ultimate
(Eegalitarian Strike Force of Death.
(The addicts' poisons of choice – alcohol, heroin,
coke or a myriad of others, alone, but mostly in combination,
(especially with alcohol, the great mixer.
(Accidents too, frequently random,
(SOMETIMES (and tragically, utterly Foreseeable,
(but – too late. The AIDS virus took so many unaware,
(back in the day when THE VIRUS was but a rumor printed
(about and hinted at solely in the underground gay undergroun press.
(Who could have foreseen that an infected blood transfusion
(Administered to save a life Would ultimately take that life,
(Especially when the potential devastation of the disease
(was assuredly NOT a secret And such consequences
(utterly predictable to the health care communities
(That administered their healing efforts to gay men
(and to intravenous drug users;
(“What? Ask Prez Reagan to worry about those
(damn junkie homos? Fat chance.”)
Loss of innocence
About one of every six women in America has been
the victim of a rape of attempted rape.
Loss of faith in flag and country:
In WWII – troops with head or spinal injuries usually
died on the battlefield.
In Veit Nam – they usually died by the time
they could be flown to Germany.
In Iraq (and Afghanistan, and the other Bannanastans,
most of the brain and spinal injured
can be flown to Germany for medical treatment
and these lives are saved.
BUT, those troops who suffer from such combat injuries,
the parapeliegacs, quadrapeliegacs, and brain-damaged,
the lives of these troops will never be the same.
Their physical lives have been saved, but they now
must make major adjustments
to have anything resembling a “normal” life.
Once upon a time, loved ones prayed that their soldier
might return alive;
Now they pray that their beloved soldier returns alive,
and not have been afflicted by brain or spinal injuries.
They pray too that their beloved soldier will not
become headline news for her torturing of prisoners,
children, women too, That their soldier will not feel
compelled out of a sense of hatred of “the other”
To rape the 14-year old daughter of an Iraqi family,
and then murder hef and heretofore Family,
and then burn their home down in order to
avoid detection, and punishment.
The LOSS OF the sacred, secure, SAFE HOME – father's castle -
the loss of community standing,
The total loss of self-esteem.
The outright theft of assets by trusted financial advisers,
The sudden and (apparently) inexplicable madness
that descends and lingers.
Alzheimer's and dementia too, such are these,
as if the fates had patiently waited,
all the while targeting these cursed children.
At least SOME of these tragic events will ultimately befall
each and everyone of us, And so, cursed are they as children
who are doomed to live for years Understanding only at
the level of intellect, LOSS as grave,
LOSS as tragic, LOSS as unbearable,
as these heretofore already mentioned –
(having mentioned only a few, the numbers are legion) -
Noting only the absence of the presence
of former peers, beloved friends,
who, because of circumstances
Beyond their control, are forced to disperse,
Forced to seek out the poorer quarters
where the ragged people go
And look for the places only the ragged people know.
And yet, Devyn, through all these losses
which you have endured
You remained faithful to the one to whom
you made your wedding vows to love, honor, cherish and obey
TILL DEATH YOU DO PART.
For twenty-five years, foregoing your own blossoming career,
BECAUSE You believed in him (far more than he in himself)
to be able to support your family
` All the while so dimly and vaguely aware
that he had begun the soul-stealing
Dance with Thantos before you ever knew him;
that depression and alcoholism
Cast lots for his soul, always ending in no decision,
because who can answer that question:
“Which came first, the addiction or the depression?”
And Thantos spun him every more rapidly, until the room rolled
And he had lost all control, and his soul was up for grabs
(But even in this, he was still a beloved child or God, AND
(You all the long saw all the good in him; all the potential).
And you never cursed your God, nor the fates, nor asked, even,
The most likely question of all: “Why me, Lord?”
THAT, was never about you. That lost cause
had been writ in stone LONG before
the two of you ever knew, that perhaps,
from your union, great things would come
(As indeed, great things have come –
withness Chase; withness Reed; witness you).
And while some would develop, as a means of self defense,
A steel-hard shell around their heart,
a cast iron cage around their soul,
a minefield around their mind,
You only look at people, and see the good in them.
You could have but did not become hard-shelled,
and been forgiven for it, BUT:
You are soft-shelled
You are open-shelled
And because of all this, I give you this gift.
That you might always remember what
I most admire about you
With love to you and ALL YOU LOVE:
A Survivor's Guide to Life – du moi à toi
BLESSED ARE THEY WHO SUFFER YOUNG,
EARLY, AND OFTEN, FOR IN THEIR
YEARS OF ABJECT MISERY,
THEY SHALL KNOW THE JOY OF COMFORTING
THOSE MUCH LESS FORTUNATE THAN THEMSELVES
WHOSE NUMBERS ARE LEGION.
THUS, IN SLUMBER, WE CAN DREAM
OF JOYOUS, CAREFREE, HAPPY DAYS,
OF A KINDLER GENTLER, MORE CHIRST-LIKE EVOLVEMENT
OF HUMANOIDS INTO HUMAN KIND
WE REST AUSSED KNOWING
IN OUR HEARTS, IN OUR GUTS,
THAT ONE DAY THE CHILDREN
OF IRELAND'S PROTESTANTS
AND THE CHILDREN
OF IRELAND'S CATHOLICS WILL
SING, DANCE, LAUGH AND PLAY
WITH ONE ANOTHER,
AS ARE BEGINNING TO SO DO
THE GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT
GRANDCHILDREN OF AMERICAN
SLAVE OWNERS AND
THE GREAT-GREAT GRANDCHILDREN
OF AMERICAN SLAVES,
AS WILL THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS
OF THE PALESTINIANS, TOO,
SING, DANCE, LAUGH AND PLAY WITH
THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THE ISRAELI JEWS.
IN SHA' AHLLA
