what i am

have you ever seen a little lost puppy, innocent but eager - fearful but giving? that little puppy looked a little neglected, needed a bath and a good check-up from the vet.

but, you also noticed the big brown eyes, and the potential of a full and beautiful coat under all that grime - grime gathered from watchful sleep under cars or behind garbage cans. i was that puppy.

raised by emotionally-crippled parents, who loved me with the best they had - but whose limbs of love were shriveled from lack of use.

and like that puppy, i needed some loving-care and training to learn to sit, to be quiet, to NOT tear the paper to shreds.

and like that puppy, whose fearful eyes belayed either a neglectful master or one prone to angry outbursts, i learned that the world is a dangerous place - a place ruled by an arbitrary and angry god who was none-to-pleased when i made a mess on the living room floor.

but the wonder of it all is that, in spite of this less-than-auspicious beginning, i have grown from a fearful puppy to a strong and confident man. joyful, thankful, and mindful every day of the unlikely miracle that is me.

the reason i am writing this confession of a story, is to find, to speak, to encourage others like me who - although blessed with much potential - never expected to amount to much of anything at all.

what i am is unbelievably insecure
and even though i've been told i'm beautiful or smart or funny
and even though i smile a lot and laugh out loud and ask you
how is your day and how is your mother
in spite of these things that really are true
what I really am is broken and bruised and scarred
and no matter how much i love you
or how much you love me
i do not expect to ever be anything
but this

2/11/07

shame is an evil thing.

it is the slow-growing cancer that eats us alive from the inside out. it is the dry-rot of soul that will hollow out the tree of life if not banished completely.

there are so many dear and sweet souls who - like Harrison Bergeron - are weighed down by the malicious handicaps of false religion and misplaced guilt. those unfair, untrue shackles are both contagious and generational. families, churches, friends share them and spawn them. they infect each other with the contagion of false humility, false spirituality, and false truths about the very nature of reality.

the only hope for the sick, the only cure of the infected is a complete dis-infection. strong medicine is required to purify the soul of the virus of Performance-Based Living. Love is a Gift, free and clear, without condition or prerequisite.

but we who were sick could not receive that love, freely. because we had been inoculated with the Mostly-Dead version of love - one that looked like love on the outside - but, inside, was empty and cold.

and until we are infected, anew, by that truest and strongest virus of Love and Acceptance - until we are transfused by that purest and sweetest blood of Self-Love, Compassion, and Forgiveness - we will continue to live out sickly lives - never fully well, never completely bedridden - but condemned to that half-life of darkness that never fully walks in the light of our calling.