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ramblingsaboutriding · 2 years

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Destiny?

Chapter 2

It’s June, right? Yep, it is definitely June. So why on God’s green Earth am I wrapped in a blanket right now? Dear English Weather, what fuckery is this?! I have been gazing out of the window for the last fifteen minutes watching the wind blow in more clouds. This is not my window. I am house sitting for friends that are on holiday in the Greek Islands. I am baby shit green with envy right now. Traitor dog has deserted me in the office for the luxury of new couches that he is not allowed on – I have just told him to get off for the hundredth time today. At the very least, the resident felines have deemed me worthy of their presence. I wonder how long this will last. Especially when they find out this week is the precursor to a more permanent stay.

June is steadily ticking along, and I am working against the clock to sell furniture I do not need and minimise to the bare essentials. Traitor dog and I will be lodging with V, her husband and their household royalty, their two black cats. The decision to give up my little flat was made on the back of the increasing cost of living. But I can’t shake the feeling that this is meant to be more than just me saving for a deposit on a house and surviving the economical Armageddon. The first step towards making the dream a reality. I feel something stirring in the deepest corners of my soul. Destiny?

The need inside me to ride is growing stronger by the day. Not riding is suffocating. It can no longer be denied or set aside. I feel like I am too old to be making rash decisions, yet I have been thinking about this since before Covid reared its ugly little head. Now it feels like a calculated decision. There was a period in time where I did set the dream aside, tried to forget about it, and live like all the “normal” people that you meet daily. I married a snake and believed that this was what was in the books for me. At the time I was so blinded that I didn’t notice how I was losing my identity. That I was sacrificing my passion, my dreams, for a lie. Fortunately, the lie came crashing down and left me shattered. Fortunately? Yes, fortunately. It was a not only a chance to pick up the pieces and rebuild, it was a chance to rediscover. To evaluate previous weaknesses in the structure that was me. It was an opportunity to debride old wounds that just would not heal.

Where to from here then? Is lodging not a step back instead of the step forward to get where I need to be? Yes and no. Yes, it is a step backward, but a necessary one. It places me in a position where I am finally able to save and not be in the constant loop where that which I receive just goes out to line other pockets again. So, in this, it is a move forward. I can finally save for that ever-elusive deposit on my own home and to pay for the degree I am applying for. Another step towards the dream. Yes, I live in England, the mecca for all things horsey, so this should be easy right? No, it isn’t that cut and dry. I am also a believer in fate and that people cross our paths for a reason. In the four years that I have lived in my beloved England, not one person has crossed my path that has been a door to the dream. There have been steppingstones, corridors and hallways, but no actual doors. Until now. And the door isn’t in the UK.

Many moons ago, when I was still a snotty student finishing up my last days of University, I got this wild idea in my head that I wanted to work overseas and gain some international experience. Great thought at the time and widely supported by family, friends and the like. I immediately thought of England or Europe all surrounded by a romantic rosy haze, but for some reason, my mentor at the time planted the seed to look at the USA as well. I scoffed at the idea, but then that is where I landed up. In my mind I see and hear a scene from the movie Kingdom of Heaven where the actors are shouting, “God wills it!”. Yes God, fate - both willed it. Disappointingly at the time, it was not in a top class show barn with a competitive rider that would take me on tour all over the world and lead me to success and fame. I was so naïve back then. Still a child playing adult. No, I worked for a family that had horses at home and needed a hand with their care and exercise. It also wasn’t anywhere as glamourous as I had imagined. It was in Tennessee!

It was a difficult time. My stepdad, or just my dad as I prefer to call him, had tragically passed away the year before and instead of completing the full year that I was meant to stay in States, I only lasted for about six months. I think that, had I not had to deal with his death so freshly, it may have been different. Remember when I say everything happens for a reason? Well stick with me here, it will all come together. In years to come I would say I hated living in the US and that was the reason for leaving, or that I couldn’t stand the slow small-town life and that the work wasn’t enough to keep me going. That there wasn’t another position going at the time and that was why I decided to leave and return to sunny old South Africa. Looking back, they were all contributing factors, but it was small stuff that I was sweating and would now easily overcome. In fact, moving from South Africa to England saw me transition from city girl to country bumpkin with aplomb! No, the truth is I was not coping with my grief. Being the eldest child, I felt it was my duty to be strong and to show the family that we would be fine. Now I clearly see through all that bullshit, and I am very aware that we don’t always have to be strong.

In those short months, I grew to love the family I worked for as my own, I made awe inspiring lifelong friends and Tennessee became my second home. I went back for the first time in eleven years and as the plane touched down in Nashville, I felt this overwhelming sense of home – the same I feel when I return to England from all my gallivanting. Driving around my old town, I was flooded with wonderful memories and the sense of the familiar. It was home. Why am I telling you all this? Because here is the reason, through these wonderful people, I was introduced to my door. A person that is the first door to riding the dream. An education that many aspiring equestrians only dream of meeting. A door that I want to open right this minute, but sensibility and determination prevails. If I was my 25-year-old self, I would have jumped at it without second thought, and I would have gotten burned for my carelessness.

You see, I was not prepared for this kind of commitment. I had too many hang ups and way too much emotional baggage that would have drowned me when we reached deep waters. I needed to meet the serpent in my life at the very time that I met him. It was time to prepare for the future that is to come, and I needed to crash and burn. Break down every single bit of me. I needed to be broken so I could rebuild. Strong enough to comfortably weather any storm to come. And they will come, this is life and there is no avoiding it. I am no longer the skittish little Springbok bouncing all over the place. No, I have evolved into an African Honey Badger. Tough as nails and fearless. I eat snakes for breakfast now.

So here I sit, in what is to be my new home with for the foreseeable future, taking the plunge. No more waiting and fantasising. Now it becomes a reality. I do not and will never regret my move to England. I have fallen in love with the sleepy English villages, the rolling hills dotted with sheep and the dry English humour. I fit in here. The opportunities that living here affords me, are the stuff that dreams are made of. But it is still cold enough for me to scratch the paint off my car with my nipples.

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ifuckinglovestvincent · 3 years

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THE FORTY-FIVE: ST. VINCENT

Sleazy, gritty, grimy – these are the words used to describe the latest iteration of St. Vincent, Annie Clark’s alter ego. As she teases the release of her upcoming new album, ‘Daddy’s Home’, Eve Barlow finds out who’s wearing the trousers now.

Photos: Zackery Michael

Yellow may be the colour of gold, the hue of a perfect blonde or the shade of the sun, but when it’s too garish, yellow denotes the stain of sickness and the luridness of sleaze. On ‘Pay Your Way In Pain’ – the first single from St. Vincent’s forthcoming sixth album ‘Daddy’s Home’ – Annie Clark basks in the palette of cheap 1970s yellows; a dirty, salacious yellow that even the most prudish of individuals find difficult to avert their gaze from. It’s a yellow that recalls the smell of cigarettes on fingers, the tape across tomorrow’s crime scene or the dull ache of bad penetration.

The video for the single, which dropped last Thursday, features Clark in a blonde wig and suit, channeling a John Cassavetes anti-heroine (think Gena Rowlands in Gloria) and ‘Fame’-era Bowie. She twists in front of too-bright disco lights. She roughs up her voice. She sings about the price we pay for searching for acceptance while being outcast from society. “So I went to the park just to watch the little children/ The mothers saw my heels and they said I wasn’t welcome,” she coos, and you immediately recognise the scene of a free woman threatening the post-nuclear families aspiring to innocence. Clark is here to pervert them.

She laughs. “That’s how I feel!” From her studio in Los Angeles, she begins quoting lyrics from Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Red House’. “It’s a blues song for 2021.” LA is a city Clark reluctantly only half calls home, and one that is opposed to her vastly preferred New York. “I don’t feel any romantic attachment to Los Angeles,” she says of the place she coined the song ‘Los Ageless’ about on 2017’s ‘Masseduction’ (“The Los Ageless hang out by the bar/ Burn the pages of unwritten memoirs”).“The best that could be said of LA is, ‘Yeah it’s nice.’ And it is! LA is easy and pleasant. But if you were a person the last thing you’d want someone to say about you is: ‘She’s nice!’”

On ‘Daddy’s Home’, Clark writes about a past derelict New York; a place Los Angeles would suffocate in. “The idea of New York, the art that came out of it, and my living there,” she says. “I’ve not given up my card. I don’t feel in any way ready to renounce my New York citizenship. I bought an apartment so I didn’t have to.” Her down-and-out New York is one a true masochist would love, and it’s sleazy in excess. Sleaze is usually the thing men flaunt at a woman’s expense. In 2021, the proverbial Daddy in the title is Clark. But there’s also a literal Daddy. He came home in the winter of 2019.

On the title track, Clark sings about “inmate 502”: her father. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his involvement in a $43m stock fraud scheme. He went away in May 2010. Clark reacted by writing her third breakthrough album ‘Strange Mercy’ in 2011; inspired not just by her father’s imprisonment but the effects it had on her life.“I mean it was rough stuff,” she says. “It was a fuck show. Absolutely terrible. Gut-wrenching. Like so many times in life, music saved me from all kinds of personal peril. I was angry. I was devastated. There’s a sort of dullness to incarceration where you don’t have any control. It’s like a thud at the basement of your being. So I wrote all about it,” she says.

Back then, she was aloof about meaning. In an interview we did that year, she called from a hotel rooftop in Phoenix and was fried from analytical questions. She excused her lack of desire to talk about ‘Strange Mercy’ as a means of protecting fans who could interpret it at will. Really she was protecting an audience closer to home. It’s clear now that the title track is about her father’s imprisonment (“Our father in exile/ For God only knows how many years”). Clark’s parents divorced when she was a child, and they have eight children in their mixed family, some of whom were very young when ‘Strange Mercy’ came out. She explains this discretion now as her method of sheltering them.

“I am protective of my family,” she says. “It didn’t feel safe to me. I disliked the fact that it was taken as malicious obfuscations. No.” Clark wanted to deal with the family drama in art but not in press. She managed to remain tight-lipped until she became the subject of a different intrusion. As St. Vincent’s star continued to rocket, Clark found herself in a relationship with British model Cara Delevingne from 2014 to 2016, and attracted celebrity tabloid attention. Details of her family’s past were exposed. The Daily Mail came knocking on her sister’s door in Texas, where Clark is from.

“Luckily I’m super tight with my family and the Daily Mail didn’t find anybody who was gonna sell me out,” she says. “They were looking for it. Clark girls are a fucking impenetrable force. We will cut a bitch.”

Four years later, Clark gets to own the narrative herself in the medium that’s most apt: music. “The story has evolved. I’ve evolved. People have grown up. I would rather be the one to tell my story,” she says, ruminating on the misfortune that this was robbed from her: a story that writes itself. “My father’s release from prison is a great starting point, right?” Between tours and whenever she could manage, Clark would go and visit him in prison and would be signing autographs in the visitation room for the inmates, who all followed her success with every album release, press clipping and late night TV spot. She joked to her sisters that she’d become the belle of the ball there. “I don’t have to make that up,” she says.

There’s an ease to Clark’s interview manner that hasn’t existed before. She seems ready not just to discuss her father’s story, but to own certain elements of herself. “Hell where can you run when the outlaw’s inside you,” she sings on the title track, alluding to her common traits with her father. “I’ve always had a relationship with my dad and a good one. We’re very similar,” she says. “The movies we like, the books, he liked fashion. He’s really funny, he’s a good time.” Her father’s release gave Clark and her brothers and sisters permission to joke. “The title, ‘Daddy’s Home’ makes me laugh. It sounds fucking pervy as hell. But it’s about a real father ten years later. I’m Daddy now!”

The question of who’s fathering who is a serious one, but it’s also not serious. Clark wears the idea of Daddy as a costume. She likes to play. She joins today’s Zoom in a pair of sunglasses wider than her face and a silk scarf framing her head. The sunglasses come off, and the scarf is a tool for distraction. She ties it above her forehead, attempts a neckerchief, eventually tosses it aside. Clark can only be earnest for so long before she seeks some mischief. She doesn’t like to stay in reality for extensive periods. “I like to create a world and then I get to live in it and be somebody new every two or three years,” she says. “Who wants to be themselves all the time?”

‘Daddy’s Home‘ began in New York at Electric Lady studios before COVID hit and was finished in her studio in LA. She worked on it with “my friend Jack” [Jack Antonoff, producer for Lana Del Rey, Lorde, Taylor Swift]. Antonoff and Clark worked on ‘Masseduction’ and found a winning formula, pushing Clark’s guitar-orientated electronic universe to its poppiest maximum, without compromising her idiosyncrasies. “We’re simpatico. He’s a dream,” she says. “He played the hell outta instruments on this record. He’s crushing it on drums, crushing it on Wurlitzer.” The pair let loose. They began with ‘The Holiday Party’, one of the warmest tracks Clark’s ever written. It’s as inviting as a winter fireplace, stoked by soulful horns, acoustic guitar and backing singers. “Every time they sang something I’d say, ‘Yeah but can you do it sleazier? Make your voice sound like you’ve been up for three days.” Clark speaks of an unspoken understanding with Antonoff as regards the vibe: “Familiar sounds. The opposite of my hands coming out of the speaker to choke you till you like it. This is not submission. Just inviting. I can tell a story in a different way.”

The entire record is familiar, giving the listener the satisfaction that they’ve heard the songs before but can’t quite place them. It’s a satisfying accompaniment to a pandemic that encouraged nostalgic listening. Clark was nostalgic too. She reverted to records she enjoyed with her father: Stevie Wonder’s catalogue from the 1970s (‘Songs In The Key Of Life’, ‘Innervisions’, ‘Talking Book’) and Steely Dan. “Not to be the dude at the record store but it’s specifically post-flower child idealism of the ’60s,” she explains. “It’s when it flipped into nihilism, which I much prefer. Pre disco, pre punk. That music is in me in a deep way. It’s in my ears.”

On ‘The Melting Of The Sun’ she has a delicious time creating a psychedelic Pink Floyd odyssey while exploring the path tread by her heroes Marilyn Monroe, Joni Mitchell, Joan Didion and Nina Simone. It’s a series of beautiful vignettes of brilliant women who were met with a hostile environment. Clark considers what they did to overcome that. “I’m thanking all these women for making it easier for me to do it. I hope I didn’t totally let them down.” Clark is often the only woman sharing a stage with rock luminaries such as Dave Grohl, Damon Albarn and David Byrne, and has appeared to have shattered a male-centric glass ceiling. She’s unsure she’s doing enough to redress the imbalance. “There are little things I can do and control,” she says of hiring women on her team. “God! Now I feel like I should do more. What should I do? It’s a big question. You know what I have seen a lot more from when I started to now? Girls playing guitar.”

If one woman reinvented the guitar in the past decade, it’s Clark. Behind her is a rack of them. The pandemic has taken her out of the wild in which she’s accustomed to tantalising audiences at night with her displays of riffing and heel-balancing. Instead, she’s chained to her desk. Her obsession with heels in the lyrics of ‘Daddy’s Home’ she reckons may be a reflection of her nights performing ‘Masseduction’ in thigh highs. “I made sure that nothing I wore was comfortable,” she recalls. “Everything was about stricture and structure and latex. I had to train all the time to make sure I could handle it.” Is she taking the heels off when live shows return? “Absofuckinglutely not.”

Clark is interested in the new generation. She’s recently tweeted about Arlo Parks and has become a big fan of Russian singer-songwriter Kate NV. “I’m obsessed with Russia,” she says. In a recent LA Times profile, she professed to a pandemic intellectual fixation on Stalin. “Yeah! I mean right now my computer is propped up on stuff. You are sitting on The Gulag Archipelago, The Best Short Stories Of Dostoyevsky andThe Plays Of Chekhov. I’m kinda in it.” The pop world interests Clark, too. She was credited with a co-write on Swift’s 2019 album ‘Lover’. At last year’s Grammys she performed a duet with Dua Lipa. It was one of the queerest performances the Grammys has ever aired. Clark interrupts.

“What about it seemed queer?!”

You know… The lip bite, for one!

“Wait. Did she bite her lip?”

No, you bit your lip.

“I did?!”

Everyone was talking about it. Come on, Annie.

“Serious? I…”

You both waltzed around each other with matching hairdos, making eyes…

“I have no memory of it.”

Frustrating as it may be in a world of too much information, Clark’s lack of willingness to overanalyse every creative decision she makes or participates in is something to treasure. “I want to be a writer who can write great songs,” she says. “I’m so glad I can play guitar and fuck around in the studio to my heart’s desire but it’s about what you can say. What’s a great song? What lyric is gonna rip your guts open. Just make great shit! That’s where I was with this record. That’s all I wanna do with my life.”

More than a decade into St. Vincent, Clark doesn’t reflect. She looks strictly forward. “I’m like a horse with blinders,” she says. She did make an exception to take stock lately when the phone rang. “I saw a +44 and that gets me excited,” she says. “Who could this be?” Well, who was it? “Paul McCartney,” she says, in disbelief. “Anything I’ve done, any mistake I’ve made, somehow it’s forgiven, assuaged. I did something right in my life if a fucking Beatle called me.”

Now there’s a get out of jail free card if ever she needed one.

Daddy’s Home by St. Vincent is out May 14, 2021.

#‘I HAVE NO MEMORY OF IT’#LOOOOOL #WHY ARE U LIKE THIS #st vincent #full of shit #annie clark #Annie Clark on beds #yellow is the color for dull ache of bad penetration?

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tales-of-togetherness · 4 years

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something about me:

I was too little (7 years old) when i was sent to a boarding school. To be honest, it was amazing to be living with so many kids of my age and above. my school had a beautiful campus and the best teachers. That became my home, where is discovered myself, my personality, what i wanted to become when i grow old and everything. I could say that more than my parents, my teachers have groomed me. After my 12th class, i passed out of school while surprisingly topping my batch in board exams. Being an average student throughout this was a shock to many and surprise to all, including my teachers! well, this was a turning point in my life, i set new standards at home, for being the best child. My siblings and cousins were made to look upon me. I never planned at that moment what i wanted to do when i grow up, after discussions at home, we apparently randomly planned on to aim for Civil Services (bureaucracy) and i was full of zeal to achieve this dream of me and my family. The luck had been in my favor and i got admissions in yet again one of the best colleges of Delhi University- Miranda House (a women’s college btw). this was the 2nd turning point in my life. Little girl according to my family and the first person stepping out of home city to study at a higher level, that too in Delhi around 900 kms far away! I was happy for this new phase in my life. like i said the luck had been in my favor, i met people, i never realised would become so important to me. They became my best friends. within few months of being in Delhi, i met the love of my life. I never realised my potential to give love or let’s call it fall for love until i met him. I don’t know what i saw in him, i still don’t know, but this man became so important to me that Delhi became about him. I thought i was okay, until he kissed me, touched me, made love to me. before this, i only felt love, now i knew what it tasted like, how it smelled. I was subsumed with this emotion. Slowly this feeling just grew. He spoilt me with his kisses and made me want more. I dont know how i always ended up wanting things in this relationship be it time/love/attention. Well this is a different story. I grew so much as a person, i became so independent, i was happy and thriving. I had a feminist awakening, i could understand all the goods and the evils of society and had so much aspirations for a better world/future. I got wings and they gave birth to who i am today. The luckiest girl, i’d call myself. The best parents, sacrificing so much for my education, the best school, college, friends and love! But unfortunately i forgot where i belonged from. The 13 years of living outside made me forget my family background and the orthodox and patriarchal setting of our family. Yes no compromise in education, but still, a girl will not a tell man what is right. The father will never accept when he is wrong. The girl shall behave, dress proper, sit proper, say polite, adjust, and accept that she belongs to the lower status category, what they call “aurat jaat” in Hindi. Living outside blinded me with this reality and the world which i was living in became surreal to me, just like a fantasy world that every little girl not as lucky as me would dream of while being captive in their own houses. This i realized when i came back to my home suddenly due to COVID lockdown and its been 8th months since then. So after complete 13 years, i’ve been home for the first time for this long. THE MAJOR TURNING POINT IN MY LIFE UPTILL NOW. All my myths shattered, all my wings chopped off, all my dreams for the better brighter world being shut down, here i am writing all this down because i don't have a voice left to say anything. its my my body which is arrested, my family has arrested my mind and my soul to roam free. HEIGHTS OF PATRIARCHY is what i saw, something i only read in text books in my bachelors and newspapers. My father heard me talking to my boyfriend some things he shouldn’t have and there came a literal storm in my house, with my father threatening me that he will get me married as soon as possible, won’t let me study further, because according to him apparently this is what i have been doing all these years in Delhi. He threatened me by saying he would die before i do anything like falling in love. Only i knew, how much sacrifices i had made to achieve what i have today, how hard i have worked to study just to make them happy and proud of their daughter! How easy was it for them, to pass this off while saying these lines. Now im scared to call him, or any of my friends because i don't want them assuming im doing something “wrong”. I have to go to Delhi to get my stuff that i left there in my apartment, and they won’t let me go alone. They want to send my mother along to keep an eye on me, so that i dont hangout with my boyfriend. With this, i feel disgusted with myself and my parents. I feel the unluckiest to be born in this family. I never felt i would disrespect and hate them so much. All these years i tried to be the best... and for what? i did everything as they liked, to make them happy... but for what? For being trapped in their fully furnished little princess castle that they claim to be complete with all demands that may arise for a person, trapped in beautiful clothes and they’ve brought me so i feel beautiful just to only look in the mirror. I have the books that broaden my vision and the door remains shut. They think they are perfect parents, who have given my everything a girl needs, but unfortunately, they didn't give me “freedom” which was apparently most necessary. My parents would call other parents (who let their children be free)- “rich and spoilt”, they would abuse men of my age and called them “selfish” to make us stay away from men. THEY PASS IT OFF CALLING IT “CARE”, THEY DONT REALISE IT IS THEIR “INSECURITY”. THEY PASS IT OFF CALLING THIS MY “HOME”, FOR ME ITS A “CAGE”. -TalesOfTogetherness

-A

#excerpt from a book I'll never write #coronavirus #pandemic #lockdown #covid problems #indian parents #parenting #love #hate #long distance #tales of togetherness #talesoftogetherness #sad life

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blahsome · 4 years

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March 18 2020, yet another big milestone. 25 years. A quarter of a century. Is it a big deal or are numbers arbitrary and it’s the same amount of a deal as it ever has been? I can’t publish everything I’ve written down for this year without feeling guilty, but I also can’t step on no toes all the time. And now, I will also feel guilty posting this when there's a pandemic occurring, but, I am trapped at home with little to do other than edit and re-edit this writing to be suitable enough for the public. I started writing this on April 9, 2019, too early to start my 25th anniversary writing? I’ll guess not. So here it is, my yearly open letter to my mother with intermittent ramblings and poems about my experience moving though life as the person I am and my perceptions as a flawed but resilient female. It’s like if I put it out there, maybe I’ll somehow reach her and she will somehow let me know. Highs and lows, as usual. Just after 2 years off the sauce I had a bigger ‘aha moment’ than putting down any bottles, though one wouldn’t have happened without the other. I realized drinking wasn’t my real problem to begin with. It was people, and my desperate need for their acceptance and approval. My need to be recognized and valued instead of coddled and unconsciously kept in a box. My need to control the outcome of situations and stepping on toes in the process. After so long being alcohol free I came to see that I had to start living for me. In early June 2019 a dear friend turned me on to a book called CoDependent No More. In maybe a week’s time I absorbed every word, the narcissist in me was almost convinced that I’d written it myself, it resonated so deeply. The following week I started attending CoDA meetings. Now that so many of my grievances and ailments make sense, I only wish I’d known sooner that it was okay to live life with me as my number one priority. I didn’t know before that I didn’t have to feel responsible for other people’s actions or inactions, but my self worth had been dependent on it. I’m 95% sure my mother was CoDependent, and with that consideration, I’m able to understand her life choices better and therefore navigate my own with slightly better foresight. Wikipedia says “Codependency is a behavioral condition in a relationship where one person enables another person's addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement. Among the core characteristics of codependency is an excessive reliance on other people for approval and a sense of identity.” Now, that’s just one definition. There are many charastics to pick and choose from, and let me tell you, us codependents (I can only speak for myself) can be picky and choosy. Some people define codependency as a disease because if it goes untreated it only gets worse. I’m trying to break a lifetime of habits. Hi, My name is Blossom and I’m CoDependent. Every Monday night I go to a meeting where a group of women gather and we all try to work on ourselves to let go of whatever unmanageable ailments are keeping us shackled. It’s humbling and it fills me with hope. It empowers me to continuously seek change and clarity. Codependency is a tough one to recover from, as you can’t quit people. Once I had a name for this problem, every love song sounded different and every frustration made sense. I became able to recognize crazy making and slow down and see that I didn’t have control and things had become unmanageable. In doing so, I was able to step back and make better decisions for myself and my life and that’s how this whole last year unfolded more in my favor than any year previous. I worked on detaching and I started living for myself. March is a hard month for me. I sometimes feel so undeserving of a skin to be settled in. I writhe around in my persistent and annual grief. I start getting anxious in February wondering how it will appear this year. This March is particularly hard. I moved into a house with strangers and rarely stay there. I’ve got no place of my own to grieve, and with COVID-19 amongst us, I don’t want to take up any more emotional space while the world is feeling its current devestations and fears. My hopes for 2019 were to have more highs than lows, make my amends and reconciliations, and to keep my head mostly above water. And that was mostly the case. My aunt told me shortly after my post last year that my mom had self imposed low self esteem (now I recognize this as codependency). Watching home videos of her I feel like I could see stress in her face and I think about what she wrote in her journal about worry making her face look funny and how she didn’t want anyone to feel as she did. Maybe because it was a different time she felt like she couldn’t talk about her anxieties and had to bottle them up. I’m thinking about all the time I’ve spent transfixed by being a motherless daughter and trying to figure out where I fit into the word. I’m thinking about how long I spent tending to my father's bent and dusty wings, thinking I’d needed to see one of my parents fly so that I could’ve learned how it’s done. I’m in some required college to career success class that’s making me question my path, as if stress wasn’t doing that already. I’m laying in bed wishing that I’d figured out sooner that my wings were fine regardless of anyone else’s. I wish you were here so I could tell you all about everything. And so you could do the same. And so we could share the load. I quit smoking finally. Now my only vice is other people’s problems and trying to fix them to no avail. The eternal heartbreak I mentioned in my last letter makes more sense now. And the boy who told me to turn off the lights on my birthday sent me a podcast that said something about only being able to be loved as much as you’re willing to be vulnerable. And I think we’re all scared to be completely honest about how shitty we are, so we just perpetuate the shittiness and stay closed and unloveable. Early August 2019- I’m off track as usual, probably malnourished, definitely exhausted. This morning I was crying, I thought I wouldn’t be able to pull it together and that my eyes would be red when I got to my first job of the day. I think I was mourning. Things are going to change so much. I won’t have any more free time. I have to restructure everything. Which I think is what I wanted, but what a learning curve. I still have desperate hopes of creating a camp for motherless daughters someday. And it has to be accessible to all. But lord knows how far off in the future it is. At this time my feet are seldom beneath me, I’m sprinting forwards and if I stop I will stumble. I have to figure out my shit first I guess, and I’m putting in the worrrk. Or trying to at least. At a CoDA meeting a woman was talking about learning how to wield her anger, a thought that made me tremble. I liked the sound of it, as I have so much, and if we could turn it into a power, a force for good...it’d be all over. But I’m stifled by it, embarrassed of it. When I cancel plans it's usually because I’m embarrassed about how angry I am over something out of my control, and I can’t come down. Everyone was relatable, everyone seemed to be making progress, even if at this time it looked like a breakdown. They told their stories and I cringed inwardly, thinking of what I would have done in their situation. The time for change is now, I’m shaking in my boots. Some poetry and prose: My broken heart painted my world red slandering your name ensuring I’m to be seen as a fool who sobs wolf My depressed history understands every bit of where you come from like we have the same veins My logical self tells me that’s your burden to bear but I do everything I can to fabricate your crutches and excuse your bad behavior - Codependent Cowgirl Uncharmable. You only want your ex cause you think that’s where you can be yourself, but really that’s where was born the version of yourself you hate the most. Here I am standing strong, aching for my newest weakness. You’re having none of it. If I unclench my jaw and take a deep breath Tears roll down my cheeks THIS is relaxing So I tense back up And jump back into my cortisol spiral There is too much to get done to spend even one second thinking about you Six Sundays have passed since I’ve seen you last Codependency writes all my prose and all my sonnets All my pros and wilted bluebonnets - Go hard or go home Or go hard and stay at home, for forever because you thought you and your home would be each other’s salvation because home was the only thing that ever willingly invited you to change it and was better for it. But home got too heavy and home wouldn’t change on its own. And all the changes you did accomplish didn’t prove your worth. Plagued by nostalgia and sentiment Chronic grief Frozen in grief, and just when I begin to thaw, the temperature drops again Perpetually stressed What if to lose a parent as a child, is to lose the present. Because then you are trapped dreading the uncertainty of the future and wondering about a past you never knew and will never know, theirs. - Fuckless nights I unwittingly dusted off my fiddle strings and played as best as I could but you were never pleased. I was always out of tune or just off beat. -- And so let us not demonize others for our perceived shadows they cast and have casted We can’t all be deciphering your eccentric and elaborate needs when you’re shouting CUNT at the tips of your fingers and claiming to empower women while you dig in your claws to another. Chicken soup wasn’t enough to cleanse your soul. -- I think about you every day Literally nothing happens And I’m reminded of you I wake up I think of you I want to punch a wall I till the dirt I think of you I go on a date I don’t like him I think of you I let myself get so fucked up over you My rose colored glasses are shattered but I’m still wearing them I can’t bring myself to say nothing but nothing I say gets through to you I was operating out of a place Of fear I felt threatened by any number of women I’d never met and will never meet. I saw a message on your phone It confirmed my suspicions You drunkenly tried to explain it away I wanted to believe you but I had already poured the concrete and I cart it with me everywhere Slowly I’m leaving little bits here and there Becoming lighter - This week I wrestled with my codependency, Manic and exhausted from my nervous system vibrating I spent countless hours elbows deep in the dirt trying to find the root of it all An unsolvable problem parallel with reality Hard work makes me stronger Even if I can’t kill all the weeds Progress over perfection What even is progress? fuck my life. I’m no fun at this time. The doors will rot in the yard, my gut tells me just like the others. It’s not even a metaphor, just a strong probability, and a waste. Oh my god the realizations just keep rolling in. For hoarders the drama triangle isn’t just for people, but objects too. The doors must’ve been playing victim, and he’s gone to rescue them. The only corner left for me is The Persecutor. - Back in the thick Texas air Drawn to tough love From best friends to boyfriends Can’t get enough of the push and pull I’m nothing like the others I’m so much more with so much less You make me nervous But I don’t have much to lose I want to roll over and kiss you on the mouth I want reciprocation I want you to push my face away Just to kiss me on the neck You always get me with a twist We are scared of each other Collective hurt Collectively hurt We are missing something and are unable to accept ourselves and each other as we are I don’t know how you can lie to me Or how I can stick around for it For all those times you smash it right I guess Second best to you kissing my neck Is when I’m out of sight but on your mind I don’t fit in to some plan you thought you had I break the mold I’m quiet and bold We are anxious, we are stepping on each other’s toes Bite your tongue For better or for worse Things stay the same But with time, and your tongue between your teeth Eggshells are everywhere, splintered into our feet Make it up as you go along Keep the gas on I’m filling the space between my eyes and my rose colored glasses with wool - Same as ever Tongue between my teeth Lighting up another 100 out of 10 You wonder if you know me But you don’t give yourself the opportunity I’m right behind you writing my words that my teeth won’t allow my tongue to speak Desperation is such a drain Self inflicted low self esteem A familial affliction Looking like a 10 Feeling like a dud That low self esteem has me trembling And today was a good day - With a bottle of booze as his gate keeper He’ll never let me in I’m flushed, way too in my head Thinking up scenarios to catch you with your hands red bloodied from tearing my heart out and probably hers, too. - When I first quit drinking I felt this temporary empowerment, like I always had my wits about me. I could do anything. And then my codependency cloud settled back in, my intuition slipped back out the window. Now it’s like I’m in the desert, with a paddle, which makes even less sense than being upstream without one. It takes so much energy for me to state my needs. I’ve lived much of my life being brushed off and I predict rejection of my needs and so I try to suppress them and be ok with things as they are, but I need more. When I’m cancelled on, or am not prioritized, I need to be provided with alternatives or I feel insignificant. Reminders of my stated needs feel like nagging. I need reassurance. It’s exhausting and disheartening. -It’s the little things like when I ask if you want to do something and you tell me what you’re doing instead, without offering any alternative. Or when you tell me nothing. And I have visceral feelings that to inquire is to overstep and overstepping leads to termination. When I’m doing better I don’t write as much. Pain is romanticized, joy is foreign to me and perceived as fleeting. I’m trying to flip that script. Going to CoDA helps me in this effort. It reminds me that there is space for me and it's ok for me to have needs and taking care of myself should be step one in all of my endeavors. It's ok to say no. I don’t owe anyone anything, and also no one owes me anything. I’m closer than ever before to becoming the butterfly out of the cocoon, though I'm still very far, and that's okay. Progress over perfection. Now wash your hands and stay safe. If not for you, then for your loved ones, or your friends friends loved ones.

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bennykopus · 3 years

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Save Me // drab

// This drabble was inspired by the goodbye letter left by Thea Kopsu--Benny's little sister. This drabble is a co-drabble written by the writer of Thea Kopus and Me. This is very emotional. . . fair warning. Song posted with this drabble is "Save Me" by Jelly Roll. Benny was just getting off a 30-hour shift from the hospital, pulling into his driveway and turning off his vehicle. He decided it was too cold for the motorcycle. He felt his phone begin to vibrate and smiled when he noticed it was his darling sister, Thea. Answering the phone, his smile turned into a frown at the seldom look upon her features. "Thea? Is something wrong?" “Hi big brother,” She croaked as she tried to clear her throat. “I’m not doing so good Benny. Remember how I said I thought I had the flu? Turns out it’s Covid and I’m not getting any better. And I’m scared. And I’m alone. And I need you, Benny.” She cried on the phone, making Benny's heart sink. He was walking up to his door as she spoke, his heart stopped when she told him what was going on. His body froze, looking down at the screen he held in his hand. He locked eyes with his little sister as fear began to swell inside him. "Don't worry, sissy, I'm on my way. You gotta send me the address and I will book a flight as soon as I can." He rushed into his home and began to immediately pack his belongings--getting his affairs in order. Over the next four hours--after getting the name of the hospital--Benny had packed, told his work that he was heading out of town for a while, and booked a flight. The flight only took two hours, but with traffic and the crowded airport, it took a little longer than he wanted. Before he knew it, he was outside the room number that she had told him. He felt as though he was floating--as if everything going on around him was just a nightmare that he wanted to wake up from. Before he could get any closer to the door, he was stopped abruptly. His fist clenched as he was ready to strike anyone who was going to stop him from seeing his sister, but as soon as he saw it was a doctor, he stopped himself. “Sir, you can’t go in there without authorization or proper protection.” She said sympathetically. "Get me the proper protection, please. I need to be with my sister." She nodded to him and walked back to the desk. Another team of people came around to get him fitted with the helmet and the disposable gown to put over his clothes. The doctor came and handed him a form to fill out. “You need to sign this that you’re ignoring medical advice and cannot hold the hospital liable.” It was the only way she would be able to let him in the room. He got fitted into the proper protective equipment and immediately grabbed the form to sign. He didn't hesitate--all that mattered was being there for Thea. When everything was completed he was allowed into the room. Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door and walked into the room. "Hey, sis." He approached her bedside, looking down at his precious little sister who was hooked up to machines and breathing tubes. He absolutely hated seeing his sister in this condition. Something about it made him think the worst. She had to get better--she could, he felt it in his bones. Having him there with her would surely lift her spirits and help her fight. Approaching the bed, he reached his hand out to grab hers--feeling how weak she really was. He frowned. "I'm here, sissy." Over the next few hours, Thea got worse and worse. She explained to him why she went to New York and how frustrated she was that she was two days away from coming home before she got sick. Benny gave Thea an iPad that he brought from her home--something she requested he bring before he left Hartsville. Then she called Joel to talk to him and their daughter, Lovette--Benny sat there quietly, only talking when the iPad was facing him and Lovette was waving at him. Thea had just gotten off the phone with Joel--saying her goodbyes--something Benny didn't want to hear. “My daughter deserves to be raised in the truth and not a lie. And she’s going to need her uncle Benny as she gets older and she wants to know more about her mom.” Thea's eyes swelled in tears. “I’ve always been the one who kept you both going. I don’t know who's gonna look after you and him when I’m gone.” Benny's eyes widened when she began to talk about her not being there for Love, and it made his heart sink. "Thea, don't talk like this. You gotta keep fighting. . . I don't want to lose you. . ." Tears began to swell in his eyes. “I don’t wanna go.” She said shaking her head as she tried to sit up. Clutching her chest in pain as she gasped for air. Her blood pressure rising on the monitors, alerting the nurses who came rushing in. Benny stepped back as the nurses came rushing in to help his sister get stable once more--tears swell in his eyes as he fought the urge to cry. They helped get Thea comfortable in her bed before getting her back on the oxygen mask. When the nurses were gone, Thea looked at Benny. “I can feel it in my soul. The only way I’m leaving this hospital is in a body bag. I’m trying to fight so I can hold my daughter, but my body is giving up.” He hated seeing his sister like this and wanted to take her pain away. He would switch places with her in a heartbeat if he could. "I really want you to hold her again, too. . ." His voice broke. Thea patted the bed beside her as she laid against the bed trying not to move too much and conserve her energy. He immediately crawled into the bed beside her as she gestured for him to get on the bed. He did it slowly so he didn't hurt her, and wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. Holding her hand tightly as she spoke, the tears began to fall. “My sweet brother,” she smiled taking his hand into hers. “I love you so much. You grew up because you had to raise me. And now it’s time for you to do the same with Lovette.” She said unable to hide the tears anymore. “Every time I close my eyes I’m afraid I’m not gonna wake up. So I need to say this alright? You’re gonna go to a dark place if I don’t wake up and I don’t want that for you. You have so much more living to do. And if you’re not gonna do it for you. Then do it for me.” Benny couldn't stop the flow of tears that streamed down his face. "I don't know if I can, sissy. . . We've never not been together. We've never been apart. You are my reason for living and I don't know what I'm going to do if I can't see your smiling face or you help me with advice. . ." His voice cracked, trying to keep his breathing steady. “You’ll have everybody who loves me--they are gonna wanna be there for you. I don’t want somebody else living in my house, so it’s yours. You can keep it for Lovette or for yourself.” She said as she looked up at him. “I’m so scared Benny.” She kept giving up and it was killing him--he couldn't stand her saying all this and it was terrifying him. "I love them, sissy, but they aren't you. You have always been that constant in my life, no matter what. Even in my darkest moments, you brought me back to the light. I can't do this without you, Thea. . ." He held her tight, the tears beginning to flow down his cheeks. "I'm scared, too, sissy. . ." “I’ll always be with you,” She said as she slowly began to fall back asleep. It seemed that’s all Thea did. The next day the lawyer came and Thea got her affairs in order. Benny barely got any sleep over the few days he stayed in the chair by her hospital bed--each day her spirit was getting weaker and weaker--shutting down much like her body was. Benny stayed in his protective gear, as uncomfortable as it was, he only left to use the restroom and to shower. It felt like he was living in the hospital now, and the amount of sleep he was getting was unhealthy for him--but he just couldn't risk leaving her side. By the fourth day, Thea had taken a turn for the worst. The doctor had warned Benny that morning. “Hi babe,” she said as she gasped for air when Joel answered the call. Oxygen mask firmly on her face to help her breathe. “I ... love ... you.” She staggered to say as she looked at him. “Don’t be sad,” she said trying to smile as she pulled at the oxygen mask. “Kiss our little wolf for me,” she said as she cried, putting the oxygen mask back on. “I don’t want you to see me go, so you gotta hang up okay? You gotta let me go, baby.” She cried harder which only made her wheeze more. “I’ll always be with you.” Benny sat there quietly as Thea spoke to Joel on the phone--hating that she was saying her goodbyes. With each passing moment, his heart broke more and more, shattering into a million pieces that he felt wouldn't be able to be put back together. He didn't want this--he wanted to go back in time and stop her from ever leaving Hartsville. Or he should have gone with her, something to help her. Maybe he could have prevented the worst from happening. He felt like such a failure as a brother. He should have been there for his little sister--like she had always been there for him. He was supposed to be her protector, the one that always kept her away from harm. Yet here she was, dying right before his eyes. "I love you..." Joel said trying to fight back the tears that were unstoppable at this point. He shook his head "Baby don't leave me. Don't leave us." He said as he cried harder as she told him he had to hang up, that he had to let her go. "You always be in my heart," he said through his sobs, forcing himself to hang up the call once and for all. Silent tears cascaded down his cheeks as Joel cried on the other end of the line--before the line was disconnected. When the call ended, Thea took a slow breath as she looked at Benny. She was circling the drain. She was beyond scared but her body was done fighting. Her eyes wide as she looked at Benny confused about what was happening now. It was like a domino effect, as soon as she said her goodbyes to him it was like her body was ready to go. Finally feeling as if it was time. It wasn't fair to him. He felt selfish, but he wanted more time with his sister. He wanted to do things with her--share happy memories. Have her go out with laughter--not this. Not in pain and scared and lonely. Yes, he was there, but he knew more than anything that she wanted to be surrounded by people she cared about. All her friends--her daughter. He wanted to hear her laugh, see her smile, full of life. Most of all, he didn't want to be left alone. After Thea--he would be completely alone. Yes, he had Love, but she would be a constant reminder of his best friend. His heart. His world. It was going to be painful. He sat at the edge of his seat--reaching his hand out to grasp onto hers. "Don't be scared, sissy. . . I am right here. I'm not going anywhere. I promise." The monitors around the room beeped steadily, Benny sat on the bedside of his little sister as she battled the sickness inside her. She was talking to him normally--he hadn't left her side since he first arrived in New York. He felt his heartbreaking the worst she got--fearing that he was going to lose his sister. How was he going to be able to continue on without her? Even when she left Hartsville without a word to anyone, they still stayed in contact. Growing up it was just the two of them. Their mother passed when they were little and their father wasn't usually around--he focused on work until his own death. It had always been Thea and Benny--she was his best friend. She was his world. To even think about a world without her in it--it was too much to bear. Thea grasped his hand. Her breathing shallow as she held on as tightly as she could. “I. . . love you.” She said as a tear fell from her eye. She didn’t want to leave her brother. He needed her. Her grip slowly easing as she faded away. “Dad is waiting for me,” she smiled as her eyes closed. It happened suddenly, he looked away for a moment and that was all it took. The monitors began to beep rapidly, panic ensued as he stood up--pushing back the chair he was sitting on. "Thea!" He called out, crystal blue optics scanning around the room for anything that would help. Before he knew it, there were doctors and nurses swarming the room and pushing him back to get to his little sister. Everything began to slow down--going in slow motion as his eyes stayed locked on the motionless body of his sister. He felt his heart sink into his stomach--tears began to swell in his eyes. His fear coming to life and taunting him like a sick game. Somehow he ended up in the hallway, and the realization hit him like a freight train. "No!" He began to move his way into the room, only for a few nurses to push him back--as if he could hold him. "No! I have to be in there!" He escaped their grasp, and it was then that a couple of security guards rushed to the scene--grabbing onto him and pulling him back. "Please!" He cried out, tears of sorrow and anger falling down his face like a waterfall. He twisted his body and punched one of the security guards, sending him flying to the hard floor. He acted out of pure adrenaline--unthinking of the consequences of his actions. The only thing on his mind was getting to Thea. "Sir, you have to calm down, please don't make us escort you outside." Those words resonated in his mind and brought him back, a nurse looking at him with worry as the other security guard put him in a Full Nelson hold. Benny looked at the woman, tears flowing from him as his voice began to call out--croaking with each word that escaped his lips. "Please, I have to be next to her, I have to be the last thing she sees. She can't leave this world and think I wasn't there until the very end. I can't do that to her, please!" He cried out, his heart shattering within his body. "I don't want her to leave this world feeling scared and alone. . ." He paused, as the nurse nodded and motioned for the security guard to let him go. Once released he adjusted himself, situating the protective equipment that he wore in a better position. "Thank you. . ." He spoke barely above a whisper as he began to walk back into the room--calmer as to not capture the heat of the security guard once again. The doctors knew she was going to be taking her last breath soon, it was inevitable. His words resonated with them--and they allowed his wishes. He reached the bed and took his sister's hand in his for what felt like the thousandth time. His heart shattering with each moment that passed. "S-Sissy. . . Can you hear me?" He leaned near the edge of the hospital bed, his vision blurry from the tears that he tried to hold back. He reached his hands out to grasp her cold, lifeless hand--hoping that the warmth he radiated off him would somehow help. "I-I want you to know that it's okay. . . You can go see dad. You can hug mom for me. Tell her I wasn't a complete screw-up, okay?" His lip shook as he tried to keep his breathing steady--but he was failing. "Love is going to grow up knowing what a strong, amazing woman you are. You hear me? I promise. . . I. . ." Loud sobs escaped his mouth, tasting the salt that his tears produced. "It's okay, I'll be okay. . ." The heart monitor flatlined as the doctors and nurses stood by. There was nothing they could do. Thea had signed a DNR. "Time of death. . ." Sobs of sorrow and heartbreak got louder as he buried his face into his sister's body, clinging onto her lifeless body--as if letting her go would somehow be the end of him. The words of the people around him faded into the background as he felt his heart shatter into a million pieces. Doctors and nurses surrounded him and let him grieve in peace before a nurse finally placed a hand on his shoulder. "Mr. Kopus. . . It's time. . ." He wanted to object but his body refused--he was weak. A nurse guiding him away from his sister--looking back one last time to see her in such a peaceful state. She was no longer hurting, she was free. And he felt himself grow numb at that moment--leaving his heart in that room with her. Before he knew it--he was in a New York hotel room, sitting silently on a chair as he let the past few days replay in his mind like a nightmare. He couldn't move, he didn't want to eat, he felt as though his happiness was gone. His best friend in the entire world was now no longer in it. How could he possibly go on without her? He didn't want to. He felt cold, alone, and wondered if this was how she felt as she passed. It had only been a short few hours since he left the hospital but it felt like an eternity. He felt all motivation to move obsolete as he just sat there in that dark room--bottle in hand. "I miss you. . ."

#benny kopus #save me #drabble #drabbles

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johnhardinsawyer · 3 years

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Tearing Open the Heavens

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

11 / 29 / 20 – First Sunday of Advent

Mark 13:24-37

Isaiah 64:1-9

“Tearing Open the Heavens”

(Hoping is the Cure)

Last night, I had to send an e-mail to some members of our church asking them to not come to worship this morning. With Covid cases on the rise, the Session of our congregation has lowered the number of people in the sanctuary for our livestream from 20 people back down to 10 people – spread out, in a room that can seat 400. This is one thing we are doing to try to keep our people safe, but as a pastor, it breaks my heart to uninvite people to church. O, how I wish things were different! O, how I hope that things will change soon! I’m willing to guess that I might not be all alone in my wishing and hoping. In fact, I’m willing to guess that sometime over the past nine months you – and a whole lot of other people – have likely wished and hoped that things would be different from the way they really are.

It might be some small comfort to know that we are not the only people in history to go through difficult times and wish that things were different. We are not the only people in history to hope for something better, either.

The people who first heard the words of today’s reading from the Book of Isaiah were wishing and hoping for better days, but they were still in the middle of a big mess. In Isaiah, God’s people are not doing right – not living right – and, even though they get plenty of warnings, they don’t change their ways. So, life gets really hard for them for a long time. It’s really messy. And yet, in the middle of this big mess, we can find some of the most beautiful and hopeful language in the whole Bible. Today’s passage from Isaiah, is not one of those beautiful and hopeful passages, though.

The people who heard today’s reading for the first time were sitting in the ruins of a destroyed city after returning from exile in a foreign land. And the prayer that the author of today’s reading prays is not a joyful one. Now, I am paraphrasing here, but this is basically the prayer:

O that you would tear open the heavens, God,

and actually show up.

Make the mountains quake, O God.

Light the forests on fire until the waters boil over.

Make the nations – all the peoples of the earth –

stop in their tracks and be in awe of you.

This is what you used to do, O God. . .

Why won’t you do it now?

You work for those who wait for you. . .

Well, God, we’re waiting. . .

Is it because you’re angry with us, God?

We are pretty sinful, aren’t we?

Nobody calls on you anymore.

Nobody reaches out to you anymore.

It’s like you’ve hidden your face from us

and left us sitting in the middle of this mess.[1]

You know, if there were a passage of scripture in the running that was kind of tailor made for capturing the mood of people of faith in the year 2020, these ancient words from Isaiah just might be it. We are in a mess, aren’t we? We are in a mess and we want to not be in said mess. And so we wish and hope that things will get better. Could it be possible that something might happen – someone might come and fix it all? And, no, I’m not necessarily talking about Dr. Fauci, though that would be nice. What if God would come down and make things right – help us pick up the pieces, give us what we truly need? “O, that you would tear open the heavens, God, and fix this – fix us. . .”

It should be noted, that the act of asking God to tear open the heavens and show up does come with a Biblical warning label. In the Book of Amos, the Prophet Amos – who lived around the same time as the Prophet Isaiah – wrote,

Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want the day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light; as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear; or went into the house [a place of safety] and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake. (Amos 5:18-19)

The so-called Day of the Lord could end up biting you on the rear end if you’re not careful, Amos is saying.

He goes on to say that if you really want God to show up, then your relationship with God needs to be in a good place. For example, when the holiday festivals are just for partying and not for God, or when offerings are made just to help people feel good about themselves, or when the singing – no matter how beautiful it may be – is just for those doing the singing and not for God, God isn’t impressed by any of it. What God wants is “justice that rolls down like waters and righteousness that flows like an ever-flowing stream.” (5:24) In other words, if we’re not willing to work for the things that God wants – to live them out with all of our hearts and minds and souls, and to seek God’s kingdom on earth, as it is in heaven – then God isn’t interested in whatever else we might want to half-heartedly offer to the Lord.

So, Amos is saying, if you want God to show up, it might not end up turning out like you want it to. God might just ask something more from us in an effort to answer our own prayers. And sometimes, when God answers our prayers, the answers we get from God are something like, “I hear you John, but not yet,” or “Not as you will, John, but as I will.” Now, this doesn’t mean that we should stop asking God to come and fix things. Because God is in the business of not just fixing, but restoring and making all of creation new. At least, this is what we – as people of faith – hope with all our hearts. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for God to do something like this.

As Jesus tells us, though, in today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark, when we find ourselves hoping that God will show up then we need to be ready – because we do not know when the day of the Lord will come. Just so you know, Jesus also gives us a warning about the Day of the Lord – echoing some of the words of Amos. And then, Jesus says,

But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert, for you do not know when the time will come. . . And what I say to you, I say to all: Keep awake. (Mark 13:32-33, 37)

In other words, we can pray for God to come – we can wait and watch for God to come, but we do need to be alert. . . to keep awake.

Now, there are some among us who might joke with Jesus, saying that staying awake really isn’t a problem these days, especially with all that is going on in the world. In the weeks before and after the November 3 election, I talked to multiple people who had a hard time sleeping and found themselves awake at all hours of the night. I’d be lying if I said that my own sleep hasn’t been disrupted by all kinds of things – large and small. I know that I’m not the only one, though, with Covid cases on the rise, and regular holiday plans disrupted, and families separated from one another, and tough conversations about race taking place, and small businesses on the skids while the stock market booms, and at-home school conflicting with at-home work (not enough hours in the day and not enough bandwidth), and conspiracies abounding about all kinds of things because nobody trusts anybody anymore, it’s no wonder that people are having a hard time – sleeping, and getting along, and just plain living. . . O, that God would tear open the heavens and grant us some rest and relief from all of this. . .

You know, I have been thinking about today’s passage from the Book of Isaiah for years. I preached a sermon about it fairly early in my time as a pastor and I remember telling the story of going to visit a friend of mine. I was driving to her home in Atlanta, looking forward to having dinner with her, and her husband, and their baby boy. When I arrived at the house, my friend and her baby were there but the husband was not. And, over dinner, she shared with me that she had recently asked her husband to move out. This was the first time she had to do this, but it wouldn’t be the last. I was shocked. I had known her since high school and had sung at their wedding. I remember being equal parts sad for her and so angry at her husband. I wanted something to happen and I remember praying for God to show up and fix this mess because there was no way that I, or anyone else, could. But, as I said a moment ago, sometimes, God’s answer to our prayers are “Not yet,” or “Not as you will, but as I will.”

Years have gone by. My friend’s baby boy is now in high school. She, as a single mother, has raised her son and his little brother, surrounded by a community of people who have offered support along the way. It takes a village, you know. . .

This past spring, one of the members of that village – a neighbor who is a widower – brought some food to my friend while she was very sick with Covid-19. And. . . wouldn’t you know it. . . the gift of that meal and the presence of someone who cared caused love to blossom between the two of them in the middle of a pandemic. It probably didn’t look like any of the hopes that either of them or any of us ever had, years ago – in the midst of such tragedy and pain – but sometimes that’s the way it goes with hope. God does answer prayer – not always with romance, but always with the pure and holy and life-giving divine love that is revealed to us in Jesus Christ . . . As Isaiah says, “God does work for those who wait.”

This is the first Sunday in the Season of Advent. The word for Advent in the Greek means “arrival” or “presence” – like the “arrival and presence of someone who is the only one who can deal with a situation.”[2] Throughout the New Testament, this word is used to describe the arrival of God’s presence in some great and glorious and final way – with thunder and clouds and earth-shattering wonder. And, maybe that’s the way it one day will be.

For now, though, we place our hope in the One who hears our prayers and tears open the heavens to be born among us – God-with-us, Emmanuel in our hearts and souls. . . This is the surest sign we have that things will not always be the way they are – the promise that God has something greater than the way things really are at the present in store for us and for all creation.

In this season of Advent – this season of watching and waiting for something more, something better – I hope that hoping is the cure. . . hoping in the revealing of the Holy in our midst, the arrival of the One who will and does make all things right and new.

We are awake. We are watching. We are waiting. We are hoping.

Come, Lord Jesus.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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[1] Isaiah 64:1-7. Paraphrased, JHS.

[2] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) 630. https://biblehub.com/str/greek/3952.htm.

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