jesus sweating drops of blood for himself, for you, for me
this is way more sane than irrelevant and out of touch bureaucracy, clueless business as usual politics, mere academic pontification about pain, or one sentence of advice given quickly so the giver can distance from the problem, and from the person who needs far more than our standoffish judgments about their predicament
the world seems to be run by people who are so far away from the pain
they call this “schizoid” in the therapy world, when a person goes far, far away into their head and no longer feels these matters of the heart
it is called “tin man” in the wizard of oz
the world run by tin men
after a while, we can get so used to suffering that we don’t do much about it and our dedication to even the relief of our own suffering gets put on the back burner as we are swamped with the obligations of life, there are bills to pay, jobs we must attend, things we have to clean up, so much we have to fix, another funeral to go to
we are swept along by habit, we are constrained, and the way our lives are set up becomes a straitjacket so that we move in accustomed ways, and we can’t see a new way, we can’t do a new way, we are more unconscious than we know, we are in a spell, a witches brew of habit and fear and so used to it pain
this is the human condition
and it’s nowhere near all your fault
peace is the gift of love
fear also has its chorus and fear making has its devotees
there are many legitimate things to fear in this world and the best thing we can do about that is to live wisely and healthfully, stay away from the things that rightfully scare us, and don’t go where it isn’t safe, unless that is your business (military, police, etc.)
don’t text and drive
eat your salads and fruits and vegetables
don’t swim with anacondas
we were all sad around these parts because a train went off the tracks going fast around a bend that is every inch a bend and something had to give and what gave was four lives lost and dozens injured and when it’s this close to home it is not a statistic or a story it is pain and horror and weeping and fear
one of my clients was in the first car and she could feel that the train was going too fast but she is smart and into accuracy and she wouldn’t swear to this (to a detective) because she doesn’t ride the train very much but she nevertheless would swear that she knew something was going very wrong and all of a sudden she was thrown around the train like a balloon being blown by the wind and she did not end up where she thought she was going to end up safely at grand central meeting a friend for some continuing ed and some continuing fun
instead she ended up almost in the hudson river, inside a train car that had flipped 360, and when the spin was over she took stock of herself and realized that she wasn’t badly hurt, and after she did what she could for those who were worse off, she went back to her broken seat, put on her coat with a hood on it and she pulled the hood way over her head and face and she closed her eyes and she snuggled into that seat and she said a prayer for herself and for everybody else on that godforsaken train and she sat there and waited for help
sometimes the only thing to do is close our eyes so we do not look at what we should never have to look at
sometimes we need to pull the wool over our eyes sometimes things are that godforsaken
sometimes all we can do is wait
Peace Etc. is © 2014 Bob Beverley
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