Losing My Religion
Partial Lyrics To “Losing My Religion” by R.E.M.
Writer(s): Bill Berry, Michael Stipe, Michael Mills, Peter Buck Copyright: Night Garden Music
I
Loneliness. Futility. Despair.
Any cursory examination of the dictionary would lead me to a plethora of terms, such as those above, with which to introduce this narrative. Perhaps I would even discover the exact phrase which might immediately invoke the proper emotive response. Such a feat would allow for elimination of various cause and effect interactions while maintaining a tenuous relationship with those who chose to peruse these pages. Yet any attempt to circumvent the events recorded here would be in direct conflict with the intention of compelling the reader to delve ever-deeper into the storyline. Therefore, it would be wise to begin with the motivations causing this author to make a vain attempt to place words, sentences and paragraphs into proper constructs, as inadequate as it may prove to be.
Those three descriptive terms mentioned at the beginning of this tale seem to accurately describe experience, outlook and perhaps some small measure of wisdom gained during five decades. The accompanying emotions, which at times are personally overwhelming, do not come as an unexpected discovery to my inner self nor was it a sudden revelation which one day made itself manifest when I awoke from nocturnal dreams. It is rather the result of a long, torturous path I have been forced to follow, or maybe better said, has forced me to follow it, along the narrow road towards destiny. What baffles me, I cannot recall one single defining act leading me to this abyss. I am at a loss to determine how I got to here from there. I only know that I am here, wherever “here” may be at any given moment in time.
As in most endeavors which tend to change our personal perspective on life, there is indeed no exact place or time when modification of my own outlook allowed for clarity of thought. Yet I do acknowledge, somewhat unwillingly, whereas I once believed in, without question or doubt, a divine power, somewhere along the route an awareness of total silence in lieu of that belief, enveloped me. So deadening was this silence, so totally deaf to any and all entreaties, I could not have prepared for it nor did I have any skills to combat it.
Perhaps, when age and inner torment are contemplated all of us have a breaking point. Yet again, perhaps in the scheme of life, upon the numerous paths traveled, some of us find no necessity to reevaluate decades old decisions nor choices made or possibilities wasted. However, all this is speculation upon the human condition as each individual lives their own life while attributing success and failure alike to luck, karma, capabilities or if one believes in such things, the intervention of divine will.
At my age it is almost an accepted norm as one takes stock upon the pathways of life such ruminations are coupled with an attempt to grow closer with some celestial deity. It is the penultimate insurance policy and makes no difference what religion you adhere to nor which God or greater power you believe in. At a certain moment in time, broken promises demand amends, once discarded ethics and morals are revisited and adopted, while heaven and hell become more tangible as one realizes the end of the road is closer than the beginning.
Somehow I find myself on the other shore staring at white rapids which can no longer be crossed, questioning if such a thing as morals, ethics, and applying wisdom to determine right from wrong was a misguided venture. Predictably I stand on that shore completely alone. It seems the majority have taken the great gamble they would reach a certain age allowing them to live out their remaining years following a less-skewed moral compass. For many that fateful roll of the dice has paid off. It does not matter whom they hurt along the way, nor does it seem to matter how much good they destroyed. They stand on the opposing shore secure in the knowledge that all will be forgiven due to their new-found faith.
This journey is essentially about getting to here from there. Yet in order to fully realize the impact of the road followed, an understanding where “there” once meant is in order. This requires an introduction to my favorite pastime offering insight into the engaging enterprise of “Last Times”.
II
In simple terms, Last Times is a game of chance. I am always wondering if my present activity will turn out to be the last time I am ever involved in that specific endeavor. Envision for a moment the following scenarios. Walking down a street in your beloved neighborhood not realizing events will conspire to force you to move the following day. Watching a friend or family member leave to embark upon their daily routine, assured the conversation between the both of you will be continued later, only to discover in a few hours that ‘later’ no longer remains in the realm of possibility. Visiting someone who is sick and being told there is a possibility the chemotherapy will take but the doctor’s eyes tell you something else. All the above can be categorized as last times.
Then there is my own last times eccentricity. Carrying your child on your shoulders and actually being aware of the last bittersweet moment when you finally give in and let them down. Imagine knowing it was the last time this specific child will ever ride on your shoulders. I was never able to get that one right. Seven children and I still never knew when the last time would come for a ride on my shoulders.
As you can well comprehend, it is not a particularly humorous or uplifting game.
Though I have never told anyone about Last Times I am always on the lookout for them. Life has made me suspicious even in regard to trivial events. What I have discovered as I get older and supposedly wiser, is I rarely get a last time right.
When Pop died and we buried him, I was elected to give the eulogy. Indeed I loved him and was positive his eulogy would be my last time. But then only a few years afterwards Mom died. It seems to be the way of the world, especially my world. Death, that is. I loved her as well, so on the date she gave birth to me, which happenstance dictated to be the day we buried her, I gave her eulogy. Despite having my birthday destroyed forever, I was relieved and felt fortunate as her very last words to me on this earth were “I love you son”. So while sitting Shiva for my mother I was secure in the knowledge this was definitely the last time. There simply was no one else to eulogize, no one else to sit Shiva for. I had paid my dues and now was done thinking I had gone through and seen it all by then.
How wrong can one be?
There is an old Yiddish proverb, “Man plans and God laughs”.
If there is one absolute I have learned in life which should never be ignored or forgotten, if only to retain one’s own sanity, it is the following simple truism:
God definitely has a sense of humor, second to none.
I have discovered that God has an endless repertoire of humor, carefully designed and staged. He also requires an audience — though an audience of one is quite sufficient. Indeed I have had this distinct honor many times.
The major protagonist in this tale, if you have not figured it out already, is God. How does one convince God to take a leading role? Easy. You just have to understand his sense of humor.
I often digress with stories as sometimes they are the only way to actually say something intelligent. The following legend is rooted in Hassidic lore, attributed to the Rabbi of Kotzk. As the leader of a Hassidic Sect in the eighteenth century, he had a few followers. Not a great multitude as Hassidic leaders tend to have, due to the fact he was a very exacting man. It is said the Rabbi of Kotzk would not accept any deviation from his goal of discovering ultimate truth. The majority of humankind would indeed miserably fail if held up to a measuring stick of absolute truth. Yet this Rabbi with very few followers and an unforgiving nature, who left not one written word of his own commentary to future generations, curiously became one of the most enigmatic and famous figures to grace the pages of Jewish history.
The Rabbi of Kotzk, once pondered the biblical story of the Garden in Eden. Remember Adam and Eve and the odious snake? The bible tells us after the snake persuaded Eve to eat from the forbidden fruit and then when Eve involved Adam in their little conspiracy, God punished all of them. God comes to the Garden, furious beyond measure, and tells Eve she will suffer really bad pain in childbirth while Adam suddenly finds out he has to work for a living. Adam and Eve hang their heads in shame, but the devious snake gets a very interesting punishment. God takes away his legs and arms and tells the snake from now on he is destined to eat the dust of the earth. Whoa! Hold on a second! Adam and Eve have just been totally shafted, and the snake who started it all gets to slither away and eat everything coming his way?
The Rabbi of Kotzk was really bothered by this unfair punishment. As a matter of fact it should enrage all the progeny of Adam and Eve. Yet the good Rabbi had an answer for this mystery, which requires a lifetime of pondering and thought. He postulated the snake actually received the worst punishment possible. God turned around to the snake, and said, “You know what Snake? You really disgust me. I am beyond angry and repulsed. Nothing you can say or do will ever change my mind. Just get out of my sight and don’t come back. Don’t ever dare show yourself to me agan!”
So the snake slithered away with no possibility of appeal. Imagine having God so disgusted with you he just wants you out of his thoughts.
Truth be told, I have often wondered whether it is not such a bad idea to be ignored by God. The prospect does seem to contain certain perks. Divine humor would suffer a setback, even if I were condemned to always hear the echo of God’s laughter in the background.
Alas, I have never been allowed to slither away and hide under a rock. Indeed, I keep on getting invited back to the show with a permanent front row seat being forced to watch and at times, join in. God insists on my presence in that theater keeping my seat warm and ready. Why am I so honored?
You see, along the by-and-by, I discovered God’s secret. So being “here” and no longer “there”, I have no hesitation nor any feelings of guilt in revealing his secret these days.
God loves to hear me clap.
III
I am what is known in our modern vernacular as a “baby-boomer” having been born in 1954 into an age of prosperity. I was the only son of an elderly father and a not so young mother. Mom would have had a nervous breakdown if she ever heard me call her “not-so-young”. There are some definite advantages of having said your final goodbye to both parents. Orphans everywhere unite in that thought.
Here is an interesting last times piece of information. I had always thought that my birth was the last time for my mother and it was by choice that our family consisted of just my sister and myself tearing each other’s hair out. Awhile after I had given my mother’s eulogy I discovered my mother had a miscarriage a few years after giving birth to me. There I was thinking all his time that I was a last time for Mom, and she tries to have another child. Kind of knocks the wind out of your sails.
Another sure rule about Last Times. Even when you think you discovered one, beware. All Last Times on the list are there without guarantee, tentative entries at best.
I was fed with the proverbial silver spoon. Ted Williams, my namesake, perhaps the greatest baseball player who ever lived, was still playing major league baseball when I was born. During the year of my birth he had just returned from fighting in Korea recovering from a broken collarbone. When good-old Ted returned to the lineup after that injury, he hit two homers, a double and four singles in a doubleheader. Like my namesake, I always find my name on the batting roster. However whereas Ted Williams had the chance of hitting a pitch, this Ted William is forced to face-off each and every time with God on the pitcher’s mound. And there is no one, not even the great Ted Williams, who could hit a curve ball pitched by God.
My mother took me home from the hospital, introduced me to my sister which was the beginning of one of the most complex sibling relationships you could possibly imagine. Though she still is a royal pain, during crucial moments, Sis is just plain awesome. Her favorite admonition to me has always been, “Grow up Toby!” Shades of Peter Pan.
Home was the upper west side of Manhattan, in the midst of one of the wealthiest Jewish communities in the world. My parents were not Holocaust survivors, and god help the person who would imply that they were. They were true-blue born and bred Americans and damn proud of it. Pop served in World War Two along with some of his brothers. We were modern orthodox Jews who missed the holocaust. Though my mother’s extended family, having remained behind in Europe, certainly did not have any such luck. They were all dead by the end of the war.
I remember very little of the first few years of my life. We had a maid and a chauffeur and went to Florida and Long Beach and Grossinger’s hotel for vacations and Deal, New Jersey for the summers. I never recall wanting for anything, though I was never allowed to think or act as if the world was there to serve me. My parents did their best to inculcate their children with a measure of humility and need to prove ourselves amidst such a lifestyle. It was a paradox of sorts, allowing me to persevere in later years when such luxuries were but distant memories. Indeed without those lessons requiring one to prove their own worth, I would have pressed the self-destruct button decades ago.
As modern orthodox Jews I studied in a yeshiva day school. My nanny who was also our maid became my other-world education. From the time I can remember there was a strong bond of love between us. She was a second mother to me whom I never dared to disrespect. Along the road she taught me to stand up for what I believed in and neither skin-color nor religion gives anyone the right to hate others. It often amazes me in my ruminations as an adult, how much love I still feel for her. On the by-and-by she also died, two years after my mother died and one year after my daughter died. God was smack in the middle of one of his shows. In retrospect, I think he was trying to warn me. Or break me.
My father was the kindest, most compassionate and wisest man I have ever known. I do not write those words due to some psychological need to hyperbolize my father. Over a period of sixty years one meets thousands of people and I have never met anyone who was kinder, more compassionate or wiser than my father was. It is one of the precious gifts I have been granted in life. After being on the road to hell a few times in my life I have come to appreciate his wisdom. This is what he taught me. When you see someone else who is more fortunate than you are, and jealousy takes over, try to always remember that everyone has their own package of woes and troubles. And when you see someone less fortunate, always remember, ‘If not but for the grace of God, there goes I’.
That is wise and sound advice. Indeed it is the best definition of empathy you will ever discover.
Mom on the other hand, was a fighter against the injustice of fate. She had no patience for foolishness. Mom was one of those people who, without flinching, looked straight into your eyes and told you exactly what she thought. One always knew where they stood with my mother. There was no deceiving her even when she reverted to her ‘drama-queen’ speeches. Hellfire on steroids would be a fairly accurate description of Mom.
I was surrounded by love, wisdom and genuineness. Unfortunately I never appreciated the magic of such a wonderful gift until it was way too late.
I have a friend for over forty years who also grew up in Manhattan and as the fates would have it, still lives there. He is brilliant, indeed probably one of the smartest people I have ever met. He too was born with that proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. Jealousy makes others forget that not all is as it seems. On the by-and-by, he would also be visited by the divine humor I have come to know so well.
Years ago, he had just returned from Europe on a business trip, and during his travels he visited the ‘Secret Annexe’, as it is officially known, where Anne Frank had hidden from the Nazis during World War Two. She kindly left us a diary of her thoughts while she hid in that attic, scared out of her mind that any day men who had somehow made the metamorphosis into animals would discover the secret alcove.
The Nazis with the help of informers did find fifteen year old Anne Frank and whisked her and those hiding with her away to murder them in a concentration camp. I always wonder if she woke up that last day knowing somehow, even for a fleeting second, that this was her last day in the attic. A last time.
When the world decided to return to some semblance of sanity, Anne Frank became famous. Posthumously, of course. God decided to grant Anne Frank an encore for her last time based upon a wish written in her diary on April 6, 1944:
“I want to go on living even after my death.”
In January, 1966, the Nazi police chief in the Netherlands, S.S. lieutenant general Wilhelm Harster was arrested in Munich. At his trial it was finally revealed that the person who betrayed Anne Frank and those with her, received five gulden a head as payment for his wondrous information which is about one dollar and forty cents for each person. Must have been his lucky day!
Now, years after animals posing in the guise of humans murdered Anne Frank, I am in Israel and my friend returned from his trip to the attic which was once home to Anne Frank.
“Tedel”, he begins the conversation with a nickname he uses when he has a story to relay or he is about rip into me for doing something stupid. He proceeds to tell me how he was just in the house of Anne Frank, and at the entrance there is a visitors where people write whatever comes to their minds. He scanned this book of comments, and as luck or the fates would have it, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. had been there a few days before him. Very little slips by my friend who has what is called a precocious mind, with an eye for detail I will always be jealous of. Knowing one of my idols in the literary world is Kurt Vonnegut, he read what this enigmatic mind wrote in a book commemorating a girl who had to hide from those who learned in a short period of time how to mimic the devil himself.
“Tedel, what do you think KV wrote in that book?” he asks me.
I honestly had no clue what one could possibly write in the face of such horror and despair in a small space left as a monument to unrequited hope. We both had just begun a long and difficult path on the road into the abyss, though at that moment we did not know it. We were destined to learn a great deal more about divine humor than we ever desired.
Then I heard him whisper over the phone. “‘Please try and be kind’. That is what he wrote Tedel, ‘Please try and be kind’”.
When I hung up the phone I knew I had finally discovered God’s secret. And so without any hesitation, I clapped.
IV
Perhaps you now somewhat understand the nature of Last Times. If it still seems obscure have faith sooner or later your mind will become finely attuned to them. Your heart will constantly be on the lookout for Last Times. Yet not everyone is capable of preoccupying themselves in Last Times. It can become a fear-driven obsession, turning all absolutes into questions. Even deep-rooted faith is assailed by the doubts and perils of Last Times. One may postulate delving into Last Times is the most mysterious of all epistemological ruminations.
Somewhere between growing up in Manhattan and the phone call which reinforced my father’s teaching “to be kind”, I married and moved from New York City to Israel. During that time period, though I know not where and when, I came to a crossroads forcing me to choose a direction. It no longer matters if I took a left or a right. The path I chose or the one that chose me is only significant in that no return was allowed once the threshold was crossed. It indeed was the first time I became aware of Last Times though I was oblivious to the consequences. It was also the first time that eerie silence from the heavens descended upon me and I began to realize what I had once believed to be a just, caring and all-knowing God, had become deaf to all supplication.
For many this may not be a shocking revelation. For myself, the product of some of the great Rabbinic teachers of the generation, it was heretical, to say the least. Indeed, I have had the incredible luck to study under some of the most well-renowned individuals in the field of philosophy and religion. How I ended up in some of the great halls of scholarship learning under absolute genius is still a mystery to me. I can assure you this had nothing to do with great intelligence as I was never more than a mediocre student. To even entertain the thought that the heavens may be deaf and silent, was a revolutionary, mind-blowing, earth-shattering game-changer in my life. This hyperbole is not only deliberately written, I am tempted to proclaim it still is understated. As year followed by year went by, after I took that wrong turn along a road with no road-signs to warn me of the danger ahead, I was never again allowed to simply breathe without worry or woe upon my heels. Sooner or later if you are cursed with such a life, if silence is the only thing that is returned from tears and prayer — you break. Or perhaps better stated, you are broken by the very source of that silence. Which if the latter is the case, the implications are beyond frightening.
This is not about being Jewish per-say. Indeed existential despair can be experienced by any person as it is not about which God one believes in, but rather what kind of God it is. Religions may differ on the corporeal on non-corporeal notion of God, or the nature of His oneness, or the way one connects to God and offers supplications, and which words are used to initiate a discourse between temporal and infinite, but in one way or another a basic tenet is postulated which declares God loves his creations and listens to all prayers. We embrace the ideal that no matter what happens in our reality it emanates from a just, loving and kind God. The argument is made that any event which seems to speak to the contrary is but the foretold failure of the finite to pierce the impenetrable wall of the infinite. We are not God and thus we are not all-knowing and bereft of the ability to see all creation as one complete, perfect unit. This lies at the basic core of any belief in God, certainly of the monotheistic religions.
Taking part in Last Times with these axioms in place can turn into a dangerous endeavor. When calamity enters our own personal existence, whether large or small, and the measure of it depends only upon the person who is experiencing such calamity, usually well-meaning people attempt to lessen the pain of their brethren. If they are imbued with either sympathy, empathy, or even a small dose of wisdom they will endeavor to relay the message with the phrase “I understand” or something akin to it. Those words are meant to convey that another understands the desolation you feel. Some feel the horror and hopelessness which invades your soul. They may have themselves experienced those very feelings in their own trials and tribulations.
Yet the ludicrous contradiction inherent in such a statement of empathy, is that no matter what sort of purgatory you are undergoing, no matter how strong you consider your belief to be, no matter how healthy your psyche is — you do not understand. How can anyone else lay claim to understanding such events, even if they have experienced the same crises, if you yourself cannot fathom the ‘why’ of it all. Absolutely no one else can know what it means to be you. The ramifications of events are unique to the individual and by definition each person will react to the same set of circumstances differently. If life conspires to have you shoulder sorrow upon sorrow, with no relief, you are left with only doubt and confusion, forced to admit you do not understand any of it.
Platitudes abound. Did you ever hear someone say: “God never gives a person a burden they cannot bear”? If you are a student of the Old or New Testament you know this is not the case. The whole book of Job is devoted to the central focal point that there are burdens we cannot bear, nor indeed, should we be expected to bear them. In point of fact, Job only relents from his accusations when God is literally forced to appear to Job “out of the tempest” and lay down the rule of law, as it were. Unfortunately today, we cannot rely on divine intervention to explain away our sorrows, trials, doubts and woes. We bear tribulations in spite of God not because of him.
In Hebrew there is a common saying, “Yihiyeh Tov”. This literally means “it will be good”. It is commonly uttered in the place of the words “I understand”, where the individual is left speechless by the woe of his fellow human being. In two words it expresses commiseration, shows empathy, and looks towards a better future. It rests upon one simple axiom; one single word — Hope. Yet there comes a moment to some when hope is but a fantasy, and sorrow and tribulation can no longer be endured. Hope turns upon itself and becomes an individual’s worst enemy with false promises of a better future.
Hope becomes a fool’s paradise.
Despair of such magnitude is the most lonely, horrendous and fearsome emotion that can descend upon an individual. It breaks asunder all which came before it. Once such a catastrophic personal event as the loss of hope occurs, it is truly a last time.
V
Yet we digress, as the ultimate focus of this story lies with the discovery of how one arrives at “there” from “here”. Most who contend they know me, may be tempted to point to the death of one of my children, a daughter who lived to the tender age of two and a half years. Actually even after so many years have gone by, to be factual the courts called it “negligent homicide”. Mind you that term ‘negligent homicide’ is a legal nuance to avoid the dire terminology of murder. Yet the real party who was negligent or in more succinct terms, murdered my daughter, is still a respected member of his community, shunned by none and accepted by all. Justice may be blind, but in the case of my daughter’s death it was deaf, blind, perverted and dumb, even though it should be noted, that the official transcript of the trial noted all the above. If you think I still harbor residual anger over 20 years after her death, you would be correct.
Some, with more intimate knowledge of that event, will say that being forced to triage two members of my own family, while failing on my daughter yet being a trained medic, led to a traumatic life-altering event which until this day I have not succeeded in properly understanding or accepting. Grief, despite our new-age knowledge and desperate attempts to manage the chaos it brings, is not something you can control with some eight-step plan. Grief is mind-numbing torture, an affliction visiting you time and again with no warning and no abatement. There is no greater pain one can imagine upon this earth, no greater loss, than having to bury your own child. It is beyond human capacity to put the emotions into words. Suddenly, one finds themselves belonging to a club where no sane individual would ever ask to join and once inducted there is no way out. You are condemned to a lifetime membership within its dreaded halls where it is but a short misstep to madness as your mind hopelessly attempts to make sense of why you have been abandoned in such a cruel manner.
There are other markers along the road which one can point to as well. It is anthropologically interesting how the advent of war tends to define us and the time-period we belong to. My generation was defined by the Viet-Nam War in forging our American identity and the Yom Kippur War in the creation of our doppelganger Israeli identities.
Surprisingly enough, it was not the Yom Kippur War which forced me to reevaluate essential nuances of existence. This came later, with the first war with Lebanon in 1981, two brutal Intifada’s, and certainly Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 when I went to Jenin as an experienced battlefield medic at the age of forty-eight.
Perhaps it was one too many wars. One too many times of watching a friend die or trying to decide who to give aid to first and whom is beyond such aid. Perhaps it was looking into the eyes of a fourteen year old boy through the scope of a gun, as he aimed an RPG straight at our unit and made ready to fire. In that instant you must decide if you will kill or take the chance of being killed, and the choice you make in that moment will define you forever. Perhaps it is the day when you crawl into a battlefield with bullets whizzing all over, trying to save those who are hurt and wounded, while scuttling around the already dead bodies of those whom you knew, now beyond your ability to help them. Perhaps it is watching a civilian bus suddenly lift off the pavement and seconds later the noise of the bomb registers in your ears, as you watch pieces of human beings fly in chaos all around you. Once again you are forced to do triage and look upon the horror which man continues to perpetrate upon his fellow man. Perhaps it is standing in front of one too many open graves ready to accept the young victim of yet another terrorist act, knowing as you look upon that freshly dug earth, this will definitely not be a last time. Perhaps that is the moment when you know deep inside that God has abandoned you and all those around you.
Most of us face the sickness of a loved one, and sadly it is not a unique experience. Perhaps growing up with a father who courageously battled Parkinson’s for years took its toll even before I realized there was such a thing as a toll to be taken. Perhaps it was taking care of my mother, with the help of my sister, for four months as we watched her die, slowly and in pain, that marked the crossroads from which I could not turn back. Or perhaps it is watching my sister find the strength and fortitude that I could never hope to achieve, battle her own disease, refusing to let that disease define whom she is, with a smile for everyone and faith in it all.
Yet perspective demands a much deeper delving for the truth. For it is not a specific event but a deluge of adversity, tragedy and catastrophe which can force one into the spin of despair. Perhaps it was supposed love lost and destroyed and one must accept the simple fact that love with another has never been truly experienced and even more terrifying may never be found or tasted.
There are also events where a moral compass must be applied. Often, there is no real right or wrong in such cases and only a measure of experience coupled with whatever wisdom one may have, can determine future actions. In business you discover many people really do have two distinct personalities, and you find yourself at the mercy of their manipulative actions. You realize if you assert yourself and reveal the truth your words will bring devastation upon others whom you love. You ponder the consequences of defending yourself along with contemplating the ethics of staying silent. Neither is a right or wrong decision. Yet one leads to certain destruction of a once beloved friend and their family, while the other, will force you to take the entire onus of blame upon yourself without justification. So you chose silence bearing the stain of misplaced guilt while those who should accept the onus of blame hide behind mock innocence. Not only has your faith in God suffered, but you face a complete loss of trust in your fellow man. Truth does not always win out; justice is rarely served. Horrific lessons for a heart once filled with faith in God and belief in the inherent good of humankind.
One of the most distressing points to ponder is personal failure. When you are subject to that outcome in countless endeavors, with choices which seemed right at the time and turned out to be so very wrong, something breaks inside of you. When failure is accompanied by devious machinations of those who worked with you and for you, it leaves deep scars. You are frozen in indecision, trust is gone and faith has dissolved. Despair has found the entry point into your waking dreams as you sink deeper into the abyss.
Yet again there are still other points to ponder as life tests your fortitude if you will be selfless of selfish. Perhaps it is the point where one must decide whether one’s children are more important than life itself. You find yourself a single parent, not by the death of a spouse but the consequence of a divorce which taught you there are those parents who will place their own needs over those of their own flesh and blood becoming capable of incredible selfishness. You are left to struggle alone, going into debt beyond comprehension determined to keep the lives of your children as normal and stable as possible. And lo and behold, this is one time you succeed. You beat the odds as it were, yet there is no time to take pride in the victory. Your personal life has vanished as you realize it will take two lifetimes or a miracle to not drown in the debt you created making that dream for your children come true. You sink into the hell of poverty where all self-respect is slowly ripped from you like peeling away the layers of an onion. Those who whisper in your ear, even with good intention the cliché, “money cannot buy happiness” are those who have been blessed with enough money to espouse such trite absurdities.
As if this were not enough, you are forced to watch one older child slowly spin out of control and become psychologically unstable. No matter how much wisdom you are endowed with, you can find no solution and remain helpless as that child moves over a period of years on a road to self-destruction. You face the fearsome possibility in your darkest of dreams that the death of one child leaves no guarantee that such a horrifying event cannot happen again. You realize in trembling dread the true meaning of the oft-used cliché “there are no guarantees in life”.
Slowly everything you once took for granted disappears. As many have sadly experienced, you lose everything, every single material object you once had to make life a bit easier. All roads towards recovery are blocked, and you are imprisoned in a cell whose walls crush all hope. You continue breathing bereft of purpose.
When any one of these catastrophic events occurs a legitimate response would be to either accept the fates, ignore them or question them. Indeed the very essence of being an individual dictates one has the ability to decide in the face of life’s curves, trials and tribulations which path to take. What some might consider to be just a ripple in the stream others will perceive as a tsunami ripping through their very existence. No one person can pass judgment on another’s woes.
As we mature into adulthood, we learn to expect a certain amount of rain though we maintain faith the sun will soon emerge once again. Incessant rain can be tolerated for a time, if one has the constitution to face it. Yet when the clouds freeze and let loose upon the individual continuous and annihilative hail stones, with no relief nor any place to find refuge from the destruction wrought, a dark foreboding enters the heart. Even, if and when the hail storm ends or pauses, a fog of silence spreads insidiously over one’s world.
The individual in the midst of this storm is most often greeted with complete silence and a universe drenched in darkness. One cannot see the path or where to take the next step as it remains concealed in a stygian mist.
After years of such debilitating events without cease or rest, you begin to shun life. Even the ring of a telephone or a knock at the door causes you to cringe in fear. Becoming a hermit, hoping that if you do not see others, they will not see you and will, in time, forget about you. More to the point, you tremble at the thought despite your best efforts, God will not forget your existence. You know he is always at the ready to place ever-more rungs to descend upon the ladder to desolation.
I dislike misuse of words even if it works in favor of the person uttering nonsense. When used in the wrong way at the incorrect time the destructive power of words becomes exponentially greater and more horrendous. In simple terms, words can kill. Yet, words strewn together in certain patterns, sentences, paragraphs and prose, can in a moment of clarity, change one’s whole existence.
I have long realized, even as the darkness descends, that I do not seek the empathy of others. Sympathy would be worse, indeed accepting it would destroy me. So if I do not desire empathy or pity or sympathy, the obvious question of course is what am I really seeking?
One could, as our modern world has taught us, attempt to answer such a question with one word descriptions. Happiness, wealth, health, love — all would suffice to answer the question and lay to rest any more discussion. Yet, these answers do not define the entity of who I am which in essence is but a conglomeration of what I have experienced and discovered along life’s path.
Assuredly there are some waypoints which cause your lips to form that ever-rarer smile. Your children and their own children, your grandchildren, if one is lucky enough to have them, serve to remind you of some essential aspects of long-forgotten joy. They are witness to the magic inherent in love — for love is the one thing you have to give without boundary. It is the one and only item in your possession which no person or divine power can take from you.
Love is also the one essential quality the silence from the heavens has made you determined to never offer again to a deaf God.
VI
There is nothing more horrific than the feeling of being abandoned by that entity some of us choose to call “God”. To be forsaken is an unbearable, horrendous, soul-shattering experience. Abandonment, an all-encompassing, endless pit of horror, can only be felt when the inner heart reaches out for something which is no longer there. At this personal apocalyptic moment of discovery, the individual who feels the abandonment of God within their own life, and continues to rue such a loss searching for consolation. This process demands that one live, act and react with the awareness no matter what happens, there should come a point when God will once again make himself felt within their lives.
Others call this process luck. If life has been good to them, if the waters that flow move along a current pushing them towards their goals and aspirations, they thank their lucky stars. If life moves them towards darkness and the unknown they turn to those stars and curse the fates that be. There might or might not be a supreme being in their view of the world, yet this supernatural power is of no concern to them, nor are they any concern of it. God does his thing, they do theirs.
There are also those who do not believe either in the muses or the eternal powers which empower a world and its creations. They deem their own movement along the currents of the stream of life to be a product of their own capabilities, brains, strength and power. The bridge they must cross from time to time will either hold them or break asunder under their weight, not because of fate, or luck, or karma or powers that may exist beyond their senses, but rather the result is based upon their own capabilities and actions.
I have tried all of these different paths. I have attempted to expunge and obliterate God from my heart. I have fought to convince my own soul that there is no power beyond my own. I have told myself time and again, that who and what I am, what I become and what will happen to me is entirely within my control. There is no God, and if there is, he certainly does not care what I do or what happens to me. It was not a lack of belief in a supreme being that forced me to attempt such a radical surgical procedure. It was rather my attempt to protect God from the wrath I always feel against him. I do not want this constant inner voice, which never rests, not even for a moment — beseeching, blaming, accusing and presenting God with a litany of complaints one following upon the heels of the other.
I have tried ever-so-often to rid myself of the curse of God. Yet obliterating God from such a heart and mind is an impossible mission even in the midst of abandonment and despair. I have made use of the weapon of hate born from anger and frustration. I could never bring myself to just not care. Ingrained in every fiber of my being is the belief that God does control and guide the world. I believe all things which happen have their reason. Most importantly, and despite my tempestuous relationship with him, I still believe he loves and cares. I also believe he is vengeful and often cruel beyond comprehension while his punishment is more than I can bear.
Once I realized, quite sadly, that just as I breathe naturally, there is a part of me that will never allow my heart to eliminate God from whom I am, denial becomes impossible. God is the recipient of my hate and at much rarer times was the recipient of my love. He is the object of my cynicism and the reason why I refuse to surrender. I have learned, that the heart can hold, in equal measure and at a distinct moment in time, hate and love, for the same object of desire. For many years God was truly my best friend and consequently now has become my worst enemy. I have been so angry with God that madness was but a step away. I have been so thankful to God that I have attempted to pierce the heavens with cries of gratitude. I have given him laughter and mirth, tears and sorrow. I have shared with him my most intimate moments and I have pushed him away from my most secret of thoughts.
I used to converse with God, formally when I prayed and I always failed to get his ear and attention. I talk to him when I am free to go about my life and I have audaciously laid my tears at the foot of his throne. I have vilified and cursed him while constantly battling the inner urge to allow my lips utterance of those dire words first pronounced thousands of years ago, “there is no judge and there is no judgment”.
I have watched with ever increasing jealousy, yes that is the word, “jealousy”, no matter how vile this trait is, others who seem to have been given some magic pass through life. I have realized that there are those allowed to go through this journey on a somewhat straight plane. Sometimes the line curves, sometimes there is a little hill or small mountain which must be traversed, but they are able to walk through the brooks and streams with no more resistance than that of a passing breeze.
Others are not so destined. We climb mountains where the air is impossible to breathe. Our bodies are so tired we no longer can function or see the point in even doing battle. We are almost never able to walk with our shoes off, reveling in the feeling of the refreshing cold stream water beneath our feet. Rather, we are faced with black, angry, threatening clouds hanging over our heads while a raging and uncontrollable sea threatens to engulf us with tidal waves standing ready to drown us in their fury. It is constant. It is never-ending. It consumes us. It ages us. It scorches our souls with no mercy. We feel the futility of existence. We experience an existential despair which leaves us mute in its intensity.
The soul however refuses to readily give in. It cries out with anger, with love and with anguish. Yet it learns to never pass cruelty on to others for there is no feeling of relief or enjoyment in the suffering of others. You coexist in a world though you remain almost entirely alone, where only the strongest of brothers find the courage to stand by your side. The travail is intensely personal. It is full of traps and pitfalls. It awaits you knowing every one of your weaknesses in advance.
Your mouth is frozen, and your tongue is numb, for there are no words in any language which can possibly make your pain understood. Yet you cry out with an intensity that no human being should be allowed to experience. You curse the day you were born and you wonder, if only but for a fleeting moment, maybe death and sweet endless sleep are not a more acceptable alternative. Job’s words echo mournfully: “For the thing which I had feared is come upon me, And that which I was afraid of is come to me. I had no repose, nor had I rest, nor was I quiet; Yet trouble came.” And if you are familiar with biblical lore your mind is replete with verses which bring you no comfort as Ecclesiastes rings in your ears: “And so I loathed life. For I was distressed by all that goes on under the sun, because everything is futile and striving after wind.”
When the tempest does die out for a moment, and the sun peeks beyond the clouds giving you hope, you are thankful for the respite, but your inner heart remains wary. You look deep into the horizon with a perspective that only pain can give you and wonder when and where the next storm will come. You no longer doubt it will come, you are certain of its pending arrival as you are assured of night following day. You prepare for it, watch for it, look over your shoulder and set sentries to spy for the coming of the tempest. Sometimes you are given warning, while more frequently the clouds gather with a speed causing the angels to gasp in horror.
You learn to endure. No matter how strong the winds of fury beat at your body, turn your hair gray and make your heart just a bit weaker, you stand straight and tall. You stare into the eye of the storm and you challenge it, knowing that this too, you will withstand.
And when it is over, for but a moment of tranquil peace, you look deep within, searching, seeking for the new wounds and the scabs that have been pulled from your flesh to bleed yet again. Counting your scars you wonder if your body can possibly accept any more torment. Healing is but a forlorn hope as your wounds will allow for no ointment, medicine or cure.
When I am incredulous and overcome with the feeling God has abandoned me, and all alone with no one to lean on, I listen in trepidation and with a small sense of relief. Even in my waking dreams I listen for the silence to be broken. As I withstand the fury of the storm, my heart continues to cry out with love learned from years of penetrating hate; it whispers in tenderness born of the pain it must bear; it shouts above the cacophony of those who preach righteous indignation at any questioning of ultimate justice, because the soul demands its inherent right to be heard by he who created it. An inner voice cries out rendering the futile loneliness of despair into one heart-wrenching wail.
I desire neither empathy, sympathy or pity. I do not ask to hold your hand nor your shoulder to lean upon. I request neither words of comfort nor wishes to be made. They would all be an anathema to me. I live in a world where hope is a commodity I can no longer afford and prayer is beyond my capability. I have been abandoned by the most precious of all things and despair wraps her strong arms around me. Yet my soul will obstinately continue along a path which leaves no place for the weary as the tears flow in a never-ending river of anguish and sorrow. Day upon dreary day, without rest or repose it will demand the answer to but one simple question:
My God. Why have you forsaken me?
VII
Essentially this piece should now end with the word “finis” or “complete”. Yet an annoying whisper incessantly reminds me I have left out something of great import. One of those ever-present verses from Ecclesiastes echoes on the edge of my thoughts. “Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun: for if a man live many years, let him rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many.”
As that verse echoes through my mind, I suddenly realize I have finally reached and discovered a true last time. Abandoned, in despair and alone, I look out upon the my corner of the world, with all hope faded and gone. The days of darkness have been long and many, with no hint of light to dispel them. Yet even now an inner compulsion pushes the words from my lips:
“Hey God. Listen to this,” I whisper as my hands make ready one last time to give God his due. Perhaps it is a puerile attempt at vengeance. Or maybe it is one last effort, one last time to try and pierce the silence enveloping the heavens. Without warning, drifting from my abode and echoing through the alleyways and streets, a singular sound is heard drifting upon the wind.
Clap. Clap.
Finished Though Never Complete
