How is it that the fear
Banished in the morning light
Claws at my heart now,
Cowering in the new thrown night?

Hyperbole is what that is.  Poetic license, taken by one given to flights of imagination.  It’s expected when one writes in verse and rhyme.

Still, it’s not so far off the mark, some nights.

I am by nature a night person, haunting the empty rooms and darkened recesses of this old mid-century habitation long after any other denizens of the neighborhood, save the four-footed variety, have given in to the siren call of slumber.  And when, as is my lot at times, my chronic breathing problems surface, even the hours when I’ve retreated to my bed are spent turning this way and that, coughing and yet, attempting to suppress the overwhelming urge to do that very thing.

As one might expect, eventually the mind turns to unhappy and dark subjects or, more specifically, situations for which I’ve found, in my normal haunting hours, no solution or cure.

Unfinished business is a weight on my mind, a burden if you will, that bends the spirit until I’m afraid the breaking point is near.  And, clawing fear with unanswered questions is often given leave to ride, untethered, through the dark hours.

Tonight I received an unexpected note from one I love. His message closed with these words that give me hope the reign of one particular fear is near an end:

“I think my time for anger is finally over.”

The last time I wrote about the man was right after he died.  Two years ago, almost.  One would have thought the turmoil, the tumult, had died with him.  One would have been wrong.

Just because a character has fallen out of the story, it’s not a given that closure is accomplished.  Much the opposite, this falling-out part often seems to increase the impact of the mental conflict, to magnify those unpleasant memories that never seem to behave themselves or to become comfortable scenes from the past.

I loved the man—more than I have loved most other folks on this spinning ball of dirt and water.  But, that said, he was the most stubborn human being I’ve ever known.  Well, maybe not more stubborn than the red-headed lady he was married to.

And yet, he could also be the most maddening person I knew.  That red-headed lady said it once (that I remember).

“That man!  He makes me so mad!”

I was twelve and had never heard her say a negative word about my father before.  I was certain the divorce papers would be served soon.

Of course, they never were. He cared for her until the day she died, even though she had not known who he was for a couple of years before her passing.  He was like that.

He kept his promises.  It was one of the things about him that was so maddening. Yes, maddening.  Keeping promises.

In his last years, there was one particular person he made promises to.  She made promises, too—never intending to keep them.  He intended to keep his and did until the day he died, at great cost to himself and his family.

But, no.

This is not an exposé.  It’s not.

I intended to do that one day.  I would write a tell-all story, exposing his shortcomings and character failings to the world.  Bare my soul, vomiting out my frustration and angst.

It will never happen.

Remember the story of Noah in the Bible?  That righteous man, Noah, a fierce follower of God, who complied willingly with God’s plan for the survival of mankind and the animal kingdom by building an ark and taking his family into it, saving them from the flood?

There is another story about the man, found in chapter 9 of Genesis, verses 18 through 28.  After the flood, Noah, being more of a farmer than a boatbuilder, grew a crop of grapes, subsequently making wine from the bounty. Sampling the liquid, he became drunk.  In his inebriated state, he took off his clothes and laid, in his drunken stupor, naked in his tent.

Wait.  Drunk and naked?  The most righteous man in the world? That doesn’t seem right, does it?

His son, Ham, didn’t think so either.  Finding his father in that state, he called his brothers, Shem and Japheth, to come and look, so anxious was he to expose Dad’s shortcoming.

They chose not to participate.

Taking their father’s cloak between the two of them, they walked backward.  So they could preserve their father’s dignity, they purposefully refused to look at him naked.  They covered his nakedness.

It’s different today.

A popular writer in our day, Anne Lamott, famously suggests you own everything that happened to you.  She encourages—no, insists—that we should tell everything, regardless of the harm to others.  I’m certain she means well.

But I’m with Shem and Japheth.  I choose not to participate.  To expose the private sin and shortcomings of one I love is to disrespect who he was throughout his life.

He was a man who loved his God intensely.  Fiercely, even.  And, because of that, he was a man who loved the people around him in the same way.  As a pastor, he made it his mission to be where he was needed.  He listened.  He comforted.  He wept.  He rejoiced.

When he was no longer the pastor of a church, he became pastor to the folks at the local breakfast cafe, the grocery store, even the bank.  Again and again, he made friends of strangers, praying as easily as he talked, encouraging more than he exhorted, leaving the world behind him better for having walked here.

He loved his family with that same fierce love.  Every one of his children walked away from some aspect of the principles, the faith, he had brought us up in, yet his love for us never waned.  With each of us, he prayed.  To the end of his days, he prayed.  And he sang.  And he quoted scripture—and poetry.

In the back of my mind, even as I write this, I hear the voice.  “But, what about that episode? What about the time he did this?  Tell them about the day…”

Why do we hold on so long to resentment?  To anger?

What possible end can we hope to achieve by holding them tightly?  Like some monstrous, yet precious, treasures, we grasp them with a death-grip only age-worn and life-weary hands can manage.

The closer we hold them, the more they hurt us.  The longer we embrace them, the harder it becomes to let them go.

Many eventually loose that anger in outbursts of ugly accusation and personal venom. The outburst can be a catharsis; no one could argue that.  But, catharsis achieved and outburst exhausted, all that is left in view is a smaller human being, accompanied by his/her scorched and ruined memories of one whom they loved and were loved by.

Many will disagree with my viewpoint.  The age in which we live thrives on canceling reputations and flaming memories.  Somehow we believe we are bigger for diminishing the reputations of those whose voices are silent now and who can no longer answer back.

It can only diminish us.

The one I love is right.  The time for anger is over.  If it’s not, the time for fear and resentfulness never will be.  Ever.

And somehow, the One I always end up talking to in the dark, He who is the Light that has defeated the darkness and will one day banish it forever, reminds me that my anger and resentment is one of the burdens He asked me to give to Him.

Many I know are carrying that same burden—have carried it for most of the years of their life.

Why would we willingly keep bending under that heavy load?  Pain and unhappiness are the only possible return we’ll realize from the labor.

He promises rest.  And hope.

The time for anger is over.

Ahh.  Sweet freedom!

 

Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
(Matthew 11:28, NLT)

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
(Martin Luther King Jr.)

The light shines in the darkness,
    and the darkness can never extinguish it.
(John 1:5, NLT)

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2021. All Rights Reserved.