Encounter No. 245

My arms still aching from the shivers. My body still brooding from all the rush. But my head clears a blue-er sky than it did an hour ago. How did it fly by so fast that I had not noticed the time passing?

The brew was still simmering in the pot while it broke out, all the pieces of glass shattered on the floor, in the kitchen where my tears once lay. I stood back, leaned against the warm oven door and watched as I let it all spill out, blood, angst and self defense mechanism, the works. He went inside his room and closed the door behind him. I ducked into my closet space, sat on the toilet bowl and cried in the safety of my own four walls holding all my frustration and anger in. Condemnation, echoes of my father's words, my own lack of control over loose words and emotions running the gamut of my weaknesses.

The door opened and he yanked me out of my closet, kicking and crying and still quivering from the aftermath. I was afraid to sit and I don't understand why after all these years, the chronicles of the old man's wrath still bears his shadow over my life. I know there is nothing I can do to change the past. And this is no fault of my brother, the one I call upon with trust and trembling. My preconceptions getting the better of me and my skeletons falling clumsily all over the couch. As I sat there, the confessions of my fear rang loud and clear. I curdled up under the thin blue blanket barely covering the wounds showing.

"Stop running into your closet every time it hurts if you are serious about growing strong!" he said with tears and the firm resolve I was familiar with. The grip left a bruise on my arm. The voices swimming in my head attempted to drown out the concern forming around me. I stared out into the green field outside and tried to avert my eyes. My thoughts lost in the words that interjected about the external reflecting the condition of my heart, our hearts, his heart and what all this mess meant. How could a simple comment about dishes in the sink land us in this kind of conviction? Yet it is this very simple thing that shapes who we are inside.

"If anyone wants to provide leadership in the church, good! But there are preconditions: A leader must be well-thought-of, committed to his wife, cool and collected, accessible, and hospitable. He must know what he's talking about, not overfond of wine, not pushy but gentle, not thin-skinned, not money hungry. He must handle his own affairs well, attentive to his own children and having their respect. For if someone is unable to handle his own affairs, how can he take care of God's church?" Paul's First Letter to Timothy (3:1-6)

How can I lead the ones I love if I do not know where I am going? How can I know where I am going if I do not clear out vision clouding me? How can I clear out the vision clouding me if all I am living with is this mess I cannot deal with? How can I protect the ones I love if this mess is but taking over me, drowning me? How can I stand and be strong if I do not handle my own affairs well, in the private sanctuary of my being?

So this day, I start with my sink. Scrubbing them clean, before I move on to take out the trash every night, one day at a time.

And here's to you for not walking away.