I don’t want to wake up, but I have to…
What kind of opening is that?
It is a statement of ignorance not wanting to give way.
I breathe and stretch and rise from my mattress.
It is my thoughts at four am. that come for me; come from a rolling unrest somewhere deep inside The hours of sleep stretch like an interminable row of dominoes. Mind tries to work its way to the front, to knock the whole line of thinking down and watch, at last, the dots spill. One upon another they form a long trail of carefully stacked mentations. The blocks are linear and neatly numbered but they do not match.
The one that gets me up stymies my intelligence. This thought is Louis Vuitton. Gary Street put Louis Vuitton on my Facebook (FB) page.
I don’t know who Mr. Street is, but he asked to friend me. I get a half dozen requests every day, most of them from men I don’t know. They look like gods and claim to be doctors in the United Nations or Scandinavia, or some country whose name I put on a list of places yet to be explored. Sometimes these men send messages like, why don’t you answer me? I look at profiles to assess if these are part of a larger community, if we have friends in common.
Somehow, Gary Street’s request, a man without a picture, has been accepted. I don’t remember giving consent but now he posts ads on my FB page. A tired picture of Louis Vuitton’s fills the screen like an old brown photo trying to look vintage. I remove these notifications. They jab at me. I dislike someone using my page to sell goods. I think, disdainfully, these bags are hot off the truck.
Facebook is not my first language. I fumble with undoing the posts. I don’t understand the options. Tag is some kind of silly game I played in childhood. I did not like it then. I do not like it now. Who in the world wants to be it?
My efforts fail to stop Street’s sale. This morning that page, black and white and without a true source, appears like the world I see, a world peopled as opposites, demanding I choose, pressing me to consume, making my life an advertisement to other consumers as part of a false alliance of friends.
A few days back, my feelings of being annoyed heightened. I had a sense of being duped, used, violated. Facebook is a poor minister of integrity. It let that man into my community, into my sacred space. He was pissing on it. He had abused my trust and friendship. I went to his page and posted a request. Please stop putting your ads on my page. That was like swatting a wasp. The posts stung.
It is this that has washed like a wave into my sleep cycle. It is this that has sent me scurrying for my composition book. I didn’t even stop to brush my teeth. They feel slimy in the predawn cool of my living room. A toothbrush would do nicely.
What of my thoughts? What shall clean them? A voice in the night clarifies. It brushes aside my cries of unfairness, my pride and suggests I peer into my own bags. There are Louis Vuitton’s inside me stuffed with inner grumblings.
Have you considered this?Gary Street may be hungry. He may wake this morning at the bottom of a long chain of dominoes and his good is yet a long way from where you are. Perhaps he has reasons you cannot see.
I ask, all these things done unto me, these minutely irritating acts in the midst of my peace, what are they for?How shall I perceive them?How do I live through them as a voice for God? I pause. Have I been patient? Am I gentle, generous?Open-minded? Is that even the right question? And if not, what is the right question? The dominoes tremble a little. New feelings begin to arise, unlike anger.
A part of me wants to keep Gary Street on some byway on the other side of the world. A part of me dreams he is a con man, who will steal my money. A wounded child appears like an old crooked smile of a moon. She is witness to my foolishness.
Once I bought a half dozen pair of brand name sneakers as Christmas gifts for my family. They were to be shipped from China. Oh what a deal! Half price. I was feeling the pinch of the shopping season. I was feeling impoverished. It seemed like a solution. Being a divorced, senior female put me at a lower level of the capitalistic caste. The struggle of trying to make ends meet spurred a rash of erroneous decisions. I wanted to give a big gift. I thought that proved something.
You know the end of that story, the slow boat and a year of false hopes. And here we are, another Christmas. The memory of that cold bath is with me. Every time I look at those posts I shiver, still wet.
Jess (Jesus) offers me a towel. I dab at my victim scripts. My heart softens. I wonder what caste might characterize Gary Street’s life? I peruse the possibilities. Is he criminal? Was he beat by the world until he learned to beat it? Is he just another guy desperate to rise from the poverty of mind that must use another to get by? Could he be a she just like me? I feel a cry for Love.
It is mine, my cry. Under the sheets of a middle-class life a picture of an unjust world arises. Gary Street is symbol of some little darkness. Fake Louis Vuitton bags are symbol of all that America has thought to value. My foe is part of a veil of black and white, good and bad, innocent and victim built on a foundation of lovelessness. The writing on this veil proclaims, he is unholy. I am holy. This seems like a nice neat boundary.
Like sixty years of blocks stacked side by side, I have stored the laws of the world in my psyche; laws of right and wrong in a line that goes far back in time to a little girl. It winds like a ginormous Kingsnake. Jess puts one finger on the head of the thing and it all falls down, the shiny scales of ego revealed. It is a trail of beliefs created by poverties and powerlessness that no human being should suffer; unless of course, that means waking up. I pray to wake fully. Can that happen without a human struggling with her own experience? Can healing occur without the deeper feelings from scars still inflamed with venomous lessons?
I think maybe I might leave that post alive. Maybe I should copy and paste it again. Maybe I should buy one of those Louis Vuitton bags and become a living advertisement of the faceless man, you know, put a new face, my face? in the circle where he is just a shadow.
Jess says, none of these are true generosities. What can compensate for hate? Now there is a prayer, an awareness, a humble heart and a wish at Christmas that Gary Street know the Justice of God, the good of brothers and sisters and the healing that I would accept for myself. But is this enough?
There is a swell of longing that gathers from some death in me. Perhaps it is the dying of a wish for separation. It longs for a real Brother. It remembers some sweet intimacy. It wants only to birth Love. The swelling grows sweet and full like the womb of Mary. Was not Jesus’ own birth both a pure love and the Desire that returned us to Love?
… love and a choice to return (to Love) were birthed in unison… Longing is your proof of love’s existence, for even here you would not long for what is not remembered. ACOL C:4.3
What is my longing but the remembrance of God as my friend? What else but Love could answer my partiality and blindness? I see this writing is both a longing for and Christ’s compassion expressed. In me, a new Vision and ancient remembrance lay in a single cradle of truth. There I am born, love and longing, human and divine, complete and yet becoming. There I reach to hold my brother.
Jess suggests I magnify the blessing… Gary Street’s live in your neighborhood. Their children go to your schools. Their hearts are impoverished not only at Christmas but ache to know Love every day. Their minds are bent in the direction hunger leads, snaking like the winding trail of human suffering. Give these the face of Christ this season. Understand them. Give them hope. Help them remember. Offer them their holiness and seek real Friendship. Offer the true blessing I offer you each time you stack the dominoes to block the view of a child of God to keep you from Love’s Presence. The Father longs for them as He longs for you. Give Him this gift at Christmas. Return the son of Love to God by birthing Him anew. Restore the face of innocence.
Without pause I say and mean, Merry Christmas, Mr. Street! I think that is a funny name. In my mind’s eye a one-way sign appears. It is clear this path goes to God. Arm and arm we walk, Love and longing, together. There is nothing to buy, nothing to sell. No one loses; nothing is taken away… everyone gains from (my) holy vision. acim WB 37 What seemed harmful now stands shining within a particularly bright Street light.
MaryBeth Scalice is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: ACIM Zoom Meeting
Time: Dec 10, 2020 07:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
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