"From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines, going where I list, my own master total and absolute, Listening to others, considering well what they say, Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me."
Walt Whitman (1819-92)
"When I look back now over my life and call to mind what I might have had simply for taking and did not take, my heart is like to break."
Akhenaton (d. c.1354 BC)
And now, the current weather, from some random person we pulled off the street:
Sunday, August 29, 2004
Border
thresh-old Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English thresshold, from Old English threscwald; akin to Old Norse threskjoldr threshold, Old English threscan to thresh
1 : the plank, stone, or piece of timber that lies under a door : SILL
2 a : GATE, DOOR b (1) : END, BOUNDARY; specifically : the end of a runway (2) : the place or point of entering or beginning : OUTSET [on the threshold of a new age]
3 a : the point at which a physiological or psychological effect begins to be produced b : a level, point, or value above which something is true or will take place and below which it is not or will not
4 : What is just ahead of me, I think
I think I am almost through with it.
A few months ago, I was traveling from Virginia going south into North Carolina. The day was overcast, and everything was cloaked in gray shadow, matching the gray asphalt of the highway. But, through a quirk of fate, at the precise same moment that I crossed the state line into North Carolina, I came out from under the frontal system.
Instantly, sunlight bathed me and everything around me. I squinted as the colors all around me blazed with the light. Even the road seemed to glow. In my rear view mirror, I could see Virginia, still in its gray shade.
There never were any more clouds that trip.
The last three years of my life have been, for the most part, a living hell. A torment, a misery, a curse. Some of it I have outlined here. Some of it I haven't. Some of it my family saw, as I broke under the strain and fell to shattered pieces in the hospital, but there were other times when I would pull over in my car, so overwhelmed that I would have to allow the grief and despair to pass through me before I could go home.
When I was in the hospital, I saw a drawing in the newspaper of a person curled up in a fetal position surrounded by the bars of a restricting cage, trapped and beyond hope. That was my mental image of my life for much of the past three years or so.
Amazing what a brain chemical imbalance can do to you, not to mention working in a hostile and prejudicial work environment. It'll rip you to shreds, then rip those shreds to shreds.
But through it all, I've fought as hard as I could. Even when I gave out, I still never lost my trust in God. Myself maybe, but not Him.
And I feel that finally, finally, I'm going to cross that border into the next state and the sunshine is going to beam down on me. Just as with Job, all these wrongs are going to be righted. God's faithful that way.
I will never, ever have to deal with what I have dealt with. Ever. That alone is worth so much. I can't even find words to express my relief and joy at this.
The most comfortable shoe in the world is the one that has just had a pebble removed from inside of it. Just the contrast makes it so.
I think my pebble is gone now. We'll see. I'll keep ya posted.
Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.
Sir Winston Churchill
British politician (1874 - 1965)
