Monday, October 5, 2009

rough draft

This is a chapter that I have been working on for awhile, its unedited and very rough around the edges, and that's why I am posting it. I want some feedback and your editing skills to be put to good use. Thanks for reading and replying, be nice though.
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A new relationship, that’s what it always seems to be about, some form of new relationship. Not the kind where a new person is met and a new relationship created but the kind where old relationships are made new. Everyone wants a chance to form a new one, all the ugly words, backstabbing and betrayal made right and new.

I dated this girl once, who I was totally in love with and she was my half world. I can’t say she was my world because in the end we ended and that’s not the signature of someone whose world revolves around someone else. I want a chance to say something, to go back and take back the arguing the fighting, but it wont happen. I mean I can go and apologize for the things I had said and done and she can do likewise but that does not recreate the relationship its kind of a whiteout that covers the bad words and ugly actions of the story, but if you were to pick at the whiteout then there underneath would be the ugly rhetoric of the story, a story cloned from another story cloned from another story.

And that’s the thing, the truth remains the same, and the relationship will never be the same it will always be compromised, changed, and mutated. No rewriting whiteout exists not for a page or reality.

The past regret is a fire, its overtaken everything engulfed the forest of existence and charred everything. It’s like Yellowstone, when Yellowstone was aflame everything was destroyed, and now people go back and act like it was never there. But it was. And its obvious, rocks and mountains are charred and maybe the greenery grew back but the consequences are still evident flames touched the mountains and their mark will never be removed. The fire of the past is the same, relationships are charred, but the difference between us and Yellowstone is that we melt and mutate. We aren’t gold or diamonds that are refined in fire we are flesh and blood even in our mind and where fire hits and flames arise flesh melts it mutates, and now from the fire emerges not a phoenix but a monster of sorts, a charred mutated you and I that when looked at through the mirror of our eyes will never look the same.

We have all come to live with the monsters though, because no one has ever escaped the flames of the past and all of us now live burned and charred. And we look out over the living corpses in the earth we see people; rude, naïve, compassionate, angry people whatever we see, we see something that looks like us and that’s what we live with. We have never seen anything else, charred mutation is what we know its what we accept its what we like, but is there more? How would we know? Would we see someone not charred as charred because of the perfection of their emotional flesh? Someone who has never regretted or needed the rewriting whiteout, would it be like seeing an alien?

All of this began long ago though; our own ugly stories are just filled verbatim with the same old rhetoric of a past relationship. It all began when someone flicked the cigarette into the brush or got drunk and lit off a bunch of fireworks in the emotional national park of our beginning, then the flames came. The park was burnt and sealed for remodeling and the drunks, who set the thing aflame kicked out, removed, and banned from entering ever again. But in this instance the drunks didn’t just escape with a mass of fines for burning down the original national park, they themselves were caught in the fire, pulled out and bandaged by a rescue crew but never the same the fire was to intense. Now they live with the original insecurities of the burns, they haven’t always been mutated but now when seeing themselves in each others eyes it is evident something changed. The beauty and perfection that defined their relationships in the beginning is gone burnt to a crisp back in the park.

“Adam,” she says “do you still love me?” Tears rolling down the grimacing face overwhelmed by the experience of this mutation.

We all wait hoping the characters will overcome the conflict now thrust into their lives, the fact they were drunk lighting off fireworks in a national parks means nothing now, all we hope is that these two can overcome. The story doesn’t end though it keeps being written and now unfolds in our lives; those of us born mutated and forever charred never knowing perfect, living with the consequence everyday.

The effects are devastating and inescapable. Its evident if your watching, you don’t need to be vigilant just human. We fight a war whether for freedom, nuclear weapons, or oil its all consequence of mutation. Humanity has fallen, has burnt up all the truth and what we experience today is the aftermath.

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What does God think of all of this? In the beginning of it all God creates this beautiful garden, alive with animals and all the vegetation imaginable. In this garden there is no fear or worry of what will come, no fear of past regrets because no decision has yet be made that will bare the fruits of negative consequences, there is just God and His creation. Alive in the glory of love Adam and his cherished Eve live. But one-day drunk on the intoxication of beauty the garden permeates; Adam and Eve set the whole thing aflame, that first and greatest national park. Forever with the scars they must leave this place never to see it again, to live and fight in the real world, something they have never seen.

What was God saying? Where was He when the cunning serpent seduced the innocent Eve? Was God Hiding? Was He afraid His beloved would choose the serpent over Him?

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My mind rages with these questions, where is God now? Why don’t I see Him when I think I need to most, why can’t I feel Him? Why am I not able to lay my head on Jesus like John the Apostle? To touch the wholes in His hands like Thomas, or hear Him whisper like Elijah?

It’s taken so long to begin to understand why I am unlike those before. Knowing that Jesus isn’t here the way He was before is not a comfort, because Jesus was not physically in the Old Testament yet Elijah heard God whisper on the mountain, and Moses spoke face to face with God like they were old time friends. I don’t believe I have less of God than these men and women of the Bible, but it does seem we have a different measure of God. That He has localized Himself differently, and now we get to experience Him in a different way, but one day in the end we will get a chance to see Him like Moses did, yet unveiled and free to rest our head on the chest of God, to finally hear the heartbeat that echoes throughout philosophy and the questions of man.


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Where was God when Eve was seduced by the serpent? I think He was watching, aware of the consequences and the fire that would soon be caused. He watched, heartbroken and ready to redeem Eve. To save what would soon be left of Her, to marry her the way Adam would now not be able to do. Not physically marry Eve but marry her and complete her, to save her from choice she had made. He would do this for Adam, for me, and for all the world.

God now begins the most elaborate wooing process in the History of mankind. He chooses a people; He works to ready them for the groom to end all grooms, the groom that would pay the ransom for the captured Eve. God waits at the alter for us, for the bride that is the world to walk to the alter escorted by the Spirit of God. He waits for us to arrive and say, “I do.”

2 comments:

  1. hey babe
    this is awesome i love it
    i like the analogies and the imagery
    just work on development throughout each paragraph
    you're so incredible

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  2. Jonny:

    This is really quite incredible writing and thinking.

    What is very cool about this piece is that it provokes the reader to become engaged in the thought process and dialog without intended effort. I found myself initially captivated by your story and thoughts and then discovered I was involved in the dialog within my own experience or theory. Well done.

    Regarding your closing thoughts, I believe that we have a great advantage over Moses and the men of the Old Testament. If I had my Bible I would quote some great scriptures that reference how the very prophets of old dreamed of "our generations" to come, or the advantage we have over Thomas because he had to see and feel through physical means versus our ability to see and touch through faith. Then there's the ability to see the "end from the beginning" and living with the presence and reality of the Holy Spirit. Add to that His throne room of grace, the breadth of his Love and His final will and testament to us, the believer. Wow.

    Jason spoke a great message Sunday addressing hearing the voice of God. The Bible says that, "we are sheep of His pasture and we hear our Father's voice." For one reason or another we go through seasons where we don't seem to hear. Maybe it's less about "not hearing" and more about recognizing his voice. I would suggest that Jason's message although simple in its execution, is timely and powerful. As we recognize our Father's voice, we discover that envious posturing of "laying upon Jesus' breast."

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Hey, keep it clean and if things get touchy direct your animosity at me, no one else needs that.

-Jonny