Bad Moon Rising

October 25, 2007 on 9:51 pm | In Reminiscence, Theological Reflection |

harvest-moon.jpg
Wow, what a week it’s been! On one hand, I’m feeling in great health after almost a month of being in crummy condition. My upswing has given me new appreciation for my generally high energy and I have renewed compassion for people who live in chronic pain, which is exhausting and disheartening. But it just feels cray-zee out there! Wires crossing, I’ve lost my cell phone twice in two days (paging Dr. Freud! paging Dr. Freud!), the cat erased the hard drive, ordinarily staunch folk have been brought to tears by stressful situations, and nerves are fraying all around me. Someone said that mercury is in retrograde and I believe it, man!

In a funny way, I’m at my happiest and most focused when stuff is messy and edgy like it is now. I grew up in an emotionally nutty home with parents who were totally inconsistent so you never knew if you’d come home to “Leave It To Beaver” or “Troilus and Cressida.” I learned to ignore the twisted knots in my stomach and to concentrate on reading the energies in the household, diagnosing the problems, and fixing them. If Mom needed support, she got it, up to and including my burying the empty booze bottles more deeply into the trash bins. If Dad’s volatile ego needed massaging in the form of a delightful conversation with his precocious daughter, he got it. If I needed to triangulate between sister and father, I did it. If I needed to run interference on behalf of my little brother when dad went on a rampage, I tried my best to do it. I was a little clinician in a very small asylum, never realizing that I myself was an inmate. I have a lot of compassion for that kid.

Now when I see nutty systems at work in people’s lives I have a kind of sad fondness for them. It’s like, Oh yeah, I know this nonsense. It’s always all about fear and control, clutching tight to secrets and habits that aren’t even any good, are certainly not worth our protective loyalty, and which need to be exposed, taken out, and shot. Or at least sent over the side of the cliff like those demons Jesus put into the herd of swine. The thing that’s so poignant about human beings is how much tender care we give to our demons. We give them everything we are, and even feed our children to them. It’s just so hard and takes so much support, strength, courage and desperation to name them for what they are and be willing to say goodbye to them.

“Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!”
Anyone who has ever taken their demons out to lunch and broken up with them once and for all knows why that song has such enduring, deep appeal. Half the time we don’t even know how wretched we are until we let one of our demons go for a few weeks (just a trial run, you know) and come to realize that we’d been living choked by it for so long.

I asked Jesus to cast out all my demons about, oh, maybe 15 years ago just to see if he could do it. At the last minute I got chicken and said, “Do you think I could keep just one for a pet?” Jesus said, “Do you think I would or could cast out any demons you’re devoted to keeping around?” And I said, “Do you realize how much you irritate me answering every one of my questions with a question?”

9 Comments »

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  1. And don’t forget, this seems to be a particularly bad season for early colds, viruses, etc…personally, I have been hit with these much earlier than usual. I wonder if some of the craziness in New England has been due to our crazy fall weather? We seem to go from summer temps to fall ones and back again at the drop of a hat…we have had so little rain…and the leaves this season have really been less than spectacular.
    Is Gaia heaving a big sigh of bewilderment over what we have been doing to the environment (and there are still people who claim global warming is a myth, or a fiction created by pessimists!).

    Comment by tommy — October 26, 2007 #

  2. And what about the Red Sox? Yea I know that the time is a hassle but we’re two wins away, and now we have a bell to ring.

    Comment by Hank — October 26, 2007 #

  3. Thank you for sharing this. Beautiful writing, and your conversation with Jesus (and especially the end! I can easily imagine his fellow-travellers in Palestine asking precisely the question you closed with) resonated deeply with me.

    Comment by Sarah Dylan Breuer — October 26, 2007 #

  4. I have yet to meet someone who wouldn’t benefit greatly from taking the demons to lunch and breaking up with them, then leaving so the damn things have to foot the bill! Chew and screw, I say!

    Comment by Janeybird — October 26, 2007 #

  5. And yup, Mercury is retrograde. This means that for the next three weeks (which is when it goes direct again) all matters pertaining to communication, security, and short-distance travel are subject to Murphy’s Law.

    So when getting directions somewhere, repeat it back to the person giving them. And watch those car keys. They will try to do their Houdini act on you.

    Comment by Tracie — October 27, 2007 #

  6. Wow. Oh, wow. I read this:

    “The thing that’s so poignant about human beings is how much tender care we give to our demons. We give them everything we are, and even feed our children to them. It’s just so hard and takes so much support, strength, courage and desperation to name them for what they are and be willing to say goodbye to them.”

    …and then an anvil fell on my head.

    Comment by Peg Schuler-Armstrong — October 27, 2007 #

  7. Re: the demons - SING IT!

    Comment by Kate — October 27, 2007 #

  8. We give them everything we are, and even feed our children to them. It’s just so hard and takes so much support, strength, courage and desperation to name them for what they are and be willing to say goodbye to them.

    Holy crap, PB, you are like church to me. This was a big bucket of GOD right where I needed Her. Thanks.

    Comment by missnell — October 27, 2007 #

  9. I like the idea of breaking up with demons….I wonder if they’d notice?! Your photos did bring a bit of peace, however….especially the pond.

    At least I’m not alone in my frustration out here! (see a more recent PB comment as well as this one) I too hate those snotty MC commercials - and the VISA ones also that make fun of someone who uses cash…..and now, as I scroll down and read this part of the PB blog - I am in even MORE agreement!

    The world in my head, my house, my office and who knows where else - is a mess, is sick, late, behind, confused and just a bit frustrated. To borrow (and adapt) from Prairie Home Companion ….. I am so beside myself - I am ‘at two with the universe’! (But I suppose as a Christian, I must be ‘at 3 with with it’ Yes?)

    Thanks for sharing your frustrations with us all!
    ‘Rev.’ in Ohio

    Comment by Rev. Steelman — October 29, 2007 #

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