Plain Truths

I am a bad man; I know this for a fact, for I alone am aware of the stupidity and selfishness of my own thoughts and actions. These are actions that would embarrass or horrify me, as I am fearful that fragments of these memories may reside in other people’s consciousness. I smile as others offer excuses on my behalf, providing mitigating circumstances, but even the lesser of two evils is still evil. Initially, I felt shame but lately I have even hardened myself against this self-loathing; not that I exonerate myself but simply I have come to realise this is part of the path I must follow. By feeling shame it’s as if I wished to point the finger at a lesser me, someone who will take the blame for my misgivings, in the vain belief that the ‘me that is left’ would survive or be cleansed. I now recognise the real need is to not to run away or hide from this guilt but simply ask for mercy and forgiveness, for hopefully then will I appreciate the need to forgive and plead clemency for others.

It is hard not to take ‘trespasses against us’ personally, yet this is what we must do, to replace anger with kindness, sensing the fragility of others but maintaining that inner resolve which understands a higher order of things to come. I realise that I have secretly harboured evil thoughts against those who have wronged me and have dragged this burden alongside me, all these years. The problem is once you have labelled people as wrong-doers, they are deemed as ‘hell-fodder’ or simply dispensable and of little worth. If we are to truly empathise with others, we must try to understand the reasonings behind their actions. Sometimes forgiveness is the release of this burden; it is almost as if the need to forgive is as important as the need to be forgiven.

I recognise the need to fight, not in a violent way but as a means to establish the truth, for man has flooded our hearts and minds with ‘wonders’ which attempt to extol the virtues of man. So, we must be patient and trust in God’s Love. The world is after all the domain of the devil, we are merely ‘guests’ in his macabre ‘hotel’ but I am grateful it lacks that other plane of true reality, being completely confined despite its apparent infinite expanse. In this establishment we are frustrated by the drudgery of life, whereby the pattern of ‘work, eat, sleep .. repeat’ locks us into that continual nightmare, where we become susceptible to their continual lies, and stupefied by its trinkets and daily distractions.  Its destruction will surely come about, but this will only happen once we have escaped from here.