fizzer

with my confidence shaken, i look endlessly through my identifiers. i suppose that looking for my reflection in past persons will get me nowhere fast, but looking forward never got me anywhere. this de-valuation of self comes from some obvious and not so obvious sources, but it comes on strong and fast. I struggle to believe that I can, that I will, that I will amount. the pressures of this city are great. we are told to make work that matters. this is not the thinly veiled narcissism, there is a thick blanket of charity and good-will that hides the true nature of the valley’s thought patterns. I have pulled myself from the comfortable safety that some of the deepest paradigms provide. I have decided to cull myself from the valley’s herd. I do not know if I am simply too weak to be a servant in the world, or if I must take time to regain my strength, to learn the next lessons, to regroup with the rest of the soldiers. There is no telling why I am at where I am at. I look into the past and I see false starts and complete failures at every twist and turn. Sure, there were some extended victories, and easily avoidable mistakes that I can simply laugh off. But there is a deep fear in all of it. A faceless, unchanging evil. I can catch glimpses of it at times, but it lives deep within me, inside of a fortress of my own construction. Brick by brick I have built it into myself. Brick by brick I have given it comfort inside of me. And so this faceless thing has a castle, and it parades my failures on great flags. And I forget that I have had victories in those defeats, just as some of my victories have great loss within them. I forget that the faces of those I have failed and hurt are also faces that I deeply love on levels that the enemy will not remind me of nor let me remember. But within the work of becoming vulnerable I have exposed the great fortress within, I can see its magnitude, I have left it alone on a vast plain. I am removing the things that supported it, that hid it. The things that made me numb to its power. but now I am left to slowly circle it. to continue camping outside of its walls. Too filled with conviction and shame to go inside, but to weak to take the thing apart, or to let it be torn down. i am like an ant without a army, tirelessly defending its colony. a mad man in the middle of a desert, guarding his empty vessel from ever being filled.

and so I have found those who wish to help me tear down this kingdom and make way for the true King. and they have helped me to start that work, and all I can do is pray for that work to continue.

(Source: happymappy, via priceyricey)