I lived in China for a year. This is what happened while I was there. It's kinda long, but so is a year.
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I'm so tired; tired in more ways than one.
I'm tired in body, with heavy limbs that refuse to listen and do as they are told.
I'm tired in mind, nagged to distraction by things that want to be thought. Too tired to remember what those things are and too tired to search for them, since I know that I will never have the strength to finish what I start.
I'm tired in spirit and soul. Tired of going on, tired of struggling for understanding and escape and answers; tired of being. Most days I don't want to be anymore.
I think it's the air that makes me feel this way.
It's not the air I remember, which was clear and light, full of life, easy to inhale, and to move and live in; this air seems to be weighted and black.
It's very unpleasant.
It's thick, greasy, and it coats my tongue and my throat whenever I inhale.
It's making me sick.
Or maybe I was sick when I came here, I wouldn't know. I don't remember when I got here, and I don't remember what I knew before this, or even if I knew before this. I don't even know where or what 'here' is, but something inside me is telling me that yes, I knew something before this, something not this, something that was right that makes me think that this, here, is wrong.
I try so hard to believe that whisper, telling myself that if there was a better before this then it means there is hope for a better after. The alternative, of ignoring the whisper and believing that I was always here, brings the possibility that there is nothing but here, and that thought brings death with it.
If I accept that thought, if I let it into me, then that will be the end of me, I'll have no hope, no reason to hold on, and I'll let go.
But maybe death is the way out.
Or maybe Shakespeare got it right when he suggested to Hamlet that it's
"...the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of". [1]
So maybe I should stay, because what if the undiscovered country after death isn't everything I want it to be. What if it's just like here?
The most tormenting thing about this weighted, black air called darkness is the way it lets me think that it's on the verge of dissipating and letting the light in. It’s the way it hangs in front of me, or maybe the way it moves, I'm not sure, but it makes me think that if I just squint a little more, or lean my head to the side, I'll catch a glimpse of something.
I never do though.
And I know I never will. My mind tells me that since I did not succeed in seeing through the black the last 100 times, I will not succeed on the 101st. I try anyway. I can't stop myself.
That's torture. Knowing there is no hope, and straining anyway.
It creates in me much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
The sound works almost that same way, but, where I know that I can't see anything, I'm still not sure if I’m surrounded by a silence that presses against my ears, or if I can hear the screams, the murmurs, and the ravings of other prisoners.
I assume that's what this is; a prison. If I was somewhere good before, and I am somewhere I do not want to be now, somewhere I cannot leave, then prison seems an apt label.
I’m tired of waking up every morning with the remains of my prison dream still caught in the corners of my eyes. Tired of these dreams about a woman, who is me and not me, and who has a story that I do not know and she does not remember; a story that cannot move forward because the protagonist is trapped. When I'm in that dream, I'm in that prison.
And the prison stays with me when I wake up. For her it begins on the outside, surrounding her body, and then makes its way inside to her soul, little by little, every time she breathes in. For me it sits on my heart and it makes its way into the world around me. Dimming colours, muffling sound and making it harder and harder to move.
I've begun to resent this woman. I want her to fight, to break out and leave, hoping that when she does the prison will disappear from the dreams and therefore my heart.
But she doesn't and I know it's because she can't.
She wants to. Her heart screams at her to get up and lay waste to the walls that hold her, but the screams and battle cries of her heart leave her mouth as moans and whimpers. Her body won't respond, her mind is in a prison of it's own, a prison of foggy confusion that won't let her function.
And I know this, I know she can't save herself, no matter how much she wants to, that she needs someone to come and rescue her, but even though I know this I still resent her.
I'm tired of waiting for that rescuer. They're taking too long. I want to be free now, not later.
But I'm not free, and the prison is gaining strength, making its way further and further into my world everyday.
And that makes me tired. So very tired.
For, you see, the danger of having a prison inside of you is that it's like a virus and it infects. It's not content to simply remain the size it began as, it needs to take more territory, so it fills itself with more and more prisoners. I’m sure it began with only a single prisoner; perhaps it captured one of my smaller hopes, and hid it away in a cell where I could no longer hear it whisper support to my spirit.
Perhaps I said, ‘it's only one hope, and a small hope at that, I can live without it.’ And the prison laughed it's dark and devouring laugh and expanded to capture another hope, to capture a joy, to capture a conviction, leaving despair and fear and doubt to replace them.
It did it so quietly, so patiently, that I didn't notice, until one day I looked around and saw that I had been captured along with my hopes and joys and left with little memory of how it happened.
The one memory that remained reported that I was the one who gave ground; I backed down so that the prison could advance. That chortling, nagging memory causes despair to grow in strength, and the larger that despair grows, the more I notice how it holds sway over the way I live my life, and how my life loses substance and strength every moment it exists in the shadow of the prison.
For the moment I continue to exist, to walk and speak, to eat and drink and breathe, to work and rest but I become more and more like the walking dead each day. My laughter becomes more and more brittle, until there are days that I am afraid that it, or I, will shatter if I force it out yet again. And yet I dread the questions that come because I withhold it:
"Why aren't you happy?
"What happened?
"What's wrong?"
They all have the same answer:
I don't know.
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
No one is ever satisfied with that answer. They don't seem to understand how I could feel something and not know why. Or maybe it's only that they can’t conceive feeling something that doesn’t have a tangible, real world cause like trouble at work, loss, or poor treatment by others. The problem is none of those causes apply, yet it seems that those reasons, and others like it, are the only ones they will allow.
Trying to tell them about the darkness that sits inside of me, eating hopes and joys and dreams and laughing in a way that shakes my soul, and trying to explain that there is a woman trapped in that prison, and that I am suffering because she will not rouse herself to escape and no one is coming for her, is not having it's intended effect of epiphany production.
There are a few other reactions to those words: skepticism, dismissal, confusion, and scorn. None of those are pleasant and none are helpful.
Although, to speak the truth, there may be one person every now and again who nods with understanding and responds with a 'Yes, I know that, I lived that, I am free now, you will be free as well.' I suppose I should listen to them, but they never have a satisfactory answer to my question of "when?"
They remain quiet and shrug their shoulders. They don't know, it's not for them to tell, only my rescuer knows. Irritation, impatience, pride, and doubt, spawned by the infection in my heart cause me to scorn the wisdom granted to them through experience, and classify them as more of those who don't understand.
I am very arrogant, to truly believe that no one could understand me, that no one could once have been tormented in the same way that I am. I am arrogant to believe I am the only one, to believe that I am different and they are ordinary, simply part of the masses.
I am so incredibly arrogant.
I press on with my life, carrying this prison with me, back and forth between my job and my home. I drag my limbs, hanging with chain upon chain, through life, all the while screaming in my soul.
I dream more about the cell now, and as it becomes stronger I don't have to wait for sleep to see how the woman fairs. I can be in the middle of work, a movie, a book, a song, a meal, and with little effort I can let go of the world around me and slip into the world that she sits in, finding myself enclosed in that dense and oily darkness, feeling it press against my lungs so that my breathing becomes shallow and painful.
I feel that darkness become more real to me than the sun and moon and trees and people that I see every day. I see the darkness as my world and the world as a shadow I no longer understand.
I no longer know what is happening in the world that I have been taught is real, I don't know why I live in the place I do, why I work the job I have, or even why I think the things that scurry through my mind. I don't know the answer to any of those questions, even though I can see, taste, hear, smell and touch in this world.
I do know what happens in the darkness, but I know in a hidden place. I know that I know, but I don't know how or why I know, nor can I explain what I know. I just know that I know.
Always before when I was in a dream it consumed my attention only when I was inside of it. When I woke I would blink, laugh a little at its absurdity and shake it from my thoughts, banish it with the knowledge that it's not real, and not relevant to what I have to do next. I would step out of the world of the dream and into the world of the real.
But I visit this dream of her prison, my prison, again and again, for longer and longer periods of time, and I visit it when I’m awake as often as I visit when I’m asleep. Dream and reality begin to switch places.
This dream world that was once only shadows easily left, easily shaken off, easily escaped, becomes more and more solid. The walls are thicker and can no longer be walked through at the sound of a morning alarm. I might leave my bed and walk to my kitchen but the walls come with me.
And while the dream becomes thick, the reality that I was once so familiar with loses substance; it becomes thin, and hard to discern. The concept of its existence is difficult to grasp because my mind no longer sees the way it did before. It begins to view existence the way it once did dreams; as unreal, irrelevant, and something to be banished.
The real world is now my dream, and my dream has become my world. The thing that defines me, and how I live, is now the prison l am trapped in. All that I do is done from the cell. Work. Meals. Conversations. I no longer watch the woman sit and despair in her cell, now I am that woman. I sit. I despair.
I do not fight back.
I do not escape.
I resent myself.
Back and forth I go, experiencing the real world the way I used to experience the dream world. Making occasional visits to participate in things I don't understand, surrounded by muffled, senseless conversations and never sure how or why I go from one scene to another. I spend the rest of my time in my cell, breathing in my darkness, letting it coat the inside of my mouth, my throat, my lungs and letting the chill encase me.
Until.
Finally, things are beginning to change.
I can hear a whisper now.
It started far off down the hallway of my prison,
Today it's in my ear.
Today it's circling the edges of my cell.
Today it's silent.
Today...
He's sitting outside my cell.
That is quite a surprise. He wasn't there a second ago. A second ago there was only that same familiar, cold, clogging darkness. Now it's warmer. It's brighter. Whoever He is, He brought the sunshine with Him. I can't see it, I only see Him, but I can feel it. It's going to make me cry. I haven't felt the warmth of the sun for I don't remember how long. I had forgotten how releasing sunshine could feel.
But, when did he get here? How did He get here?
"I was always here."
My brain stops asking questions. It is now frantically trying to discover if it had actually passed those inquiries along to my voice and then forgot, or did it keep them to itself like it believes it did.
There's a smile on the man's face.
"Does it matter?"
No... no I suppose it doesn't matter whether I thought them or asked them aloud. Either way I have an answer. Admittedly, it's an answer I don't entirely understand but it is a place to start.
And first thing’s first. I have my eyes narrowed, my eyebrow raised and I am staring penetratingly into His eyes.
Can you read my mind?
His laugher has daisies in it. And rivers. And fields and herds of horses. Thunderstorms and the breezes that have visited me on summer afternoons while I was resting in the shade of a tree.
It surrounds me, blocks out everything painful, and unhappy, and dark so completely that for that moment I forget they ever existed.
His eyes are smiling at me. They seem to like me.
"You've always been my favourite."
I take that as a yes.
"Who are you?"
"You know the answer to that."
Yes, I do know the answer. But I didn't think He would really come though. I thought He had forgotten me.
"I told you beloved, I was always here. I could never forget you."
I doubt Him. I haven't seen Him. Haven't heard more than a whisper from Him until now, and it was a fickle whisper at that. Close one day, far away the next, and gone again completely the day after that. How could He tell me He's been here when I know He hasn’t? I would have seen Him.
The sunshine isn't as strong now. It's getting colder and the laughter that was drowning out the poisonous spitting snarls of my prison isn't as influential as it was. That dark voice is hurling itself against this bubble of light that is supposed to be protecting me. It's howling, screaming around and around the bubble that's keeping us separated. I can almost make out the words it's saying.
He's looking at me, holding my eyes with His, and His aren't smiling anymore. They're crying.
"Please, please baby-girl, don't listen to it. Not anymore."
But I can almost hear it. I'm sure it agrees with me. I'm sure it knows like I do that You weren't here. That You were gone. Away. Somewhere else while I was here, terrified and alone.
"Please. Don't listen."
I was right! It does agree with me! You weren't here! You were never here!
He's gone. There's no more sunshine. There's no more warmth. There is laughter though. Woven all throughout the howling wind of triumph that slams me against the wall of my cell. The laughter swells louder and louder and louder and drowns out the moans of my self-condemnation.
I'm sorry. Please come back. I didn't mean it. I was confused, distracted. Please, please, please come back. I'm sorry. Please. Please don't leave me alone.
"I never leave you alone child. Never."
I can feel His warmth. He's right beside me, it's the only reason I can hear Him over the sound of my sobbing.
Or maybe it wasn't my ears that heard Him.
"Why did you leave me?" It seems I still don't believe what He tells me. "Why did you disappear? Why didn't you protect me from the howls and the lies? Why did you let me believe them?"
He's just looking at me now, not saying anything. His eyes are still sad. He looks in my eyes, brushes hair away from my face and I know HIs answer.
He told me not to listen.
I told Him to go away, I wanted to hear the howling.
I don't want to look in His eyes anymore. They make too much sense. I used to rail at the confusion that had set up camp in my mind. I told it to pack up and move out, I didn't want it, I didn't like its fog. The confusion is gone now. His eyes burnt all the fog away in an instant.
I'd give anything to have it back.
The fog was soft, and sort of comfortable now that I think about it. The clarity that was uncovered when it left is far too sharp. It hurts. I'm seeing things too clearly and I'm not sure I like it.
"Look at Me."
No. I don't want to. I can't modify my truth when I look in Your eyes.
"Look at Me."
No. I don't like it. It's too raw. Too bright. I can see everything about myself and I don't like what I see. Apparently I'm very deceptive. I deceive myself, and I do it to make myself feel better. I don't like that. I don't want to see that. Please, don't ask me to look at you.
"Baby-girl, look at Me."
I can't. Just... give me a minute. I'm not strong enough yet. I'm working on it.
"Look at Me."
Ok. I'm looking at You, but I'm shy. I'm scared. A little terrified actually. You're much more real than I ever imagined You would be; it's very intimidating.
He's not mad at me. He doesn't look disappointed in me. He's not criticizing me with His eyes. That's not what I expected.
He's smiling at me again.
"There's quite a lot to Me that is not even remotely close to what you expected."
I think I'm ok with that. So far the reality is much, much better than the expectation. His smile and His eyes are my pride's defeat. I generate yet more tears, but this round isn't empty like all the others. This one soothes whatever secret inside part of me is wounded.
"I'm sorry."
Those words come out of me as no more than a choke that failed its attempt to become a whisper but it seems to satisfy. The light drives the darkness further back and blocks the raging invectives of my prison more completely. Now, all I can see is Him. All I can hear is Him. The prison fades into my distant past until all that's left is now, and now is warm, and bright, and safe.
He lets me burrow into His embrace, lets me soak His clothing with the liquid that seems to be irrepressibly dribbling from my face. For a while He lets me forget everything and lets me think about nothing and all He does is hold me while I cry. He lets the sun that He brought with Him soak into my skin and bury itself in my bones, let's it relax and soothe muscles exhausted from being always on guard against attack. He let's time disappear and silences any "you should”s from the real world that might try to infiltrate and distract.
After a while my sobs become hiccups and then nothing more than deep steady breathing. I can hear Him humming, and feel Him stroking my hair and I wonder if He has been doing both the whole time.
I'm the one who pulls away, feeling awkward, feeling like there is business we should be getting to, an objective we should be discussing. I'm worried I might be wasting His time just by sitting there and not saying anything. He lets me go. I want to believe it's reluctantly, but I don't have enough confidence.
I push my hair behind my ears. Dart my eyes around the cell, trying to bring them to meet His as often as I can. His eyes are still so intimidating. Wonderful. Beautiful. Captivating. Loving. Endless. Very, very intimidating.
He really is much more real than I imagined.
"Did you come to set me free?" My voice isn't very loud. It's sounds so very small and pathetic.
"Do you want Me to set you free?"
Once again He escapes the boundaries of my expectations. If He can read minds then doesn't He know the answer to that one? Wouldn't that one be obvious? I'm in prison. Prisons are predominantly unloved. Yes, I want to be free.
Why would He ask that?
"I want to set you free. I don't want you here. I don't want you anywhere near here. You belong in a surrounding vastly opposite to this. But if you are free you will not sit as much. You will have to stand up. You will have to walk. A lot. There are many places I want to take you and I very much like walking. I will ask you to walk with me. I also love to run. I race the wind. I will ask you to run with me. You will be free, and I will give you work to do. Out of this prison you will have joy beyond comprehension, and you will meet with sorrow on a regular basis.
"I want to give all of that to you. Do you want to accept it?"
That makes the question much more intimidating.
Yes, I want very much to exist outside of this cell. But what happens if I find out that I really am very lazy. Or that I can't run, or worse, that I don't like to run. What if I can't survive the sorrow?
But it sounds so wonderful. When He says those things He makes it sound like none of those concerns will apply. When He speaks it's as if He knows that I will end up walking with Him, that I will run with Him, and that I will have joy in both those things. He makes it sound as though I will even have joy during the sorrow.
If He can read my mind then maybe it's safe to trust that He knows I will not disappoint Him with currently unknown limitations.
So...
"Yes. I want to accept that."
And now there is no more prison. No more walls, no more bricks, no more chains, no more darkness, no more cold.
There is open land, sunlight and warmth.
There is no more laughter echoing in my soul, glorying in my imprisonment and helplessness.
In its absence there is the sound of breezes, the sound of breath, the sound of life.
In those breezes, confined in the far off horizon, there is an echo of my prison.
It's not an echo that will continue to haunt my thoughts, perpetually causing me to wonder if there is enough life in that ghost to bring about resurrection. Instead it is the cry of a hopeless pathetic thing, long ago defeated, but unwilling to admit it. It's the cry of a dishonoured thing refusing to admit its trouncing, whining and mewling and causing veterans to frown and shake their heads with murmurs of "bad form, old man. Bad form, indeed."
It doesn't take long for that horizon to swallow its cries altogether so that no hint of its former existence is left.
Now it's only me and my rescuer.
I know I should say thank you. More accurately I should fall to my knees, sobbing, wailing, gasping out long and flowering speeches of His greatness and mercy and compassion and might. I should lament the failure of mere words to capture all that He has done for me and commit myself to Him as His willing slave for eternity and beyond.
All of that is less than what I feel, but the execution of it does not exactly come naturally to me.
I am slightly more understated than that.
But "thank you" seems so small. I mean those words but how will He know unless I show Him with sobs and wailing and rending of garments.
I really am crying now.
I don't have any poems of gratitude to accompany those tears, I'm too busy worrying that I am staying silent not because I'm worried about sounding insincere but because I have too much pride to become vulnerable. What if I never speak and He never knows that I really would be His slave. What if all I can manage is "thank you" and He thinks I'm ungrateful. What if...
He wraps me up in His arms and His cloak and holds me against His chest. He whispers into my hair.
"You're welcome, little one"
I cry a little harder, with much less unease and reserve. I am very glad He can read minds.
I let myself stay in His arms a little longer than last time, but still not as long as my soul wants. Still I pull away sooner than desired, worried I'm wasting His time. Worried He has other places to be and is holding me only because my tears make Him feel obligated.
When I look at Him He doesn't seem to be in a hurry, but that must be too good to be true.
"What do we... I... do now?"
His laugher is here again. His laugher has a physical presence and it hugs as well as He does.
"What do you want to do now?"
I get a choice?
I would love to do something for Him, something that would make Him happy. Something that would show Him that He has won my allegiance. He said He would give me work to do. Maybe it's something that I am capable of, something that would be useful to Him.
"I do have a job for you. Do you want to hear it?"
There are smiles everywhere when He asks that. One in it's traditional place of the mouth, one woven through His voice, and one in each of His eyes.
He knows my answers, but apparently He is thoroughly enjoying asking me the questions.
I can't help but smile back.
"Yes, please."
I sound so shy. I feel so shy. I feel as though I look, and act, like a middle school girl with the biggest of crushes on the older high school boy who has noticed her existence and been kind to her.
I'm not sure that impression is far off the mark.
"Well, little girl,"
and here He leans in with a wink and a whisper,
"You, who live under the protection of the Most High, dwell in the Shadow of the Almighty.
You will say to the LORD,
"My refuge and my fortress, My God, in whom I trust."
He Himself will deliver you from the hunter's net, from the destructive plague.
He will cover you with His feathers; you will take refuge under His wings.
His faithfulness will be a protective shield.
You will not feel the terror of the night, the arrow that flies by day, the plague that stalks in the darkness, or the pestilence that ravages at noon.
Though a thousand fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, the pestilence will not reach you.
You will only see it with your eyes and witness the punishment of the wicked.
"Because you have made the LORD, - your refuge, the Most High - your dwelling place, no harm will come to you; no plague will come near your tent.
For He will give His angels orders concerning you, to protect you in all your ways.
They will support you with their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
You will tread on the lion and the cobra; you will trample the young lion and the serpent.
"Because you are lovingly devoted to Me, I will deliver you;
I will exalt you because you know My name.
When you call out to Me I will answer you; I will be with you in trouble.
I will rescue you and give you honour.
I will satisfy you with a long life and show you My salvation." [2]
As He's speaking He grows taller. I see His armour and the sword in His hand and from His mouth. I watch the fire rage in His eyes and listen as His voice thunders and shakes the mountains. I hear the trumpets that grow louder and louder and louder and I fall to my knees and gape as He continues to speak.
"The Spirit of the Lord God is on you, because the LORD has anointed you to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent you to heal the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives, and freedom to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the LORD's favour, and the day of our God's vengeance;
to comfort all who mourn, to provide for all those who mourn in Zion;
to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, and splendid clothes instead of despair." [3]
His voice is at once resounding, booming, earth-shaking, earth-filling, soft, intimate, meant for my soul alone.
"I am calling you:
'Commander of Armies'
'Agent of Freedom'
'Trusted Servant'
'Valued Friend'.
I am ordering you to pick up your weapon and fight at My side, to speak the words I give you, and live as I direct you.
You are My Warrior-Poet and I will give you sword and verse, to liberate and enlighten.
You will have My angels with you all your days, four angels to watch your front and back, left and right, to stand in the four corners of your home, to guard from the North, South, East and West.
"This is what I have for you."
With every word He speaks my soul grows stronger, my heart more steadfast. My voice wants to join His war-cry and my every nerve trembles in anticipation. I feel like my eyes can now burn as brightly as His do, like I could race His wind and win.
I want to borrow words and bellow:
"Now! I - I am going to be a storm - a flame -
I need to fight whole armies all alone;
I have ten hearts; I have a hundred arms;
I feel too strong to war with mortals -
BRING ME GIANTS!" [4]
I'm certain that since He can read my mind He can also read those words bouncing off the walls of my heart and see them dancing in my eyes, and that is why He laughs His earth-quaking laugh.
"Do you want this?"
YES! You have no idea!
"Do you believe it?"
Another one of those trick questions. Of course I believe it. You said it. You don't lie. Your voice won't let me doubt You. What kind of a question is that?
Only... I've never commanded an army before. I don't know how to heal broken hearts or give freedom to others. I couldn't even free myself. I've never used a sword and I'm sure I'm not strong enough to lift one. I can see the angels You mentioned but they don't seem to be all too pleased to be assigned to me. They don't seem to have a lot of respect for me. Did they see me in that prison, day after day, never fighting?
How am I supposed to do those things?
Suddenly I'm not as invincible as I believed only seconds ago. I've diminished in stature and courage and I'm hearing old familiar whispers of walls.
"Dautgher."
There's authority in that word that causes my head to snap up and my eyes to meet His.
He has no more patience for my prison.
"None of this is for you to do. You are absolutely correct; you are capable of none of it.
But I AM.
I can free captives.
I am the good news.
I can heal broken hearts and I am the Lord of Armies.
You will not be sent out to accomplish these things alone. You will be with Me. I will be with You. I am calling you to a life at My side, a life for My glory, not your own.
"Do you want that?"
YES!
"Do you believe that?"
Yes!
Yes, that I can believe. I can spend my life at Your side, as of now there is no other place that I would rather be.
"Good girl.
Take My hand.
Follow Me."
[1] Hamlet iii.i.86-90
[2] Psalms 91
[3] Isaiah 61:1-3a
[4] Cyrano DeBergerac
