With Its Immensity and Fear

Evening

 --Rainer Maria Rilke

The sky puts on the darkening blue coat
held for it by a row of ancient trees;
you watch: and the lands grow distant in your sight,
one journeying to heaven, one that falls;

 

and leave you, not at home in either one,
not quite so still and dark as the darkened houses,
not calling to eternity with the passion
of what becomes a star each night, and rises;\

 

and leave you (inexpressibly to unravel)
your life, with its immensity and fear,
so that, now bounded, now immeasurable,

it is alternatively stone in you and star.

Comments

[Susan]

You're the most exasperating man. You write things that make women want to cry, either with their beauty or with their cruelty. I think you may be a Teddy Bear in Grizzly Bear's clothing.

[Kevin]

Susan, I know a woman, who knows me very well, who would tell you that I was the exact opposite: a Griz in Teddy's clothing, except that she'd drop in a few F-Bomb gerunds for emphasis. Like most people who think and feel at a level above a bowl of warm porridge, I'm more of an onion than a turnip. That same woman told me that she enjoyed peeling the layers of the onion (hers and mine), which I suspect was true until she uncovered a layer of "cruelty."

Here's the deal, I think: if you care deeply and feel deeply, you're going to emote, and sometimes it will be pretty and sometimes it will be ugly. I'm a deeply flawed human being. When I'm cruel, all I can do is ask for forgiveness, as I am expected to forgive not only my friends, but also my enemies. Some will forgive me and some will not. I hope, on balance, that the times I make a woman cry for revealed beauty outnumber (or, at least, outweigh) the times I make her cry for revealed cruelty. That's not the best I can do, I hope, but it's all I can muster at the moment.

[Sherry]

That you are willing to ask for forgiveness is a step ahead of most people.

[Kevin]

Thank you, Sherry, but it's not enough. My wife was on me this morning with the heartfelt concern that in the past couple of weeks, I've started acting like "The Old Kevin," and she said "You're not that guy anymore, so don't act like that guy anymore." This morning, she was talking about a government attorney on the other side of some litigation who's stepped over the ethical line and who I could nail to the wall, including having him sanctioned by the court. She told me that I need to let it go, to forgive in my heart, and not to be the remorseless human being who will never, ever stop hammering until the nail's head is flush with the surface of the board. She is absolutely right, but my nature pulls me in another direction, and it pulls me hard.

So, to be willing to ask, and asking, for forgiveness is, as you say, an important step ahead ahead. But, more important is me forgiving others and letting "love" (not the emotion, the action) replace all the natural tendencies for "payback," "revenge," and "I'll show you what happens when you try to make a fool out of me." I'm at a crossroads, triggered by a blast from the past that I, once again, mismanaged with great skill, and I need to head down the right road, and I need to do it now. Like C.S. Lewis, I admit that I can't do it without God's help.

[Sherry]

I used to hang on to every last drop of anger, pain and humiliation as though letting go would somehow leave me without. I think I stockpiled it like ammunition so I could use it when needed.

But then one day you wrote a post about authentic love and it completely clicked for me. Once I understood that it was ok to love someone without any expectations. To love them just simply for their mere existence on this planet I found that letting go of all the bad stuff was easy because I didn't need it anymore.

I still get angry and hurt but I don't let it feed off of me. Even when by all accounts I'd be justified to bring the walls down on a person I find that I have no desire to do it.

If possible I say what I need to say and then I'm able to walk away from it. Like with that "offensive jackass" I told you about. I was never angry enough to end the friendship .. that was his choice and I'm not even angry that he chose to do it.

As someone (probably you as well) once said ..it's about the journey and all is meant to be learned from.. even the bad moments.

[Kevin]

Amen, Sherry. These comment "conversations" make blogging a pleasure.

Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit, cras amet.

May he love tomorrow who has never loved before;
And may he who has loved, love tomorrow as well.