This Thing Called Life

[walkthevalley]

My reaction when I find out you're not following my sister-blog, Inside the Actor's Mind over at @insidetheactorsmind-blog.

[walkthevalley]

NEW TO AMAZON: Western romance for your summer reading list

My two novellas, Counting Coup: The Story of a Horse Whisperer and White Dove Cooing: The Return of the Horse Whisperer, are live and available for purchase on Amazon at this link:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DSTD2RC6?binding=paperback&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_pc_tpbk

She's in love with him. He's in love with her. So why aren't they together?

The Horse Whisperer is Deanie and Dan's niece, a sweet, courageous, beautiful twenty-something woman. She's a massage therapist who specializes in caring for horses. The Oglala Lakota of Pine Ridge Reservation are well aware of her ability to work with horses, easing their physical and emotional pain. What she doesn't know is that, this time, the horses will be returning the favor.

Aaron White Feather is like a nephew to Deanie and Dan. He loves the horses like his own family, and he has heard of this Horse Whisperer. He's heard the stories, but when he finally meets the legend, she was not what he was expecting. At first, that was a good thing. Then it was a bad thing. Then it became a very, very good thing.

The only problem is that, while each of them understands the other, neither of them understands themselves. Loving each other was the easy part. In fact, it was too easy. After six days and seven nights, they were already in love. So, after seven years, why are they still not together? How many times are they going to have to crash into and drift out of each other's lives before they can get it right? Or ... is getting it right even an option anymore? Each side of the story is a story of coming home: home to a house, home to a family, home to the rez, but most importantly, home to oneself.

This two-part novella series follows the personal journeys of a woman with a gift for understanding horses and a man with a gift for understanding her.

Available in hardcover, paperback, and eBook formats.

[walkthevalley]

The Flames of Advent: Christ

And He is the light.

In traditional Advent ceremonies, wherein faithful believers welcome the season of the Christ Mass, a twelve-day celebration of feasting and merriment, the four candles of the Advent are lit in succession in anticipation of the center candle, the Christ candle, which represents the greatest Gift to man. This Gift has many names ... Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. But thou shalt call His name Jesus.

Yeshua ben Yosef (YESHooa ben yoSEFF) is better known to the masses as Jesus. When He was born of a virgin to two distant descendants of David ben Yishai, He became not only the familial and legal heir to the throne of Israel, but also the willing heir to the suffering, tears, loss, grief, agony, and eventual death, to which we are unwilling heirs.

Now, I'm not going to get into the theology of the need for Christ's death. That's much better covered in The Gospel of Divine Abuse by Eitan Bar. I encourage you to read that in order to understand Jesus' place in the relationship between God and His creation.

What I do intend to get into is the place Jesus has--or would like to have--in our human experience.

I have something of a theory, which is admittedly untested by skeptics, scholars, theologians, and doctrinists, that there is nothing we experience on this earth in this life that Jesus did not also experience in His earthly life. Perhaps that's why there are so many missing years of Jesus' life and times. Perhaps those years were not meant to be recorded. This line of thinking creates some pretty dark thoughts and takes us to some pretty dark and scary places, and I confess that they are dark and scary places that most of the time I do not wish to go. Nevertheless, if such a thing were true (and again I don't know whether it is or isn't), it would paint a much more human picture of the Messiah. It would really put the "man" back in "Son of Man."

Think about it. We already know He knows what betrayal is like. We already know He knows what it's like to be forsaken by someone He trusted. He knows what it's like to bury loved ones. He knows what being disliked, criticized, shunned, rejected is like. He knows what being homeless is like. He even knows what it's like to be annoyed by a parent (sorry, Catholic friends, the Blessed Mother laid a guilt trip on Jesus at Cana and we all know it). He knows what losing friends is like. He knows what mental and physical abuse is like. He knows what spiritual abuse from church leaders is like. And, perhaps in more ways than one, He knows what it's like to have His choice taken away. And those are just the pains we know about.

Yes, the long-anticipated Messiah, promised generations ago at Eden, prophesied as the triumphant king of Israel and the savior of the Hebrew children, lived a pain-filled life of suffering and grief, much like ours. When the Bible says the Word became flesh, that's what It means.

He. Lived. Our. Lives.

He knows what we go through because He went through it too.

He LIVED it.

You see, don't you? You see the writing on the wall? You see what it's all boiling down to?

We are connected to Jesus through common experience. Jesus is connected to each of us through suffering.

He put Himself in your shoes and walked all the way to Hell and back.

I don't know about you, but this gives me hope that there is more to this life than suffering, peace that someone else understands my pain, love for those in the same boat as me, and joy that I am not alone.

Hope, peace, love, and joy--the first four flames of Advent.

These four flames are connected through the common experience of suffering. Each of them burns in spite of the pain and grief that would dim it. Each of them glows, giving light unto the whole house, willing and able to light another candle should it burn out. All of them are interconnected through the flame itself and the suffering that would snuff it out.

In the post about the Peace candle, I hinted that there was a hidden flame of Advent that was closely tied to the Christ candle.  Indeed, Forgiveness should, by rights, have its own candle in the Advent ceremonies, but I think I understand why it doesn’t.

Forgiveness is an integral part of all five flames.  Without forgiveness, even in its smallest measure, the other candles cannot light.

In the bowels of Hell for the Innocent, can Hope relight itself unless the bearer first stops scratching tally marks into the stone? Can Hope burn unless the tiniest whisper of Forgiveness asks one to think that this is not the end?

Can Peace overtake the gaseous perfume of Bitterness unless the match of Forgiveness is purposely struck? Can Anger die down unless the cleansing fire of Forgiveness consume the injustice that was committed?

Can Love be Love without forgiving another for not returning it? Can Love still abide as the Greatest of These unless she first forgives all the times she stood alone?

And Joy ... can Joy even have a prayer of glowing bright unless Forgiveness itself lights her candle? Can a heart be light when it still clutches to the wrongs and evils that were and are?

Now more than ever it looks as if Forgiveness is actually the Christ candle, but I don't think that's quite right. Remember that Jesus lived our lives and He experienced all the emotions we experience. So what was it like for Him that horrible night? What was it like for Jesus in the firestorm of betrayal, forsaking, violence, abuse, extortion, injustice, and finally--for all intents and purposes--murder, and how can all those emotions, plus all the ones from the past thirty-three years, not cause Him to rethink His decision to give it all up for us?

Jesus, human being, flesh and bone and blood, victim of injustice and sufferer of wrongs upon wrongs ... forgave.

See, it's not just people that we sometimes have to forgive. It's circumstances. It's illness. It's poverty. It's death. And sometimes, sacrilegious and blasphemous as it may sound, we sometimes have to forgive God Himself.

Calm down. You know it's true.

We have to forgive Him for allowing a loved one to receive what his or her heart most desires while allowing us to be robbed of what our heart most desires. We have to forgive God for allowing our young loved one to die out of turn. We have to forgive God for allowing our worst nightmares to come true for us while He allows our loved ones' dreams to come true for them. We have to forgive God for allowing injustice to exist without stepping in to correct it on our behalf. We have to forgive God for closing a womb, for stemming a seed, for not filling an empty belly, for sending no rain when a city is burning, or for sending so much rain that drowns entire states.

We have to forgive God for the pain. We have to forgive God for the storm. We have to forgive God for the suffering.

We have to forgive God for our lives.

We have to forgive life itself.

Jesus had to forgive His life, all those who made it miserable, and even His own Father for forsaking Him in His darkest hour.

That's how we know Jesus became one of us. He had to forgive His own life to be able to let go and be the Lamb. In that forgiveness, He set fire to the suffering He'd been through since the very beginning and ignited within us the same ability to do as He did: to forgive life.

Forgiveness should have its own candle, then, because Jesus made it clear by His actions that He is not forgiveness, He had to practice it Himself. Forgiveness is not the Christ candle.

What, then, is the Christ candle?

What is it that the Christ candle represents, if not Christ Himself? If the Christ candle represents Christ, as we've been told all these generations, then why is His candle lit last? Shouldn't it come at the beginning? Why are we waiting until the very last possible minute to light the Christ candle?

And He is the light.

Do you see now? He's not the candle at the end. He's not the last flame of Advent. He is the light. He is the light of all four previous candles. He is the reason the candles light.

But the funny thing about fire is that it needs oxygen (the Breath, YHWH, the Great I Am) ...

... and fuel.

We are the candles.

Did ye not know? Have ye not read? It is written:

Ye are the light of the world.

He is the light that clings to the blackened wick, and we are the candles that display this light for the world to see.

The Christ candle isn't the last candle because it's last in priority, or because it somehow comes last in some great order of ceremonies. The Christ candle is us, when hope and peace and love and joy have illuminated within us an understanding of what each of these things is worth and what it took to light those candles. The Christ candle is the homecoming of light to a heart that has been so broken by an evil world but somehow still, out of pure spite I suppose, forgives life enough to ignite a tiny spark of faith in the darkness.

The Flames of Advent have not been leading us home to Christ. He doesn't stay inside in His nice little warm house in a cozy robe and bunny slippers. He doesn't leave those four Advent candles burning in the window to let you know you have a place to stay for the dark and stormy night.

As Casting Crowns said, "In the storm is where you'll find Me." Jesus puts on boots and charges out into the storm to seek and to save anyone who is lost, cold, scared, alone, hurting, and hungry. He knows the lay of the land, He knows how to navigate in this storm because He lived on this land in this storm for thirty-three years.

The Flames of Advent aren't glowing in the window to lead us home to Christ.

The Flames of Advent have been leading Christ to us out in the storm.

And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.

[walkthevalley]

The Flames of Advent: Joy

How long, O Lord?

How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? For ever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? Consider and hear me, O Lord my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death.

In case this feels familiar to you, this is what depression sounds like. Yes, even David ben Yishai, celebrated giant slayer and would-be king, suffered from depression like so many of us. The "lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death" is a plea to God Almighty for some miniscule spark of happiness before ... well ... I think it's pretty obvious what David was ideating.

For the past two and a half years I too have battled a deep and severe depression that themed my previous Flames of Advent posts. This one, I hate to tell you, is no different.

See, I was not looking forward to writing about joy. I had none. And to tell you the truth, I don't really even have it yet. But I knew that when joy was ready to be written about, she would make herself known to me. More correctly, joy would teach me her lesson when I was ready to learn it, and then I would write about the lesson I learned.

Joy showed up last week when I got schooled by an eight-year-old boy.

I'm a streetmosphere actor at my state capital's zoo and it's my job (no literally it's in my actual contracted job description) to bring holiday cheer to zoo guests in a festive and jolly manner. But how do you do that when you'd rather crawl in a hole and cry? How do you embody "the joy of the Lord" which is supposedly everlasting when at your core you are the first three verses of David's lament? How do you lighten someone else's eyes when yours want to "sleep the sleep of death"? Well anyway, I'm an actor, so I do what I do best: I act.

One such night this past week, I was a cookie elf who was "interviewing" guests to drum up enough Christmas spirit that the giant pre-programmed lights and music display magic Christmas tree would light up. I asked this young boy, eight years old or so, what his favorite thing was about the Christmas season. He couldn't pick just one thing, so I said, "Lemme put it this way: if the whole Christmas season came and went, and one thing didn't happen, and it made you feel like it just wasn't Christmas, what would that be?" He thought for one brief moment more before confidently declaring, "The Christmas joy. Without the joy of Christmas, none of the rest of it means anything."

Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, thou hast perfected praise.

When I tell you my heart broke open ...

This child of less than ten winters has already mastered a lesson that people have spent sixty and eighty years trying to relearn. I was at once comforted and put to shame.

Well, the pre-programmed lights and music display magic Christmas tree lit up with an inspiring rendition of "Carol of the Bells," and the vivid lights danced in time in beautiful shapes and bright flashes. During the sentimental bridge before the tension chord ushering in the grand finale, the lights spell out "HAPPY HOLIDAYS" in big bright white block letters. It was the right hook to follow up the lesson from the little boy young man.

I got to thinking about the original meaning of "happy holidays" which wasn't the "whatever you celebrate I don't want to offend you" global platitude. It was just a heck of a lot easier than trying to spit out, "Happy Thanksgiving, merry Christmas, and happy New Year!" to everyone you met. As the lights continued dancing and flashing like so many angels trying to make hearts light, I realized that the holiday season was meant to be a reprieve from the stresses and weights of a year's worth of life.

"HAPPY HOLIDAYS" scrolling around that tree was a whisper from God to my heart: "Rejoice and be exceeding glad."

"This season is your break from the weight of the world," He told me. "I've tried to give you a chance to be in a state of sustained happiness and peace for a few weeks. You've got the rest of the year to burden yourself needlessly. The holiday season is sacred, like the Sabbath. Rest your heart through all these holidays. Take your break. I got it from here."

For us here in the US of A, the holiday season consists of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's packed into about a month and a half, and most people view it as a marathon of stress, long to-do lists, and merriment shaded by fatigue. For some, it's not even a holiday season at all, but an intense triple fortnight of comparison, failure, lack, want, and spinning wheels. Neither of those things is conducive to the holiday spirit, Christmas merriment, or joy.

The fourth Flame of Advent is a fragile candle. Joy is the most easily snuffed of all them, and she is the hardest to light.

And yet she burns the brightest of them all.

How long, O Lord? Until you come inside.

Have you ever tried to light a candle in the wind? Elton John did once, apparently. It's not easy. Arguably impossible. Striking a match in a storm, lighting birthday candles under a ceiling fan, keeping a torch lit in the rain, whatever image you want to call up in your mind--they all preach a sermon of futility.

However ...

I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress.

Come thou into the ark.

The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and ... my high tower.

God's telling you He KNOWS you can't be joyful in the circumstances of this life most of the time. He KNOWS you can't light a candle in the wind. He KNOWS you can't ignite the fourth flame of advent when you're tossed about on the stormy sea that is the majority of the human experience.

He's not angry at you for not having joy during the Christmas season.

Read that again, oh ye ragged and exhausted ones.

He's not angry at you for not having joy during the Christmas season.

He's trying to tell us all that we can't light the fourth flame of advent unless we first come inside from the storm and shield ourselves from the violent wind. He's trying to tell us we can't be joyful unless we take a break from the heartbreak and the expectations and the bullshit and the fucked-up ways this world dictates we exist.

Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

The fourth flame of advent cannot burn by itself: it must be lit after the second flame, which is peace. Peace is the second, and joy is the fourth, so I guess you could say that joy is peace squared, and peace is the square root of joy.

Or, perhaps more accurately, peace is the root of joy.

"Sounds great and all but how the hell do I do that?"

I know, I feel like I've just given you a Rubik's cube and told you how great it is to solve it. Trust me, I get how unfair it is to be in such a place mentally and emotionally and get told, "Just take refuge in God." At that point I just sound like a churchie who's parroting whatever this morning's devotional was, and I'm truly sorry for that. I get it, because I've been there. Words don't help unless they come with step-by-step instructions.

All I know is that the pivotal point in this journey for me was the moment I really truly understood what "letting God handle it" meant.

Did you know--and this will come as a shock to some of you--that you are not responsible for everything that goes on everywhere at all times? Did you know that you do not have within you the capability to control how everything turns out? Did you know you are not limitless and expansive enough to have control and influence over every minute detail of any one life, even your own?

Did you know you're not responsible for the world's problems?

Did you know you're not at fault when the world isn't perfect?

Did you know, furthermore, that if you took a step back ... (sit down first and take a breath before I tell you this) ... the world would continue turning?

You are not the lynchpin in God's plan. Everything will not fall apart if you lie down and rest.

Now that you know you're not responsible for the end of the world, nor are you responsible for the Christmas season being joyful or unjoyful, you can take shelter in His infinite reach and skilled machinations, block out the wind of the intense season, and come to a peaceful place where you have a sporting chance of lighting the fourth flame of advent.

Her light may start small. I want you to know that. I just want you to be prepared for the possibility that joy's flame may be tiny at first, a faint rim of blue around a blackened knob of cotton wick. In these moments you might be afraid to breathe too hard, or laugh too loudly, or sing too exuberantly, or that tiny flicker of joy will just ... poof! ... become nothing more than a tendril of smoke and the melancholy memory of almost. Joy is so easily extinguished, as I said. That's why you gotta stay inside in the warm peace of Christmas, to give her a chance to grow.

I'm living the example right now.

As I said, I'm a streetmosphere actor, and the season from the PSL drop to L'Epiphany (the twelfth day of Christmas) is my busy season. It's my literal job to make the holidays magical for others, which means mine get put on the back burner. I have three Christmas trees of my own and for the past five or six years they've been boxed up and packed away in hopes of "next year." As a matter of fact, I've spent one of my precious few days off being sick with a cold because I've been outside in the elements too much. I was supposed to spend the whole day finishing up a project for a friend, doing laundry, decorating for Christmas which is three days away, Christmas shopping, grocery shopping, card signing, and "resting up" (lol) for my next scheduled elf shift. Oh and by the way, today was when my parents were planning to come to the zoo to see me in action, so the stress of being well enough to give a strong performance for them and all the others was tickling my throat and burning my ears. Today I was too sick to even do my job, let alone do anything to prepare for a Christmas celebration.

So much for Christmas joy ...

Unless of course I remember that I'm not in control of whether Christmas has meaning or not. I'm not in control of whether the holiday is bright and magical or not. I'm part of it, and I lend my effort when/where/how I can, but I'm not in control of it. Christmas at the zoo does not come to a screeching halt if I'm not there. Christmas does not come to a screeching halt if I haven't decorated the house from stem to stern. Christmas isn't even dependent on whether I'm well or sick in bed.

Christmas depends on how well we keep within us the Spirit that established Christmas, that founded it upon the ages, that wrote its Name in blood on the breast of humanity.

The first Christmas depended on a cave to shelter from the cold night and a carved-out rock to rest a fragile Baby in. The first Christmas was about shelter.

And it's okay if this Christmas is about shelter, too.

[walkthevalley]

Self-care is a plate of 2 a.m. pasta.

I've been on my health journey for a little less than a year now and although it's still slow going with a lot of hills and hollers (mountains and valleys for all you non-Hoosier folk), I'm happy to say I have made some strides in my health journey--both physical and mental.

I'm supposed to be on the anti-inflammatory diet, so Doritos aren't really in my regular rotation anymore, and since dairy is also frowned upon for leaky gut syndrome, I also can't rely on a cup of warm milk to help me fall asleep. Melatonin every night was making matters worse.

Did I mention I have strong and severe symptoms of ADHD? Brown EF/A score was 125 ... the threshold for severely atypical, indicating a significant problem, is 75. In short, my mind is an ape that screams at me and occasionally flings poop. Hence why, despite my best efforts, I sometimes still find myself wide awake and wired at 2 a.m.

While doomscrolling I found a few mukbangs (videos of cooking and enjoying food) that made me want pasta. My stomach growled in agreement and I thought what an inconvenience it would be to get up and get a snack. Besides. There's not even a lot of stuff I can have right now. Cheese is out. Chips are out. Toast is out, unless it's gluten-free bread, and, you guessed it ... I was out.

So I laid in bed miserable, hungry, exhausted but can't sleep, and stuck on my phone screen.

And I thought, "I deserve better than to allow myself to continue feeling like this. This is stupid."

So I got up, went out to the kitchen, and decided to boil up some brown rice pasta and toss it in a diet-friendly marinara, and make myself a plate of pasta at two in the morning.

I'm sitting here eating my delicious midnight meal and thinking that I should be in bed asleep, I should be more adult than to be stuffing my face in the middle of the night, I should be, I should be, I should be ...

Then I thought, "Self, I should love you enough to not let you go hungry and lie in bed miserable and sleepless. Of all of the things I should be doing, loving you by cooking and feeding you healthy food is by far the most important thing right now, no matter what time of day or night it is."

Of all of the things adulting should be, and of all of the things self-care isn't, I think tonight I've struck a perfectly imbalanced balance between the two, with a plate of pasta at 2 a.m.

This is what people mean when they say healing is messy. And you know what? That's okay. Surgery is messy too. Mowing the grass is messy. Hell, even cleaning the house is messy. And my guess is that so was the building of Rome.

It's okay if your self-care looks like keeping yourself from trying to sleep on an empty stomach. If you have a need of any kind, and you are there for yourself by filling that need, then that is self-care.

Join me. I am going to heal myself ... one midnight marinara at a time.

[walkthevalley]

The sun doesn’t have a right to shine today.

Seventeen years ago, in November of 2006, my dad called home from work at the auto shop and said he had lifted the hood of a Pontiac Sunfire and found a tiny kitten that was badly injured but not gravely.  He said that the guys of the shop took her to a nearby vet hospital and the doctors said this was a feral kitten, barely weaned, and could easily be patched up and live a good long life—only if someone would adopt her.  Too young to spay, she would alternatively be euthanized to prevent adding to the feral cat population.  Dad called home and gave Mom the grown man’s version of “Mommy can we keep it” and Mom’s reply was, “Ask your daughter.  It was her cat that just died six months ago.”  Of course I didn’t want her to die so I agreed that we should adopt her.  We brought her home two days before Christmas, and she has been our Christmas gift ever since.  She was just a Little Bit of a kitten, but she had the heart of a lion.

It was love at first sight.  The vet tech brought in an armload of blankets, sidled up to us, and lifted the corner of the fleece blankie.  Instantly, a pair of giant round lime-green eyes peered up at us, shaking and shivering.  In my heart I knew those eyes would be with me for a long, long time.  The vet taught Mom how to hold and bottle-feed her, burrito’ed in a blanket, until she was healed enough to get around on her own and eat kitten food.  “If she purrs by the second day, she’ll domesticate.”  She purred in Mommy’s arms by the end of the very first day at home.  She grew up healed, healthy, and strong, with only one little scar left from her injured beginnings: her ear was notched.  Otherwise, you’d never know she’d been so terribly hurt.

Little Bit was our protector, our guardian, our watch kitty.  She had rounds she had to make every day, multiple times a day.  She had to check the garage, the house, the office/patio, and the entire acre and a half of grass, shrubs, trees, and garden beds.  At night, she had a post.  The way our house is designed, all the bedrooms are at the back of the house at the end of the hallway, and all the entrances and exits of the house are at the front of the house.  At night, she would plant herself at the front of the hallway so that nothing and nobody could get to her humans without going through her.  In the morning, when Dad got up to go to work, he would let her outside to do her morning outside rounds, and sometime around noon, she’d scratch at the back door so Mom or I could let her in for breakfast, water, and her payment of “candy” cat treats.  Then she’d rest for a while, cuddle with one of us, do another round outside, and come back in at nighttime for cuddles and nightwatch in the hallway.

In her later years, she cut her rounds down to one a day, opting instead to get breakfast with Dad in the morning and spend the rest of the morning cuddling at Mom’s back, which is often in pain.  Occasionally, she’d come in and jump on my bed, especially if I were sick.  But for every round she made, she had to be paid in candy.

Eventually, her outdoor check consisted of her sniffing out the open door for a few moments and coming back inside to keep an eye on the inside of the house and the garage.  As older cats do, she shifted her life to be one of mostly sunbathing and cuddles, occasional mousing, and lots of yummies.  She still kept watch as much as she could, until about a week ago when she suddenly went lame in her back end.  We had thought she had an injury to one leg, but that very quickly turned into full lameness and she had to be carried everywhere.  For a couple of days, she allowed me to hold up her back end while she used her front feet to steer me, and it became obvious that she was insisting on routine.  She led me to the garage for lounge time on the car floor liners, to the litter box for potty, to the office couch for lounging, to the living room for cuddles, and to the back door for sunbathing.  Sometimes she looked longingly at the back door, pawing gently at it, as if begging to go outside.  For about five days out of her final week, I scooped her up in my arms for a walk outside around the property, between the bushes, around the trees.  I set her down in the grass to feel it under her body, and brought her back inside for rest, water, some soft food, and a couple of crunchy candies.  Up to her final day she gobbled up a Delectables slurpy stick from Dad when he got home from work, per their ritual that they’d shared for a couple of years.

At the beginning of her final week, Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song” played on repeat in my mind, specifically the line that says, “I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me.”  She fought and fought and fought to stay alive that whole final week, insisting on routine, asking for food and water, and fidgeting until Mommy got off work and cuddled her for the rest of the night.  We kept telling her it was okay to let go, but she wouldn’t hear of it.  This cat did nothing that she did not choose to do, and nobody was going to decide anything for her.  She had always been that way and she would not let that change, ever.

Then on Thursday, Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender” played in my mind, on repeat, the same line ringing through every moment of my day: “You have made my life complete, and I love you so.”  I knew she was finally accepting that she needed to let go, but it was still hard for her.  Even on her final day, she ate a few bites of soft food and sipped some water.

Two days ago, Friday, August 23, 2024, our Little Bit left her old and frail body of almost eighteen years (about eighty-seven in human years), surrounded by her family, lying in Mommy’s arms.  She began her time with this family in Mommy’s arms, and that is exactly how she concluded it.  It was a privilege and an honor to be there with this pint-sized lion as her strong and indomitable little heart finally beat its last.

And now, I live in a home without a pet for the first time since I was four years old.  For thirty years there has always been a furry family member to comfort, cuddle, and guide me.  Now there’s not, and the bullshit part of this whole thing is that Little Bit was always the first to comfort her sissy when she was crying.

We buried our Little Bit between our bedroom windows, with some candy and special memories in the box with her, and sobbed together over the end of an era in our household.

And now begins life without her.  She was woven into the fabric of our daily lives, and now there is a huge, gaping, tattered hole ripped right through the center of that fabric, and so many threads are missing.  That’s the price of love, I guess.

The name of this tumblr is a reference to the valley of the shadow of death, and death is asked triumphantly in Scripture, “Where is your sting?”  In my heart, God.  That’s where death’s sting is.  Right in my fucking heart.  Additionally, this blog, “This Thing Called Life,” is a Prince reference.  The undercurrent of this blog is the fact that “this thing called life” is often utter and complete bullshit, filled with pain, suffering, and tears.  Today especially, that is true.

I believe—and will not debate—that animals have souls and will be with us in Heaven.  I also believe that they are still around, in spirit form, waiting to show us the way across the Rainbow Bridge.  I believe that when it is your time, your loved ones come to get you.  And I know that for me, when it is my time, Little Bit will be one of my loved ones who come to get me.

And she’d scratch my eyes out if I rushed that process trying to get to her sooner.

[saveyourhelplessspite]

DONT SCROLL THIS IS IMPORTANT!

im begging anyone who sees this post to prevent rapesexual, im begging you. no one will see this but if you do reblog to get the message out that these fuckers exist and dont deserve to exist heres the flag so you can know who to fucking block, report and tell to fuck off

i dont want this to ruin the pride and help with self esteem of being lgbtq+ so a signal boost from larger accounts might be nice

[walkthevalley]

June is an extremely controversial month for a lot of people and I am not here to weigh in on that controversy. Consenting adults are free to do what consenting adults consent to do as adults who consent.

But I cannot and I will not let this go by without calling this t.f. out. There is no pride to be found in being sexually attracted to minors, and there is no pride to be found in being sexually attracted to non-consenting partners. ANYONE who displays this flag is a danger to you, whether you're a minor or an adult, whether you're a woman or a man. DO NOT ENGAGE. Spread the word what this flag means, and steer clear of anyone who displays it.

As I said, I'm not here to add to the controversy about sexuality. That said, it is not controversial to say RAPE AND PEDOPHILIA ARE UNACCEPTABLE.

THEY ARE NOT SEXUAL ORIENTATIONS.

THEY ARE CRIMES AND SINS.

[walkthevalley]

What are you made of?

"And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." Genesis 2:22-23

The Good Book says that Eve was made from a rib from Adam's side.

I wonder why.

The rib isn't integral to the central structure of the man's body because the axial skeleton can operate just fine without appendages. The rib doesn't perform a specific organic function like the lungs or the liver or the kidneys, nor does it operate as a command center like the brain and its many parts and pathways.

Then it hit me: no woman is the same. We're all made differently. We're all individuals. And every man isn't missing his rib. Here's why I say that.

Some women are made from their man's rib.

She is always at his side. She protects him, she guards his heart, she takes the hits for him sometimes. She supports him and helps him stand tall. She is under his arm to be held close and loved well.

Some women are made from their man's head.

She is a little more fragile, so she needs to be protected more carefully. But she is witness to the workings of his mind and intimately involved in the conception of his thoughts. She holds his dreams while he sleeps.

Some women are made from their man's hand.

She is agile, versatile, adept, able, and sensitive. She makes beauty out of chaos, she makes delicious out of bland, she makes good out of bad. She is responsible for everything he does. He owes all he accomplishes to her.

There are many, many parts of man out of which to make the perfect woman for him, and once he finds her, once he finds the missing piece of himself, he is never the same.

From this I have concluded that I must be made out of some dude's tailbone because no man wants this pain in the ass.

[walkthevalley]

Don't get it twisted ... I'm not **happy.** That happiness is gone. That happy woman from last year is gone. That happy girl who hadn't known the surreal pain of insufferable loss is gone. The happy Chelsea many of you knew before is gone.

The woman that stands here in her place is both broken and hopeful, shattered and whole, sad and smiling. The woman who stands here today is going to be okay. I never wanted to be okay. I wanted to be joyous, fulfilled, exuberant, ecstatic ... but never just "okay." Yet here I am. If I have to be anything, and if that choice is only between being destroyed and okay, then I choose okay. Door number three, labeled happy, is closed. I have to be okay, no matter what. That's what I get for all my love. I get to be "okay." Well ... sigh ... okay then.

The woman standing here in that other girl's place recognizes something that sometimes is the only reason I have to take my next breath. I have a Father whose heart is also broken. He gave me a gift. That gift, despite His best efforts, arrived broken. I couldn't fix it. I couldn't make it better. God knows I tried. And for all my love, my ultimate lesson was that I couldn't fix it because it wasn't my place. It's not within my power. It's not within my authority. Most importantly, it's not within my *ability.*

Imagine you're a parent on Christmas morning (or, for many of you, remember when). Your child opens up the prettiest gift with the biggest bow and the prettiest paper, with your child's very own name on it. Your child opens the gift and sees the picture on the box: it was *exactly* what your child asked for. Of all the other gifts, this is the one that makes your child the happiest, because that was the one at the top of the list. Everything else becomes a bonus. Your child opens the box and gets the toy out, and is playing with it, and it sets your heart on fire to see your child so happy with the gift you gave. Then something happens. The toy breaks. Your child looks at it in disbelief and denies that it's broken, it just must have a screw loose or need "stronger" batteries. You take a second look at the toy and to your dismay, you discover that the break is much worse than you originally thought, and conclude that something must have happened during shipping. The gift you gave your child, which a moment ago made your child so happy, is now making your child cry. Christmas might as well be ruined.

As a parent, you have three options. One: scold your child for crying over a broken toy and point out all the other toys to play with; this toy is broken, throw it away, and get over it. Two: console your child, offer a replacement of something similar, and explain that toys break and we have to let them go, even if it means only getting to play a few moments with it. Three: take the toy, strip it down to its wires, figure out what in Hell went wrong, and fix the toy to be what you intended your child to have; you may also have to explain to your child that whatever is broken may not be fixable, and as much as both your hearts are broken, you may not be able to fix it and give it back; but by God you will do your absolute best.

The Father I've grown to know over recent years is the third example. He gave me a gift intended for my happiness. That gift arrived broken. My Father is able, and capable, and patient, and wise, and oh so willing. But He did teach me that in order for Him to have even a prayer of fixing it, I had ... to let ... it go. Not throw it away and let the garbage truck take it. Not throw it in the fire and lose it forever. I had to *give it over* to my Father. I had to let Him have it. That means I don't get my gift right now. I don't get to enjoy the gift my Father gave me right now. I may not ever see it again, if He cannot fix it ... because some toys refuse to be fixed. For right now, for all intents and purposes ... my gift is gone. I have accepted this.

What I am still having trouble accepting is that I might never get it back. This is what still grieves me. This is what continues to hurt me. This is what brings back those tears. Those few moments, those few precious memories, may be all I ever get of the wonderful, life-fulfilling gift my Father tried to bless me with.

The reason that I can even smile now is that I know my Father is busy trying very hard to fix my blessing. He has reminded me that there are other gifts to be enjoyed, other toys under the tree to be played with so to speak, other pleasant things to take in, **while He works.** The reason I can enjoy other gifts from Him--a job I can enjoy *and* be paid for, another job I can work on my own terms and learn lots of interesting things from, a beautiful car that I am really enjoying driving that is all mine without a payment, a home that shelters me from the outside and two parents who cheer me on (while being expert pains in my ass 😂😘), a best friend I can call the sister I got to choose, a cat that cuddles with me when she knows I don't feel good, a dream career that I *actually* have a shot at, and lots of other things I could list out here. Some of them big boxes in lovely wrapping paper, some of them stocking stuffers ... and even some still under the tree I have no idea even have my name on them yet. Not one of these gifts was ever meant to be a replacement for the one that broke. All of them have always been meant to be mine. They've always had my name on them. He has always looked out for me and wanted me to enjoy all the gifts--every single one of the gifts--He prepared for me. The broken toy was not His fault, but He has made it His problem to try to fix. Why? Because it made His little girl cry.

I still miss the gift that broke. I still sometimes knock on the workshop door and ask if He's fixed it yet. But knowing in my heart of hearts that He IS working on my behalf has allowed me to go back to the rest of the gifts I've unwrapped and enjoy them too. That, my friends, is the definition of peace.

Yes I know He may have to offer me another in its place if that one refuses to be fixed. Yes I know. Yes I know "there are others." Yes I know "that's not the only one." Yes I know I "could find another one just as good" or whatever else. Yes I know. I know. Nobody has to tell me this. But until I heal enough that I can stop viewing others as "back-up" or "replacement" or "second choice," I'm not going shopping. Nobody deserves to be a second choice. See, it's not just about me and what validates me. If validation was all I wanted, I would've cried maybe a day and been out with the very next guy that even smiled in my general direction. Hearts are not to be treated so carelessly. If I don't take my healing seriously, I will do exactly what was done to me ... I will bleed all over someone who didn't cut me, and the cycle of pain will continue. I declare that the cycle of hurting innocent people stops with me. And no amount of "oh you'll find"s and "there will be"s and "well tHe riGhT oNe wiLL..."s can change my mind or my course of action.

That said, while I am still emotionally in the hospital, I am no longer in intensive care staring down the business end of a morgue cabinet, and have been upgraded to a regular room for continued care. I look forward to the day I can walk out of the hospital under my own strength and recognizance. Whether I will vibe with myself for the rest of my life or entertain anyone at any point in the future remains to be seen. I do not know, and this decision is mine alone. Special thanks to the nursing angels who have carried out my 'round-the-clock care, Archangel Raphael the charge nurse, all my loved ones who have monitored me quietly, and the Great Physician Who is always just a breath away.

Your continued good thoughts and healing vibes and loving prayers are appreciated. I think they are working, enabling God to bind up this broken heart. Thank you.

[walkthevalley]

You love to death, and see us through,

And Lord I try to love like You;

But even You, God, were betrayed

By someone who beside You stayed

Until the signs of trouble rose.

We both know how that one goes.

I try to give my all away

Because You did the same one day,

But help me love myself the same

And learn to say "no" in Your Name.

And so Your sight, Lord, grant to me.

Show me what I need to see.

[walkthevalley]

I've never been diagnosed with an attention deficit or compulsive disorder of any kind (heh, much less hyperactivity), but for all my friends who have and do struggle with it, lemme ask you some'm.

When you're cleaning and organizing, do you ever just sort of ... let your ADHD take over and reign supreme for a little while? Like instead of stacking boxes on a shelf in a cabinet however they'll fit and get the door shut, do you ever just, like, spend fifteen or twenty minutes Tetrising the same six boxes so they're not only space-efficient, but also aesthetically pleasing?

I dunno, guys ... I'm not claiming a cerebral superpower if I don't have it but dog GONE it that forty-five minutes I just spent in my tea cabinet scratched an itch in my nervous system that I cannot even begin to describe.

It's okay if I'm alone in this (r.i.p. me) but it would almost be kinda wonderful if someone else could kinda say "hey me too" or something. 'Cause here's why.

I'm trying very hard to declutter and organize my life, starting with my physical environment. This is such a huge job for me that honestly it's overwhelming to the point of action paralysis, but they say it's like any other elephant and can be eaten one bite at a time. However ... when I spent twenty minutes puzzling the same six boxes together in the most pleasing way to me, that's eighteen minutes I "should" have spent cleaning another area and doing a load of laundry too. So whenever I do this, even though there seems to be this massive sense of accomplishment within a six-cubic-inch space, it always comes with this guilt that I hyperfocused on one small area and didn't give any attention to any other areas that so desperately need it.

I know time management has always been a very weak suit for me, and I just sometimes deride myself for "poor time management" whenever I do things like this. But then I open my cabinet to get a teabag and oh it's just so ...... *chef's kiss* and I'm not even mad about how long it took.

Psych side of Tumblr, what say you? I'm genuinely curious. And if you're here from my Facebook, thank you, take your coat off, subscribe, and stay a while. I have plenty of aesthetically organized tea for you ...

Is wordiness also a trait of attention deficit? Because I feel like the time I spend crafting novellas in my social media statuses is anything but a deficit of attention.

Guys I might be losing what little of my mind 2022 didn't destroy 😵‍💫😭

[walkthevalley]

It's my 1 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

This blog was started in the beginning of the absolute darkest season of my life. I thought it might act as a sort of sanity project. I figured if someone could get something good out of this God-forsaken time of my life, then at least it wouldn't be COMPLETELY pointless. Because I couldn't imagine that all this suffering, all this pain, all this aftermath of being robbed of what I held most prized and precious, could be for no purpose. It just COULDN'T be completely irrational, without reason, a random senseless act of spiritual and emotional violence with no rationale. I knew I'd always been unlucky despite being part Irish, but this was a new level of bad luck and I couldn't swallow the idea that it was a random targeted hit of abuse without some sort of purpose. Martyrdom seemed more tenable than whatever it was I was going through, because at least martyrs are considered special and noble and get posthumous honor for their sacrifice. So I decided to start this sanity project in case someone, somewhere out there in the great big wide world, needed something that I could provide in this damned season, which is the point of my life at which I knew I was damned to live without joy, without goodness, without fulfillment. I was responsible for picking up the pieces of all my broken dreams and putting them in the recycle bin in case someone else could use a piece to build their perfect life. Then my hollow and hopeless future may at least have a tiny dose of purpose...for someone else. Always for someone else. Never for me. I was a fool to think I could enjoy my life for me.

My first few posts on Walk the Valley were, admittedly, masks. I was pretending to be okay, or at least better than I actually was. I was pretending to be well forward on my journey of healing, putting out the image of a strong woman who don't need no man, who may get knocked down but gets right back up and spits on the ground he walks on. I was just pretending. I mean--don't take that the wrong way, what I said was absolutely honest, and I was actually trying to heal, and I don't think what I said before needs to be thrown out--but I was fooling myself. I was trying to put up the image that I was okay, when the truth was that every day I was faced with how dead I was inside and how merciless it was to force my body to carry on when my soul was gone. I was, not to put too fine a point on it, the walking dead. Twice in this season of my life, I flirted with the idea of allowing my body to match my soul. For more on that, read The Flames of Advent: Hope here on Walk the Valley. Probably should come with a trigger warning, as if what I've said so far hasn't needed one as well.

That post about the First Flame of Advent describes the pivotal time in this walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, this blog's namesake, at which my healing became real. Everything before that, well-meaning as it was, was nothing but a band-aid; the Hope candle was the beginning of my real journey of healing, beginning with the super-invasive surgery where they crack your ribs open and butterfly your chest so they can reach your heart, and you basically die for a minute while someone holds your heart in their hands. If you don't like graphic stuff, sorry, go find another blog because here I tell it like it is and imagery is my strong suit.

The heart is a fascinating organ and it can actually legitimately break with enough emotional trauma. This is a great video explaining the relevant heart anatomy and this is a quick detail of the bioscience of why this happens. Enjoy the bioscience behind that, and think before you break another heart.

I guarantee that had someone taken a chest x-ray of me last August, they would have seen tako-tsubo cardiomyopathy, described in the video I linked. Had someone been able to look inside my left ventricular apex, they would have seen those tendons snapped in half. I know what the Hell I felt. My physical heart was broken just as much as my emotional heart was, and the beginning of that healing came the day before Thanksgiving (so, three months later), when I hit rock bottom.

Most people don't realize ... rock bottom is your friend. Be grateful for rock bottom. Rock bottom saves you from being incinerated in the core of the earth.

We call it rock bottom as if it's the worst place you could possibly be. "Nowhere to go but up," somebody remarks glibly, not knowing what else to say but not willing to actually do anything to help either.

But rock bottom has another name. Geologists call it bedrock.

Bedrock is actually the best, most solid, most stable ground you could ever want to build on. Unless you're building on or near a fault line, rock bottom is the absolute best place to start building. It's the most solid foundation you could ask for.

So the next time you're at rock bottom and someone says, "Nowhere to go but up," reply, "Nothing left to do but start building." My smart ass would add, "I don't suppose you'd offer your help?" but you do you, sweetheart. You don't have to be the snarky-shark I am.

So, here we are one year later.

A year of learning the true meaning of healing, of pain, of Hamlet's soliloquy, of rock bottom, of rebirth.

One year later, I now understand that someone did need something out of this blog. Someone did need what I had to say about all this. Someone did need to be understood, to see their own experiences written down to know they're not alone. Someone did need Walk the Valley.

That someone was me.

What say you all, another year?

I believe I have a couple more Flames of Advent to write about.

[walkthevalley]

I asked for water.

"What be troublin' ye?" Facebook wants to know.

Poison ivy. That's what be troublin' me.

See, on Sunday, I was in DESPERATE need of water. Natural water. Something in my spirit needed to be in natural water to just chill out and r-e-l-a-x. I needed natural water to cleanse my energy because I was a MESS. Processed water would not do. Not a pool. Not a hot tub. Not a bathtub that I would feel weird if I didn't scrub out immediately beforehand (anybody else weird about that?) And certainly not a chlorine-drenched town pool with loads of people around--talk about counterproductive. But I wasn't sure where it would be safe AND secluded to swim in the White River, so I just spent half of Sunday antsy as ffffffffff, trying to meditate, smudge, smoke cleanse, listen to the soothing sounds of gentle waves on a secluded beach--only to end up overstimulated and interrupted THREE TIMES. Plus, Dad interrupted said attempt at meditation are you kidding me to show me the impending thunderstorm. At first I was pissed because my quiet time was interrupted for like the twentieth time AND it was about to storm so no going to a river for me. Guess I'd just have to take a nap and hope I felt better. What else is new.

Then I realized, "You idiot, you asked for natural water and God's getting ready to literally pour it on you from the sky."

So I went outside and sat facing the storm, watching the mammatus clouds roll by, watching the jade-green sky flash every so often, feeling the temperature drop to a deliciously cool breeze scented with ozone and the promise of rain. And I waited. I sat in the grass out in the back yard, and I waited. And I considered the Heavens. And I thought of the line from a favorite Casting Crowns song, "In the storm is where you'll find Me." And I waited for the rain I'd asked for. Ants were crawling on my feet and trying to crawl up inside my clothes, gnats were wondering what was good to eat, and a biting fly even said hello nice to eat you.

But I said, "I'm not leaving until I'm soaked with rain."

A few sprinkles here. A drop or two there. And I thought, "Is this it? Is this all You got? I asked for rain. I'm not leaving until I get rain."

And it was almost as if I was asked, "How bad do you want it?" In other words, how long was I going to wait before I gave up and went back inside to continue being antsy, irritable, overloaded, and angry? How soon before I received my blessing was I going to quit?

"I'm not going back inside until either I'm soaked or the storm has passed without rain."

"Well okay then." Then the rain started to come down.

And it came down. And down. And down. And it poured. And pretty soon my cardinal red shirt was dark maroon, and my messy hair was curling up at the sides, and my skin was beaded up with the cool water. It felt good. It felt amazing. It was cleansing. It was resetting. It was magnificently pure. I breathed in deep and sighed out hard, letting the purest natural water wash away my chaotic energy and heavy mood.

And there, soaked through to dripping, skin prickling up in goosebumps from the chill, I laughed. No reason. I just laughed. I laughed because I was lightened enough to be able to laugh. I had returned to my first work. I had found the reset and cleansing I needed. It was rest for my spirit and a bath for my soul. No ceremony. No sermon. No religion. Just the purest communion of a human with Creator by way of nature.

I asked God for natural water, not expecting to get anything.

He sent me a rainstorm.

I got the poison ivy and bug bites on my own.

[walkthevalley]

[walkthevalley]

The Flames of Advent: Love

This little light of mine

I'm gonna let it shine

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

Most folks think they know what love is.

I'll admit I thought I knew what love was for the longest time. Up until about, oh ... a month or two ago, really. Thirty-two years I thought I knew what love was.

It was the undying desire to outgive another, to take care of, bless, nourish, nurture, provide for, protect, share, enjoy life with, never give up on, be safe with, trust in, dream with, be yourself with, and have all this returned upon oneself. (Keep in mind, we can do all these things in a non-romantic sense too. This applies to any relationship.)

Well, that sounds awfully sunshine-and-roses, doesn't it? Too good to be true? Anyone else smell a booby trap?

So then I learned the hard way that love was messy. It was painful. Love hurt. Love was (here's a fantastic word for you) sacrificial. Love was the choice to stick by someone no matter what (again, friend, family, or lover, doesn't matter). It was the choice to die to yourself over and over and over again so someone else's needs, wants, desires, and accommodations are met. Love was ugly. Love was dirty. Love was hard. Love was pain. Love was, sometimes, miserable.

But then ... if that's what love is, why the Hell do we all want it so bad?

It doesn't seem that love can fit into either of these molds.

That's because love is bigger than any of these.

Let's look at the highest form of love, agape (uh-GAH-pay). It is unconditional love as God loves us. People say only God can love with agape, but I challenge this. I do absolutely believe His love is infinite and unending, whereas humans are susceptible to feelings of anger, frustration, violence, up to and including wishing you'd never met someone. But wait ...

*ripping vinyl record sound*

God Himself said somewhere in the Old Testament that He repented of creating mankind. Humanity had become so gross and ugly and hateful and wicked that God Himself wished He'd never made us. Was--was that ... the end of God's love? Can't be ... can it?

Of course not. "I have loved thee with an everlasting love," so God's love didn't come skidding to a halt once mankind made a bunch of choices that hurt His heart.

So love obviously isn't the sunshine and roses we all want. It's not "that lovin' feelin'," because at least once throughout history, God Himself lost that lovin' feelin'. But it can't be that ugly and horrible and painful either, because if it were, nobody would want it.

If God's love is unending, and if God is love and in Him is no spot, then love is neither the mutable feeling nor the ugly mess.

So what is it then???

Love is unconditional. Love just is. Love, by its very nature, has no conditions on it.

If it bears conditions, it is not love.

I know, how dare I say something so controversial and yet so brave?

We have to get out of the idea that love and relationships are the same thing. You can have a relationship with someone and not love them. You can love someone and not have a relationship with them. The two are not, cannot, and never shall be equivalent.

That said, relationships are conditional. Relationships must be conditional. "If you, then I." Relationships are based on expectations and conditions. If we are to have a relationship with God, there are expectations and conditions. Again, "If you, then I."

Relationships between coworkers are based on things like, "If you work well with me, then I will work well with you." Relationships with friends are based on things like, "If you respect me, I will respect you," or perhaps, "If you do not judge me, I will trust you." Romantic relationships are based on a host of such statements like, "If you remain faithful to me, I will remain faithful to you," "If you choose me, I will choose you," "If you take care of me, I will take care of you," etc.

But how can unconditional love be the foundation for conditional relationships?

Consider the expression (attributed to several different people, in several different wordings), "If you love something enough, let it go. If it comes back to you, it's yours to keep. If it doesn't, it never was yours."

If this wisdom is triggering to you--that is, if it angers you, sets you off, strikes fear into your heart--you may need to look at yourself for codependency. Do you love someone, or do you depend on them? This is the greatest battle of my life and only when I understood, once and for all, what unconditional love is, did I finally win said battle, but only after my soul was beaten, bruised, bloody, broken, and basically dead.

If you love someone enough, set them free.

If you love someone enough, let them choose for themselves.

Even if it hurts you.

Even if you never see them again.

Even if you are left brokenhearted.

Unconditional love is the willingness to lose someone if that's what they choose.

It's what God does for each of us. He made a way for us to be reconciled to Him and to be reunited with Him, but He does not allow Himself to force the choice on us, even though He knows it would eventually lead to complete separation from Him, which grieves Him. Yet He allows each of us the freedom to choose to hurt Him.

Love is the willingness to bear the pain of someone else's freedom.

Freedom means freedom from obligations and expectations one did not voluntarily take on (i.e., enter a relationship). Obligations are backwards to what I said earlier: "If I, then you." Obligations are coerced conditions. Obligations are, to say the very least, no fun. Expectations, additionally, can end up being toxic to both people if the other person does not freely choose to agree to meet them (again, a relationship). Forced or imagined obligations and expectations are fueled by selfishness, which is the exact opposite of love.

Love is the ability to set these things aside. Love "seeketh not her own." In modern translations, "Love does not demand its own way." That doesn't mean that if you're in any kind of relationship and you have needs or strong desires or opinions, you're not allowed to advocate (read: argue) for them or else you don't love the other person. That's part of a relationship: discussing/arguing/advocating for your own side sometimes, especially when it's really important (but choosing which hills are worth dying on is another matter entirely). What I'm talking about here is that Love doesn't require that you meet her expectations and obligations simply because reasons. Love doesn't require you to make her happy. Love doesn't require that you never hurt her.

In candle terms, since we are following a Flames of Advent theme ...

Love is the only candle that gives you the complete freedom to snuff her out.

Love continues on, even after hurt has been inflicted and painful choices have been made. "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." He proved that He loved us by making a great sacrifice to reconcile us to Himself while we were still making choices that hurt Him. Yes, He made a horribly painful sacrifice, yes He suffered, yes He was betrayed, abandoned, cast away by His own (see? God Himself knows exactly how you feel because He's been through it), yes He was beaten so very bloody to the point that He was unrecognizable. That is an incredible demonstration of the love, but that wasn't the love.

The love was the willingness to let all of that be in vain for any individual person.

Wow. My chest feels like it's going to collapse in on itself.

Love is the willingness to let all your investment into someone be in vain if it means the one you love is free.

God loves me enough to let me be free.

God loves you enough to let you be free.

Can we say we love at least one person the same way?

We can, absolutely one hundred percent, love someone with agape love, unconditionally, perfected in love and freedom.

But I believe only God can love all of us that way.

Our third Flame of Advent is a candle. We can give a few people light to see by. God's third Flame of Advent is brighter than a hundred thousand suns. Everyone in every timeline in every dimension in every period of history or future can see by it. It's still flame. It's still unconditional love. But the brightness of our candles cannot compare with the brightness of His shining light.

We can love as He loves, but the extent of that love is God's alone.

As for applying this to a relationship, well, that's where it can get a lil messy, but the Bible says that perfect(ed) love casteth out fear, so there's no need to fear entering a relationship if what you have to offer is true love. Interestingly enough, the Bible doesn't specify whose fear it casts out. The person to whom you're offering love? Maybe. Not guaranteed. If all someone has ever known is abuse and chaos, unconditional love looks like a trap to be avoided (see also: Primrose Path) and it's not uncommon for people to run for the hills. But what about your fear? Does perfected unconditional love cast out your fear?

Yes it does.

Because once you understand that your love for another person is not a consequence of how they act, but is instead a radiation from your own heart, you become sort of fearless when it comes to offering that love. You know that your love just is. That love that was written into the very fabric of your soul existed long before any of us were even a thought in our parents' minds. Once you understand that your love will continue to be, whether someone else reflects it back to you or not, you become unafraid of what people can do to you.

Yes there will be pain sometimes, and generally humans are afraid of pain. But the fear that the pain will end you has been cast out by the love that God ignited within you to shine out to others. That love that He breathed into your spirit will outlast any pain another person can level at you.

"God is love," "and He is before all things." Therefore, Love is before all things. Love is before pain and suffering, before abuse and betrayal, before death and destruction. And Love will outlast them all. He is "the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." Love is before, and Love will be after.

The third Flame of Advent allows you the freedom to snuff her out, but she burns from within, so she will always be.

You just gotta take the shade off your little light and let it shine.

[walkthevalley]

The Flames of Advent: Peace

There is a peace that is only to be found on the other side of war.

--King Arthur, First Knight, 1995

If you read my last post, you’ll know I tangled decently with a bout of depression that snuffed out the first Flame of Advent, my Hope.  I may not have made any attempts on my own life, but I was at the point at which I wasn’t going to make any attempts ever again, at all, for anything.

But that damn trick candle reignites itself and … well … here I am to talk about the second Flame of Advent.

She may not be the hardest one to come by, but she’s definitely elusive.

In today’s culture of stress, overachievement, measurement of self-worth by accomplishment or accumulation, and hustling our lives away because we’ve been taught the egregiously false lesson that rest is for the lazy and sleep is for the dead, peace is not something we regularly add to our grocery list.

Why not?

I have a feeling it’s because peace is viewed as a fantasy, something you only have if you’re blissfully unaware of … just everything.

I guess in a way it pretty much is.  Ignorance is bliss, and all that.

But what about the peace that goes beyond understanding?

Going beyond understanding means that understanding is already established.

So if you understand life and its harms, then what chance is there to light the second Flame of Advent?  What chance is there for Peace to survive?  Peace must, somehow, go beyond the understanding of what is.

Pssh.  Yeah right.

Pain.  Suffering.  Rejection.  Abandonment.  Betrayal.  Abuse.  Cheating.  Stealing.  Lying.  Adultery.  Cover-ups.  Murder and manslaughter.  Disease.  Illness.  Exhaustion.  Rewards for evildoers and punishment for the innocent.

Backwardness.

I think the word we’re all looking for here is

INJUSTICE.

Injustice sparks another candle.  She’s a close cousin to Hope, and sometimes even lends her spark so Hope may burn again.  But she’s an unstable flame, one that sparks and sputters and easily undoes herself and everything around her.  Injustice is her spark.  We all know her.  We all know this flame intimately and some of us have been married to her for our entire lives.

Her name is

ANGER.

Anger isn’t evil, but she is powerful and can be powerfully destructive.  Yet Anger is often lit in righteousness.

Lyndsey Gallant @apocalynds shared this incredibly wise advice from her therapist:

Your anger is the part of you that knows your mistreatment and abuse are unacceptable.  Your anger knows you deserve to be treated well, and with kindness.  Your anger is a part of you that LOVES you.

Anger is a natural, even a God-given response to injustice.

If you are angry about something that was done to you, some grievous abuse that was inflicted on you, some heinous betrayal someone committed against you, some unsurvivable loss you suffered … you are not alone, you are not dysfunctional, and you are not a bad person.

Believe it or not, if you are angry about your suffering, you are healthy.

It doesn’t necessarily matter what you’re suffering, it matters that you, as a creation of the Creator, are suffering when you deserve better. 

(Not going to entertain theological debate on deserving punishment for sin.  The suffering I’m talking about is far different from consequences that directly result from a poor choice.  Don’t come at me.)

And when you are suffering in ways you do not deserve to suffer, your Flame of Anger ignites.  Her job is to burn brightly enough to see the mistreatment, its causes, and its effects, and if need be, to be the initial flame that burns any bridge you should never ever cross again.  The Flame of Anger should give off enough light for you to see the wounds you’ve sustained.  It wouldn’t do to keep trudging through a dark forest when you have a knife sticking out of your back, now, would it?

But what about when Anger has done her job?

What then?

If you’re anything like me, and anything like the rest of humanity, you find a strange sort of comfort in the heat and light of Anger’s fire.  She becomes a very dear friend.  She’s warm and charismatic.  She’s spectacular.  She dances and sparks at the slightest breeze.  She’s beautiful to those who are intimately acquainted with her glow.

So we do her a grave disservice.

We love her company, so we never blow her out.

Anger’s candle isn’t as large as the rest.  She wasn’t meant to have a large supply.  She was meant to burn brightly and warmly for a short time and then snuff out to save her fuel for the next time her service is required.

But we never blow her out once she’s done her job.

We let her burn.

And burn.

And burn.

And burn.

What we often forget is that Anger’s candle has a surprise at the bottom.  There is either a core of poisonous fumes that slowly asphyxiates her bearer, or there is a bomb that annihilates everything in her radius.

The latter is responsible for horrifying crimes of passion, unspeakable harm, and terrifying acts against humanity.  Her name, you might have guessed, is Rage.  She’s avoidable, easily enough.

The former is much more insidious because at first her perfume is enticing and romantic, inspiring one to breathe deeply and savor her sweet scent.  The fragrance of victimhood and helplessness are utterly intoxicating and absolve all responsibility and agency.  She’s seductive.  She’s alluring.  She’s comforting.  She’s relaxing.  She’s all-consuming.

She’s vampirizing you.

She’s slowly stealing from you.

She’s slowly killing you.

She’s Bitterness.

Bitterness is Anger’s antagonist.  Anger doesn’t actually like Bitterness and would just as soon have nothing to do with her.  Anger’s cause is righteous.  Bitterness uses Anger as a cloak, shifting the blame onto her righteous-born host until Anger is maligned and slandered as the root of all vice.  But Bitterness is the thief and the murderer, and she’s so beautiful when she does it.

Until you see her face.

What we don’t realize is that we often can’t see bitterness within ourselves.  All we know is the sense of security we have from understanding we’ve been mistreated and abused.  We never considered the face behind it.  We have different reasons for ignoring it just as we have different reasons for addressing it, but the horrifying and frightening—even embarrassing—task is admitting that we let our anger burn down too far and we set the poison gas loose in our souls.  It’s embarrassing to look within ourselves to find that ugly face looking—no—leering back at us.  It’s more embarrassing than admitting you have mice or fleas.  Bitterness is a much harder plague to eradicate.

My dear friend reading this … if you have found yourself, as I recently have, facing down this ugly hag within your heart and wondering why or how you could have let this happen, the worst thing you can do is let her tell you you’re a bad person and you’re too far gone.  To continue with the poison gas metaphor … she’s all hot air!

Pause for a sec.

We all have different reasons for clearing away the bitterness and anger from our hearts.  Some do it because they want to feel better, and I commend them.  Some do it because their therapist or counselor said they had to so they used resources and found a way to beat it, and I commend them as well.

But I want you to stretch your mind for a moment, and consider something you may not have expected before.

One thing Bitterness loves to feast on is our connections with other souls.  The sneaky witch (or whatever moniker you want to assign to her, be my guest) shrivels up our relationships with loved ones in one of the most insidious ways imaginable.

Did you know that we can feel others’ emotions?

I’m not talking about being an empath.  That has its own set of pitfalls and bear traps.

But people with whom we share soul ties or energy cords—our loved ones—can absolutely sense our feelings on some level or another.

The complication comes when you understand the feeling is the only thing that’s translated to a loved one.  Not the direction.  Not the target.  Not the reason.  Not the justification.  Just the emotion.

Odds are, you have probably known someone at some point in your life who could finish your sentences for you and frequently said what you were thinking.  This person seemed to have an uncanny ability to know when you were having a bad day or when you were excited about something and trying to keep a secret.  Trust me … that person feels what you’re feeling now, without your saying a word.  They may not know you don’t feel it towards them, but they feel you feeling it all the same.  In other words, that loved one doesn’t know you don’t resent them in particular.  They just feel your resentment.  And based on each individual circumstance, it’s likely your loved one assumes you resent them.  So they leave you alone.

And the time passes.

And the hurt and longing grow.

And you wonder why.

And Bitterness has her heinous way with each such relationship she can sink her teeth into.  She isolates even the most beautiful social butterflies.

So what, on God’s green earth, can you do about this?

The answer lies in the movie quote at the top of the post.

“There is a peace that is only to be found on the other side of war.”

To defeat Bitterness, you have to go to war with her.

To do this, you have to go to war with yourself.

There are two parts of you that constantly battle each other: your soul and your mind.  Some people call the mind the ego, and since “ego” sort of has the connotation of fragility and concern for reputation, I like that term for this purpose, so we’ll say the soul and the ego.  The ego has one need and one need only: to be right.  The soul, on the other hand, has a much deeper need than this.  The soul needs to be at peace.

Bitterness and Peace cannot coexist.

Bitterness hides at the bottom of Anger’s candle, and Anger cannot light the candle of Peace.  That’s like trying to use a flame thrower to light birthday candles.  (Spend a moment with that analogy, will you?)

Thus, Peace cannot be where Bitterness is, and Bitterness cannot be where Peace has established herself.  In other words, “This town ain’t big enough for the two of us.”  One of them has got to go.

But does Peace burn Bitterness away, or does Bitterness cower and suffocate under Peace’s gentle light?

Neither.

The only thing that can defeat Bitterness is the hidden Flame of Advent.

Forgiveness.

While there isn't a dedicated Advent candle to celebrate Forgiveness, I think it's not a far leap to think that forgiveness could be the Christ candle, or at least part of it.

Forgiveness, which is nothing short of a miracle, is the worst enemy of Bitterness.  Forgiveness incinerates the toxic fumes of Bitterness and leaves nothing but fresh air and cleansing smoke behind.  One spark.  Boom.  Done.  Victory.  Peace may now exist within the freshly cleansed heart.  That was easy™.

So what about the part where we went to war with ourselves …….? 

Heh.

How easily can any of us let go of the need to “be right”?

How many of us can shut the ego down without one Hell of an internal war?

How many of us can easily set aside understanding in favor of the most illogical, insane, irrational act of forgiving the past???

And that’s why Peace goes beyond understanding.

Forgiveness already bulldozed the ego and plowed the road right through the belly of logical understanding.

Peace is a result. 

A result requires an action. 

The action is Forgiveness.

I think this is why Jesus said blessed are the peace makers, not the peace keepers.  Keeping the status quo to avoid a conflict isn’t peace, it’s resentment waiting to happen.  Making peace implies an action.

The action is forgiveness.

Blessed are the forgivers.

Blessed are those who went to war with themselves and found the light of Peace on the other side of it.

Blessed are those who did battle in their hearts and surrendered the need to be right in favor of being at peace.

Blessed are those who blew out the candle of Anger in time.

Blessed are those who recklessly forgive so that Peace, the second Flame of Advent, can glow.

Blessed are the countless wounded who are still at war.

[walkthevalley]

The Flames of Advent: Hope

I’m not going to lie to you.

I did not have a good Thanksgiving.

And to be honest with you, I found out on a personal level why the holidays bear the highest suicide rates of the year.

See, this year has been kind of the worst year in my collection of thirty-two.

To begin with, both the patriarchs and the matriarchs of both sides of my family are gone.  So are all great aunts but two, who live at a distance.  Less than half a dozen of my original core family members live in state—for perspective, it wasn’t unusual to have twenty people at Grama and Grampa’s house for Thanksgiving.  To go from twenty or more people gathering for a holiday to less than six, and then this year down to myself and my nuclear family, has been a massive source of pain at any holiday time, Easter included.

For about five years there at the end, my mom and dad and I made holidays happen for Grama and two disabled uncles.  Occasionally we may have one of the other aunts or uncles show up, but that was rare.  If it weren’t for my parents and me, those members of the family wouldn’t have gotten a holiday meal with decorations and fellowship.  Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, maybe even some ribs for the Fourth of July.  If someone got sick, we’d postpone, but it would always happen—thanks to the three of us.

Then Grama died.  The last time we had what family is left in one place, it was 2019 for Grama’s funeral.  That was almost four years ago now.

Big Reason #1 I was so depressed this Thanksgiving was that after all my parents and I have done for the family, we didn’t have to turn down any invitations for being sick.  We would’ve had to spend Thanksgiving in quarantine anyway, but staying in quarantine knowing people miss you and staying in quarantine knowing you weren’t wanted to begin with are two entirely different experiences. 

Feeling taken for granted is a bad feeling, man.

Big Reason #2 I was so depressed this Thanksgiving was the aforementioned quarantine.  We escaped the Rona for two and a half years.  One of us finally brought it home, and it hit us like a ton of bricks.  Granted, it could have been so much worse, because both of my parents are extremely high-risk for complications; but we had all been keeping up with immune system support so we all cleared the virus and are regaining strength.  Thank God, no sarcasm.  But I have to tell you that grilled cheese sandwiches and chicken soup from a can don’t exactly make me feel all warm and fuzzy for Thanksgiving.  I had to stop myself from mindlessly scrolling on Facebook and seeing everyone’s gatherings and spreads of delicious foods, envying everyone’s celebrations and having to content myself with quarantine soup and a handful of bootleg Christmas specials on YouTube.  Slim pickins on all the streaming services we have, unless you’re into the crappy romances.  Oh, did I mention that we couldn’t watch any of our Christmas DVDs because our DVD player suddenly decided to stop functioning?  Yeah.  It was that kind of day.

But I could have tolerated all of this if it weren’t for Big Reason #3 I was so depressed this Thanksgiving.

Everybody wants something.  There’s that One Thing that is most important to each person, and it’s different for different people.  People want more than one thing out of life, sure, but for every person there’s that One Thing that, if missing, means everything else is empty.  That One Thing gives all the other joys of life meaning.  Like I said, The One Thing is different for different people.

This past summer, I found mine.

Things were finally looking up for yours truly.  Life was still rough in a lot of ways, but I could face it with hope and optimism because I finally had my One Thing.  I finally knew what joy through the storm was.

Then … the unthinkable happened.

Without warning, I was robbed of that which I held most dear.

I don’t have to tell you that to be robbed of that which you’ve been praying, begging, bargaining, hoping, wishing, dreaming, waiting for for your entire life, after only a few months of happiness, is the absolute bottom of the darkest pit in the deepest cavern in the loneliest corner of Hell. 

But see, Hell is for people who know what they did wrong.  Imagine losing your heart’s desire and being told it wasn’t your fault, that you did nothing wrong, but you’re still somehow in Hell when you don’t deserve to be.  This Hell is worse than your regular Hell.  This Hell is the undeserved Hell. 

It’s Hell for the Innocent.

Months I have spent in this claustrophobic little crevice in the bottom of Hell for the Innocent, with one tiny little flame to keep me company.

Hope.

The First Candle of Advent.

But the day before Thanksgiving, knowing I was facing a holiday in quarantine, not missed by the family for whom we’ve done so much, without delicious food, and still bereft of my One Thing that would have made all this bearable … my flame of Hope went out.  No tiny little blue flame hanging onto the blackened wick for dear life, just a thin wisp of harmless white smoke that I couldn’t see in the pitchy dark.  (Nor could I smell it ... thanks, covid.)

I had no hope.  I told my mom I knew I was sundowning so I needed to just go to my room and try to stabilize.  She knows when I say that, just leave me alone and I’ll eventually come back out and be my humorous self again.

Only this time … it didn’t work.

Lying on my bed, I lost my hope.  Everything was caving in on me.  My soul could not take it.  I told God, “I quit.  If this is what being called to Your purpose means, I quit.  It’s not worth it.  You won.  You made Your point.  You’re stronger than me.  I’m broken.  You broke me.  You overfired me and my metal is burnt.  I’m useless now.  You made a mistake and took it too far.  I’m done.  Now leave me alone.”

I hadn’t sobbed as hard as that since the original bombshell landed on me.  I sobbed.  I wailed.  I cried.  There in the deepest darkest pit in the Hell for the Innocent, there was weeping and gnashing of teeth.  Abandon all Hope, ye who enter here.

For an hour, Mom left me alone.  She knew as long as she could hear me crying, I was alive.  It wasn’t until she heard my breath change and come with labor that she stormed my room to make sure I hadn’t taken any action.  I hadn’t.  But I was done with life.  It was clear that this was all there was for me, and the sooner I accepted that there was no better future for me, the sooner I could accept my new position as just a survivor.  A drone who once had a dream but finally learned her damn place.

If anyone reading this has ever felt this way, … I wish I had some “sage mage on the hill” advice for you, some magic words to make the pain stop, but I don’t.  All I can do is tell you that someone else on earth Gets It™.  You may be isolated, but you’re not alone, no matter what it feels like.  Call the number.  You know which one I mean.

After about an hour and a half of crying my heart out, I finally exhausted myself and I fell asleep.  I woke up to a knock on my door and my dad’s voice asking me, “Hey, you still with us?”  That’s when I knew I was secretly on suicide watch.

I took Tylenol for my headache, showered, and listened to Mom badger me to drink water because I was so dehydrated.  I’d cried myself sick.  So I chugged until she piped down.  (Love you Mom.)

Thanksgiving Day wasn’t much better, for the reasons I’d described earlier. 

The toughest part of the day came at noon.  See, Santa Claus is really special to me and my family, and growing up I was taught that the Santa at the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was The Real Santa™.  All the others were his assistants, but that one was the actual Santa Claus and was the one time I could see him since he did his giving in secret.  Thus, when Santa rides in at the end of the Macy’s parade, that is a very special moment for me and my family.  It goes back up to Great-Grampa Kelley who would call all the grandkids, of which my mom was one, into the TV room to see Santa riding down 34th Street.  Then it got passed down the generations until I grew up and so many of my family that I’d grown up with were gone in one way or another.  Even though Santa is a beacon of joy in my house, that moment is always so hard now because it only highlights how many loved ones we’ve lost.

I tried so hard for the rest of the day to keep it together and not lose my shit again.  Charlie Brown didn’t help.  Rudolph didn’t help.  The Little Drummer Boy didn’t help.  Oh sure I enjoyed watching them, but as soon as they ended I was reminded of the sad reality of the situation, and I had to fight that much harder to keep tears from chasing each other down my face.

The following morning I got up early to test again, and lo and behold, it was negative.  I had cleared the bug of the century.  That also meant I was cleared to go back to work as an elf in my state capital’s zoo for their Christmas season.  While I was then and still am grateful for the job (genuinely, not just saying that), I won’t sugarcoat it … that job is the only reason I got out of bed Friday.  From covert suicide watch to a jolly little elf in three days was emotional whiplash and I was exhausted by the time I got home.  I don’t think the kids or anyone else knew how badly I wanted to crawl into bed and cry … which means I did my job.

Then Saturday, something happened I didn’t expect.

I was riding in the car with my dad while some Christmas music played.  Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s The Lost Christmas Eve, to be exact.  It’s a rock opera about the insufferable persistence of Hope when all else has been stripped away and all that’s left is a dark and snowy Christmas Eve, someone’s last breath, and one Child’s dream of redemption that reawakens every year.

See … somehow … the First Candle of Advent is a trick candle.

Hope is the trick candle that reignites itself.

A flood of tears can quench it.  A single word can blow it out.  The pieces of a broken heart can snuff it.

But somehow, that damn flame reignites itself.

While the music played and the midwestern countryside whizzed by, I raged in my heart.

Disclaimer: The following is a foolhardy move that many claim would earn a lightning strike on my exact spot.  I don’t suggest going toe to toe with the Guy who can answer the question, “You and what army?”  But I’m an idiot, so I did.

“How dare You.  How dare You try to break me!  I’m insulted.  I am stronger than this and You oughta know better!  You threw Your best at me and I survived!  Ha!!!  Try it again, I’ll survive it.  But You know what?  Now that I know I can survive whatever You want to put me through, that is not a license to prolong my suffering.  Yes, I made it.  I survived it.  I’m still here.  But if You use this as an excuse to throw more at me, that is no god I want to worship.  Keep it up and I quit.  Because if all You want to do is try to break me because it’s some sick game to You, then You’re not the compassionate and loving God I thought You were and I want no part of it.  I’ll go find the real God because somebody who wants to make me suffer for sport is not it.  I will not worship and serve someone to whom I’m just a rabbit in the middle of a dogfighting ring.  Do this to me again and I quit.  Am I understood here?”

I can’t really explain or describe it, but I felt a release of something when I finally had that realization.  Maybe … that was it.  Maybe that was the ticket out of the Hell for the Innocent.  It sure wasn’t a lightning strike, that’s for certain.  I almost … well, if I could have seen God’s face then, I almost wonder if I would’ve seen a little smile and nod.  “Attagirl.”

When I was giving God my "stern lecture" (you can laugh, He probably is), TSO's version of "O Come All Ye Faithful" started to play and it hit me.

Who is "all ye faithful"? And why did he have to tell us to come "joyful and triumphant"? Joyful and triumphant aren't descriptors ... they're instructions.

That day, I learned that the faithful aren't joyful and triumphant. The faithful aren't running on strong vital legs with exuberant smiles beaming from their faces. The faithful are tired. The faithful are weak. The faithful are broken and beaten and bloody and maimed and scarred ... and yet somehow still alive. The faithful had every reason to give up, and probably did at one point, and yet here they come, limping along and favoring their tender wounds, to adore Him, Christ the Lord. If that's not faithful, I don't know what is.

With this new definition of the faithful, I realized I can count myself among them. I have earned my place among the faithful, at unsurvivable cost.

But that stupid little flame of Hope ...

Honestly, the Flame of Hope is the most annoying little snot I’ve ever had to carry. 

The damn thing just won’t die.  It’s ugly.  It’s annoying.  It’s not very bright.  It doesn’t know how to take no for an answer.  Hope is most definitely not the beautiful spark in the dead of night that lights the way.  It’s the annoying little sibling in the back seat saying, “Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?  Arewethereyetarewethereyetarewethereyet?”  Hope is the beaten-down, pissed-off soldier in the trench with an empty magazine, facing off with the enemy saying, “All right look you sunnuvabitch, I may be going down today, but I ain’t going down without a handful of something off of you.”  Hope is the thirty-year-old feral cat who spends his ninth life biting and scratching the dog bent on having feline au gratin for lunch and somehow lives to hiss another day.  Hope is the broken woman who’s been robbed of what she held most dear, finds herself wishing God would just finish the job and stop her heart already, and then tells Him off for insulting her strength and the depth of her will.  Hope isn’t always the wisest of the flames (clearly!), but she is, undoubtedly, the most insufferably, intolerably, annoyingly stubborn of all the Flames of Advent.  She’s also the angriest one, because she’s the one that’s been through the most suffering.  She’s the one that’s seen the most shit.

Hope is the only flame that has seen the pit of the Hell for the Innocent.

Hope is the only flame that has ever seen total darkness.

And still, Hope burns.