Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Subverting the claptrap -- fierceness

Every once in a while -- much too often-- I just fall apart on my husband and burst into tears. The sweetie is so full of love but who can heal me? I have such a depth of woundedness, hurt, and trauma. "A wounded spirit who can bear?" I need God's love to pour into all my soul, heart, body, mind, spirit. And then there is this about the last days  In the last days mean shall be Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,... That's true in America now where being fierce and cold is considered hip. So I guess the day will come when all the world will be fierce.

I don't like fierceness and the world is fierce. It honors fierceness; in fact now it honors fierceness but it lacks the balancing honor. In fantasy, fierceness is always aligned with honor. But in the United States, fierceness -- whether passionate and uncontrolled, whether immature, whether studied, whether callous and cold, whether daring, whether humorous, whether done in gangs and collectively or done by one weak or strong individual-- is everywhere. And it is so kneejerk. Kneejerk disdain/hip disdain ... lacking kindness, politeness, forbearance, empathy, etiquette. One simply says to someone, "I'm on my way to church" and the person, for no good reason has to say in a snide dismissive way, "I don't believe in God." Or one is in church and someone one doesn't know has to come and say one should dress up for church. And don't even talk to me about the fierceness in the Black community where parenting and even well-meaning jokes can be cruel.

(I think this is why I hate cop shows. It's like the cops show their fierceness by being impolite. It's like... the tough female cop and all the cops have to show how tough they are by how much they can destroy the other person's soul. So much soul-annihilation going on.)

I don't know what happened to me. Yes, yes, I know what happened to me. Okay...so I am really stressed by cruelty. I am really empowered by it. The fibromyalgia goes awry when the slightest cruelty comes my way. So of course I end up with a life and with novels where my characters are totally alienated from the rest of the world. Which I suppose is good. In these clannish times where one has to have backup -- racial clan backup, political backup, religious backup-- what happens? I don't fit easily into any camp. Quite the bother, but I remember that my lord Jesus was rejected and despised of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

Fibromyalgia is an illness of woundedness, as is lupus. (Weirdly, lupus is really epidemic in the African-American community which makes me wonder if our immune system is so stressed by race, poverty, cruelty, weird families that it just breaks in a certain way.) Supposedly, those women with fibro have were assailed one time too many with feeling of being unloved and abandoned. The immune system just couldn't take it.

I don't believe in terminal or incurable illnesses. And in this case I believe that if I were to feel a super-dose of God's love that I would be healed.

My main female character in Constant Tower is Maharai. She lives in a fierce world within a fierce clan. She cannot deal with it but in the end she ends up with two husbands. I really like that. I really really really like that. Because there are victims of fierceness in fantasy novels and in the real world. A young Christian writer friend was upset with me that I had given Maharai two husbands. It bothered her because she felt one of the husbands would be wounded and plus it was just unChristian. But for me...it was the desire of my soul. My character Maharai builds blanket fortresses in her room. She sleeps between her husbands, protected from the world. In my spirit, that's what I want. I can't have it in this world. It's not legal. Plus my husband is loving and in this world, I have God's love to heal and shield me from the world. But Maharai has nothing.

Sometimes I just cry out for the Lord. I just say "Continue to Love me." I sing and start crying while I listen to, "Come quickly, oh Lord. Even so hasten your return."

Because heaven is my home.

Last night, I was thinking of the angel who smiled so sweetly at me. What love there exists in heaven! Enough to heal me of all the hurts I've received. From family, foe, friend, stranger, social workers, teachers, racists, cops. Enough to heal my soul from trauma. Lord, let our lives on earth be like the lives of the blessed ones in heaven.  Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven!

Sometimes I remember the cruelty that has been hurled at me by people. When I remember the pain, I remember the striking to my heart. I imagine those fiery darts are still in my back and soul and heart and flesh.I want God to pull them out.

Lord, heal my heart, please! And in the meantime, help me to show my heart in my stories. -C

2 comments:

J. M. Butler said...

Your stories do show that heart and pain, and this post is beautifully written and exquisite in its pain and honesty. I pray that God will fill you with His love. And you are absolutely right. He will heal you! Stay strong. Thank you for all that you have shared. God bless you abundantly! Be loved.

Carole McDonnell said...

Thanks, Jessica. Your stories are wonderful too.-C

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