Category: Spirituality (Page 16 of 19)

Today was certainly a test…but not one you could “pass” or “fail”, just one you had to experience. It is just a test based on its own merit, one on which you could sit back and review and understand its place in the moment. A proverb stated “You hear and forget, you see and remember, you do and understand.” Today was a chance to understand.

Through the many challenges, I don’t think I could have handled them any differently than I did at those moments. I am still working on being the watcher, on seeing my mind rather than being my mind, so I was not prepared for the giant steps today would have me take. I caught glimpses, but the pull was just too strong.

So today I did, and I understand. I understand I am not ready to run yet, so I will continue to walk. I understand I simply cannot expect to get to the summit without many tries from the base of it first. And I can honestly say that I am happy to have seen this, to have done this, and to know that I can at least see what it is I am not yet prepared to accomplish.

I am also happy that I was able to collect these observations and not hold on to them. The reactions today are NOT me, they are my mind, and I certainly am becoming less my mind each and every day. I am not disappointed, I am not angry, I just am.

Find health, give peace, be love…

T

What is the ego? Well, there seem to be two simple answers.

The first one is anything that follows the simple phrase of Being “I am”. Whatever you can put after “I am” ceases to be about the inner self but rather the outward expression of your mind, a form of ego. It is you and your story, it is your identification, it is your need to be something other than what you truly are. It is the “apple in the garden”, the “original sin”, the wedge between Being (God) and you.

“I am ugly”.
“I am fat.”
“I am a Democrat.”
“I am right.”

None of these describe who you truly are, but rather are identification with the outward expression of thought. None of what comes after the “I am” is real…but rather the dust from which it will return.

The second answer is anything that comes after the phrase “you are”. It is what you identify others to be, not what they truly are. It is truth in your eyes only, a judgment that, as all judgments are, is faulty at its conception. It is what you use to either bind another to you or segregate them. They are either with you or like you or they are not. Whenever you follow “you are” with something, it is your own ego assigning the label.

“You are beautiful.”
“You are a loser.”
“You are mean.”
“You are wrong.”

Odd, but when you say to someone “you are beautiful”, it may have come after they have said “I am ugly.” See the fault of judgments? They are based in nothing real, nothing stable. We often might say to someone “you are a loser” right after we ourselves have failed to meet our version of identity in ourselves.

I will leave you with a story. If I was to ask you “what is a tree?”, what would your answer be? Common answers would say “Well, it is branches and leaves and bark and twigs and tissue and roots.” But is that really the tree? Collect the branches and leaves and bark and twigs and tissue and roots and put them in a bucket. Do you now have a tree?

The same thing can be said if I ask “what is a human being?” The common answer may be “Well, he is skin and bones and muscle and blood and water and organs and hair.” Is that really true? Collect some skin and bones and muscle and blood and water and organs and hair and put it in a bucket. Is what you have a person?

What makes the tree a tree and a person a person is not the form you can see. It is the indescribable force that resides beyond the form that not only makes us who we are, but binds us. It is the part of us made in the image of our Creator, the Being in the Human Being. It is the part of us we need to find as we look inward. It is the part of us that is God.

We all have our “cross to bear”…something (or some THINGS) that causes us despair or suffering in our lives. Sometimes these crosses not only cause us to fall, but cause others to suffer in our failing. I find the story of Jesus failing and Simon of Cyrene yet another example of the New Testament bearing the challenges of life into prose and example, and while I am not here to debate the veracity of the story, I am certainly understanding of its place in our lives.

I can personally speak of many things in my early life that led to tremendous failing later in it. There are literally an encyclopedia of instances and times that created my cross, that which I bore for most of my life. There are probably many examples in your own life you can site as a “cross”, and a few times when that cross just became too much to bear. In our weakness, we dropped the weight, fell to our knees exhausted and in utter despair. In other times, we stood weary and weak but defiant, finding our own method of dealing with the torture in our minds, our souls, our “being”. Some turn to drugs, some turn to suicide, some turn to continuous and unrelenting self-destructive behavior meant on “protecting” that self from the dirt below.

I have always found it odd that in my need for self protection and in the practice of self-destructive behavior to that end I seemed to only “wet the wood” of my cross. In that, I made it much heavier than it need be, and the cross itself was only too willing to accept my offering. Stranger yet, the more I “wet” the wood, the more I sought to defy it, as if I knew more that the weight suggested I did. I can only say today that as I stare at the scars on my knees, the bruises on my shoulders and the splinters on my back that I obviously knew far less than I believed. Each scar and bruise is a lesson learned (hopefully), each splinter an example of the futility of attachment, the suffering of ego.

It was only when I could offer my cross to someone willing to bear it with me that I could see the absolute idiocy of attachment to the pain of the past. We all can site a dozen examples of pain in our past we hold on to today. I have heard from friends who have suffered so intensely, not because of the pain itself, but because of their attachment to it.They can’t let go of it, and they use it as a reason or cause for any assortment of issues they have today. Still, when we pass off the lumber to someone we love, we find it utterly torturous to have them deal with the suffering our attachment to pain has caused. In some, this creates unmatched suffering and a dysfunction, to others it causes an awareness of the lunacy such attachment creates.

I can say that when I shared my cross, the suffering it created caused me to seek to shed it completely. That was the purpose of the sharing it seems, to light shed on the idiocy of holding onto it, to finally seek and end to the suffering and my attachment to it.

In our lives, we have many “soldiers” who will whip us into carrying our cross with false strength. They will continually use the “whip” of whatever power they have over use to push us forward, usually to the destination of their choosing. If we fail to reach their assigned destination, they use the power of their “whip” to complete the torture. Our cross (or our attachment to it) becomes their control over us, and we allow it because we ourselves have no identity without the cross we bear. If we also have an attachment to the soldier, we will not only carry the cross of our lives but also learn to love the whip in their hand. We see what they consider the necessary destination as our ultimate goal, that in somehow pleasing them by the sweat and blood of our brow we will find pleasure ourselves.

In this the soldier can be those we “love” or who “love” us. It can be mentors, husbands, wives, teachers, parents, siblings, or even just a best friend. The whip can be sexual in nature, or the return of love, or the idea that “forever” is more solidified. It can also be just a positive reaction, an feigned acceptance (acceptance can never be earned, it is always there). Perhaps in this metaphor we can see the relativity of this analogy in our own lives. If we can see it, we can become aware of it, and in the awareness such unhealthy darkness cannot survive.

There are times when our actions while carrying the cross cause other to suffer in our midst. Our own “Simons” bear the weight of our cross for us and in this suffer along with us. Some are pressed into service, like the guy at the bar we beat up for no real good reason, or the family we gave the finger to when the cut us off in traffic. Others volunteer (although some not knowingly) when they enter into a relationship with us. Regardless of the reason for their “assistance”, they are scarred nonetheless, hampered in the shared splinters and binding bruises. It seems as if their joining in our suffering only “wets the wood”, makes our cross all the heavier for their effort. We not only have to deal with the original carpenter of the cross, but now we have to deal with the guilt of putting them through pain on our behalf.

In this action and reaction, it seems perfectly acceptable for anger to be the method of reaction and guilt the continuance of the anger. In our Simons seeking change in us, they may use a variety of means to see this happen. We owe them somehow, or at the very least we find them seeking freedom from the memory. They, in turn, create their own little cross out of the splinters we leave them from ours. What seems worst, as we relinquish the control the cross has over us, it seems as if they cannot, they need to hold onto that cross as if it is the only thing between them and certain death. They become more than just our helpers, our partners, but now they become the soldiers destined to see us to THEIR destination.

I liken this event to getting water from a stone. You turn the spigot, nothing comes out, and you curse the stone. You do this for weeks and curse the stone each day for its failure. Suddenly, just as you seek to be finished with the stone, it produces a torrent. Do you still curse it? Or do you appreciate that it finally is doing as you need it to do. Sure, it took its time, but is it where you want it to be or are you where it WAS? Perhaps your lips are still cracked from thirst, but you seek to curse the stone for being a STONE…a strange occurrence at best. You seek to tie your condition to it, rather than understanding that things were as they were intended to be.

Perhaps we should just learn to love the stone for being a stone and a well for being a well. Accept them, and should the stone provide water for you love it just the same. It would seem that in keeping anger towards it for what it did yesterday, we seek to hold on to the attachment we created in our anger towards it. We create a cross that we simply do not wish to relinquish, and in that creation a bit of insanity uniquely ours. We become insane, a slave to pain and ego that will only seek to repeat itself over and over again!

At the end, perhaps we just need to love. We need to love those we are in love with today. We need to see them as they are, not as we would like them to be or how the WERE. We need to open our hearts and arms not to our vision of perfection we expect the other to be, but in an unselfish love that seeks to accept, not to pass judgments. Can we forgive? Can we live for today in a way that makes yesterday a forgotten moment and tomorrow unexpected? The answers to those questions will not just seek to create peace in our own lives, but growth to loving relationships that never fail.

Still, if we seek to “choose” we have failed in our quest already. Don’t choose, just BE. Don’t think, just BE. Don’t talk, just DO. And best of all, don’t question, just LOVE. These all happen simultaneously in acceptance and Being, and they are without effort or “work”. Be still, and these will happen. Learn to find the silence that allows the noise to be. Happiness abounds from this point forward.

This will be long, so take your Ridalin or Aderol NOW! You have had your warning!!

During a recent life challenge, I faced the rather difficult task of understanding the relationship we share with our past, and was left clearly dominated by a need to become aware of how the path behind us can influence the path ahead of us. I would like to share some of the awareness discovered.

It caused me to ask the question: “does beating oneself up over the past continue the attachment to it?”. It was a rhetorical question at first, but seemed born of the recent struggle and the awareness that was created by it. I love struggle and suffering, it truly is the best teacher.

First, let me share with you my understanding of thought. Most of us cling to thought as the mechanism by which we grow, understand, live, make decisions, and basically function. I work to take thought in a much different way (yes, even struggle to reach this destination), and use my life experiences to basically formulate an awareness of thought…and understanding of it that shapes how I approach it, use it and, ultimately, discard it.

Thought, in my understanding, is the noise of the mind. It creates a perception of reality that can enhance the ego’s control of that reality. I clouds sound decision making, it magnifies ego, it stands in the way of progress. It simply keeps us from our selves, and from fully enjoying our existence. I certainly can get more into thought and ego if asked, but I have no need to challenge conventional thought in this post, but rather offer this as a basis for explaining the difference in thought and awareness as it relates to my understanding. A mouth full to say the least, some things of spirit just are not easily described with things of form. I guess one way to simply put it is that thought is the explanation of understanding, awareness is the creation of it without thought.

So, in the process of understanding attachment to past and how it controls our present, I needed to have an awareness of the circumstance at hand. This awareness requires an honesty for which thought cannot face. It takes seeing your self in a way that egoic thought will not allow, it takes tears, it takes sweat, and ultimately it takes a devotion to spirit that eliminates the presence of ego. It takes quiet, it takes stillness, it takes the complete absence of thought.

And now the painful part, an honesty for which there is no return. Things on here may be changed to protect others, but ultimately nothing will be changed to protect me, the person or the ego. So, here goes.

I have a propensity to not only have trust issues, but to cause them. I simply make bad decisions or do things that just aren’t worthy of trust. My ego takes over, thinks, and then acts in accordance with its perception of reality. Then it changes things to make that perception fit, regardless of how honest or truthful that perception is. My self, that part of me left when ego is stripped away, suffers at the hands of this. The ego jumps for joy while the self cries bitter tears. It is the paradox of a person that is the essence of “beating oneself up”, a continual battle between that which is all about form, pleasure and materialism and the self which wants no part of it.

In short, I am a liar…in ego that is simply what I am. This difficult awareness comes at a price but is worth the investment. The only way to end an ego is to shine light on it, and awareness is that light. Ego is a darkness that cannot survive even the slightest beam of light. You just need be willing to turn the light on, which is really the most difficult part.

Once I could see that I am a liar in ego, awareness began to delve into the aspects of this darkness. Now, keep in mind that awareness is not thinking, it is the absence of thought, so one does not pass judgment on what is happening at this moment. Awareness took me back to the pain of my youth, the need to be something so different in order to find the acceptance of others. Awareness shed light on seeing just how untrustworthy my parents were, how lies got them through life. I could see my ego creating the persona that would get me through the day. I could see that need to dominate my surroundings, whether cheating on a girlfriend to break any attachment to emotion, or having sex with a random woman in order to feel accepted, or hurting someone I loved very much because I just could not trust them, the things my ego did while in control simply sickened my self.

Worst of all, there were a handful of people who I honestly loved, people who I counted as those who I would die for if able. I realized that I was completely unable to share this because of my immature attachment to ego. In fact, I turned my back on these people rather than take them in. I feared this feeling, I feared its ownership of the “me” I knew. This “way” began when I was a young child and continued up to the day my wife tearfully told me that this “way” was killing her. At that moment, she turned a light on in me, made me become painfully aware of the “me” that needed to be exposed. At that moment, my self took over for a change, and I understood that my self needed to expose these things that were not only hurting her, but others I love, and yes, even me. The conflict had turned a corner.

That’s not to say it was over, man it is far from over even though this event took place years ago. My ego continues to lash out seeking its survival. This takes me to the recent life challenge. It simply was about the past, and how it effects the present. I began questioning whether I wanted to live in the past anymore, whether I wanted to have it control my life. I began to wonder if the “me” people got to know and expect was controlling the “me” I am at this moment. It is a conflict to say the least, it is a nasty battle between now and then, self and ego, light and darkness. But it is a necessary one.

And now to the understanding I have of the initial question. Let me first say that there is no right or wrong answer because ultimately the answer will depend upon where you are at this very moment. If am two blocks behind you in the journey of life, there is simply no way I can see the beauty you see, and you simply cannot see what I am seeing at that moment. But in this understanding is the understanding of the present, this very moment, and the fact that this moment is the purpose of being.

At this moment, I release the past the best I can. I must have no attachment to it, for it is an egoic perception of reality. Perception is a tricky thing, and I often liken it to the circumstance of the moment. To someone who is full and healthy, eating a Big Mac may seem grotesque…but give that same person a circumstance of starvation and they would eat that Big Mac off the dirty sidewalk. It’s the moment that is purpose, it is the moment that matters, and it is the moment for which we need to exist.

With this understanding, I become aware of reactions (ego) that are based on the past. They are harmful even if they appear to be good. In this moment there is no past, there is no need to relive it, there is no need to demand its attention or even offer it attention. The past ruins the present by its very existence, and the only way to firmly be in this moment is to relinquish the hold the past has on it.

No, there are no exceptions. And no, this is not to say that lessons learned in the past are not to be used this moment. They just must not own the moment. As a child learns that fire is painful, we now later due to this past experience not to stick our hand in the fire, but we do not use this painful experience to not enjoy a fire’s warmth. Yes, there is a difference, and it is up to you and where you are at this moment to figure out where that difference is.

I heard a story once that pretty much sums it up. If you have abused a dog as a puppy, and see it 10 years later it may bite you, but it certainly hasn’t thought about it for each of those 10 years. And it probably won’t think about it again once you leave the room to get your stitches. The dog has learned from the past, but it certainly does not live in it or for it. And I believe the dog will not be beating itself up for biting the abuser after the event is over.

We must learn from the dog…that this moment is not about the last one, it is about this one. It is the only one we are guaranteed, it is eternity. Enjoy it, allow it to be, and simply embrace all that it offers. Love those you love, open up, and just be. Such freedom is beautiful, and the stillness is deafening. No, it’s not easy, but if you love it is a must.

Peace

This week you inspired me, not by orders and dictates, but by example and love. Watching you work hard toward the happiness in others, all the while finding enjoyment in the task in hand showed me something beautiful. You again challenged me to see beyond the voices nagging me to something so much more beautiful. It is a beautiful and so worthwhile lesson.

I thank you for the experience and the challenge.

And although today you are challenging me is a much different way, the lesson of the past week is helping me see past it. The anger is no longer strong, although it is there. You are pushing my buttons, working to get a reaction, but I am not seeing those works as much as I am seeing the love I have in you. This is not you talking.

The lesson I learned last week was simple in nature but complex in understanding. The awareness of the situation shone such light on the cause of things, the anger I felt in the situation, the feeling of separation, the shaking of a new foundation that had so caused pain in my life. I realized that I was making others stand to a standard not created by the present, but by the past. The haunts of this past were like voices in my head, and driving me to the insanity that has plagued my life. It had to end, and it took the unassuming guidance of my soul mate, my wife, my lover and my friend to guide me.

You did this without beating my head with my faults, without hitting my soul with anger and stabbing my heart with words. You just where, you just did, you just loved. You just showed the way with passion and commitment. That is all it takes.

Thank you for this lesson, thank you for the answer to the voices in my head, thank you for the challenge you pose. You are the soil that challenges this seedling while nourishing it all the same. You are the most beautiful thing in this world to me, you are the love of my life.

I was just laying there, arms outstretched, relaxing silently under a light sheet while enjoying the soft breeze of the ceiling fan above. My mind was empty, just being in the moment, searching for nothing and getting everything in return. This moment could last forever.

I feel her reach for me, softly caressing my shoulder and the arm, followed by tender kisses to trace where her fingertips had been. Her lips were soft, perfect, loving and tender as they stirred me from my trance. They moved slowly down…down…down.

I was awakened before the moment of contact I so anticipated. I looked around the darkened room, lit only by the pending dawn and the warning of sunlight to come. As my eyes hastened to clear from the dream I had just endured I searched for her, my love, my life, my despair. Hidden beneath the layers of blankets she was, sound asleep and ready for nothing remotely close to what my body yearned for. My head hit the pillow with a thump and my mind slowed to receive that which it was dreading with every part of its being…

..the renewed presence of nothingness.

It is the sort of thing one gets used to but never really enjoys. No warm touches, no unrequested kisses, no show of desire save the random “you want to go in the bedroom?” or the casual wearing of sexy attire. Something’s missing, and I can’t put my finger on it yet (or perhaps my finger is afraid of what it will feel when it finds it) but I know it’s there. It’s kind of like a cold draft on a winter’s day and you just can’t find the source, or a drip on your head in the darkness. Damn annoying thing…

Such dreams are common for me. Perhaps it is the cold reality that brings me to such warm things in my sleep. I often wonder if this is how a sun worshiper feels while on vacation in Seattle, or how a bird feels when its broken wing keeps it from taking flight. Such is the loss of something you love, the very part of you that makes you whole, the part of you that cannot be found in any other place or part, yet the part of you that is needed most. It is empty, it is cold, it is…

…the renewed presence of nothingness.

So we drone on, like zombies in some B horror movie with subtitles to blurry to read. We live our roles, fight to hold on to the vestiges of arrogance that ensure the draft remains regardless of how distant that draft’s source may be. We must remain rigid to our goal, to beat one another into submission, to win the battle. We must pay not only for our sins but be beaten with them. We must chill the air around us for whatever reason we create. Such is the state we are in.

This is not about our imperfections, but the constant reliving of them. We are imperfect, no doubt, but imagine reopening the or a wound not weekly, not daily, not even hourly but nearly every minute of every day and then expecting it to heal or not even be bothersome. We are imperfect, in fact we are only perfect in being imperfect. So to be so utterly destroyed in those things that just are for as long as we are seems insane at best.

Yet here we are, and I prepared to drift off to another nights visit to heaven, to feel that which makes me feel alive, that which feeds me thoughts of paradise and of that entanglement between love and lust that somehow creates such joy in that which does not exist. I will dance in the rain while basking in the glow of the sun. And yet when the dawn comes we shall still have all the ability to see dreams turn to life, lust turn to love, love turn to lust and all that could be become what is. All that could be wasted on the inevitable and unbearable weight of being in…

…the renewed presence of nothingness.

There are few things like this moment, or that moment that has created this one. The warmth of love felt in the gathering of those you share your life with, the connection that happiness creates, the beauty in the smiles and contentment of community for which makes all of us Beings despite our humanity. The removal of form is the essence that glows within us all that does not create, but rather is born of creation and proof of something so much greater than any of us can fathom.

Such is love, such is peace, such is the essence of all things in the condition of that which is its simplest, the simplest form of the formless, the condition of all things removed from their selves.

Such is the gift of Christmas to me, that which is born a Savior is not man at all, or god, or otherworldly, but simply of this world in which Heaven is in our midst and at moments like this we can catch a glimpse of it. The celebration not of the man born, but of the understanding of the birth of formless devotion to Being, a moment of time not of self, but of selflessness. Such is a birth, a melting of self and selflessness in utter perfection, of Divine Being merged with selfless acceptance of the moment. Such is the perfect notion of live lived in that one moment of such a marriage.

A birth, whether of a god or of a man, is such an example of perfect harmony. A mother gives her Self to acceptance of the moment. She does what Nature does prescribe, contracts as Nature does order, and is relieved as is ordained well beyond her authority. She puts her very safety in the hands of Being, and in such trust a Being is born to her, or not, a Being that in its very existence is given to acceptance. That babe will be hungry until fed, chilled until swaddled, cry until comforted and shall be at the disposal of such acceptance. The child is perfect in its need and disposition, and the mother is perfect in her selfless offering to that which has no choice be to be dependent on such selflessness.

And such is the example we celebrate this day. Birth is a gift to man to be better than he is at any given moment. Christmas to me is the celebration not of the birth of a god, but the birth of Being in all of us. When we look past form, the gifts, the man, the faith, the decorations, we can see the formless love that is part of us in the sharing of this moment. We can, once form is removed from the moment, experience that which we can see every moment, the connect in Being between our Selves and the Selves of others. It is the gift that keeps on giving if we just would see it even if for the first time.

So now, I look at the tree and the decorations not as they are, but now see the love that went into making them be. I feel the tie between those of us in this room, the connection of the giver to the receiver, and see that gift is not the wrapped offering we exchange, but of the love that made them be. I can see the joy in the faces of my children and see that the forms are not what has made that joy, but the love that went into such forms. They gifts will fade in time, but the love that made them this moment shall never fade. It is the true meaning of such a holiday, a special day that should be celebrated in such a gift of love daily.

So, share the Holiday, no matter what your reliance on form calls it. Should it be Christmas or any other name, share the truest gift of all with all Beings whether known to you or not, that gift of what your purest essence shall be called: Love. In such a simple state you shall see Heaven in your midst even if for the very first time. It is this simple state the man whose birth we celebrate this day, the message of what should be born in all of us, a message the implores us all to allow love to be born in us, to guide us, to be the gift of each moment that we take as well as give, and the removal of forms that may hinder our ability to see such a thing like Heaven around us.

So this day our family shall celebrate such a birth is such a way, and the peace such a celebration shall extend.

Perhaps the essence of health is in the foundation of truth.

This would be nothing special except that perhaps I have spent my life running from the truth in one of its many forms. It seems the more I discover the truth the more I realize how afraid of it I am, or was, or will be. The truth has never been my friend, whether from the parents who denied me of it, or the childhood spent finding ways to bend it, or adulthood lived ashamed of it. No, I have become so unfamiliar with truth that it seems almost foreign to me, and those things foreign to us seem to scare us the most.

Yet love, if not life, demands nothing but the truth from us all. Whether it be the reality of suffering, the loss of love, the bitter chill of hate and intolerance we are forced at some time in our existence to face truth head on. We may be ugly, we may be fat, we may be mean, we may be short, we may be…

We may be, period. Regardless of what follows that simple grouping of three words, we may be. Truth is those three words, and what follows those words are perception bound in a need to be something else. I may be ugly, depending on the one describing me. I may be fat in in a room of those thin. Yet I may be, or I am, regardless of what follows.

It is this simple truth that helps me cope with such a fear of that truth. If what I am is and what follows irrelevant, is the truth really to be feared? Is the judgment of others that which need concern me at all? Is it just that the I fear not the truth, but that judgment of others? I can see in my life that there were very few times I feared the truth, yet I can see clearly how I fear the consequence and the judgments of others. Perhaps the best way to find truth is to disregard the judgment of others and to just allow what is to be.

Simple enough, let the test begin.

Flashback to an 8 year old boy, removed from all he had known and all he had loved. Gone were the friends he cherished, the play times he took for granted, the neighborhood that was his world. Entered by marriage into a new world: lonely, desolate, foreign. This new life, he was told, would be so much better than the life of poverty and single parent family he had endured for as long as he could remember.

The question quickly became in his mind, “better for who?”. The answer was all too evident as time was to pass.

He withdrew to things. In a new home on a busy highway the boy now sat alone where they once were more friends to count. The kids – the only kids he could ever remember knowing – were gone, replaced by trees, his toys, and the many trucks and cars that went zooming by his new home. He learned to hate the people who brought him here. Not really a “hate”, but a resentment caused by the fact that they simply would not understand what they had done to him. The fact that they did not care only compounded the issue, children could adapt and overcome anything it seemed. Well, at least those things their parents thought we necessary for them to overcome.

So he created a circle of attachments with his toys he had brought to this new world. He didn’t have many at this point, so he struggled to keep them working and close by as to make sure they were not discarded like his life had been. The once busy youth found himself replacing his friends with toys, he loneliness placated only in the times he would share with the only remaining vestiges of a life he wished he could return to. As he saw it, he was not poor in his old life, but he certainly was in this one. Sure, the house was bigger, the food better, and the clothes nicer, but he could not help feeling as if his soul was starving and that he had instantly become poorer the last time he left his old yard. The last time he saw those friends he would never see again was the moment he became the poorest person in his world.

One day his new father explained to him that his old “junk” needed to be cleaned up and thrown away. The boy had been conditioned by his mother to love this man as a sinner loves his savior, that the world would begin and end with this simple man who, nice as he was, was not the savior this boy needed. Sure, he would learn a lot as from this man as time went by, but he never would enjoy a relationship that all boys need with their father. Later in life this boy would question whether or not it was he who kept the relationship from thriving, but such perfect hindsight only confirmed that the lies, the beatings, and the man who stood by and let them happen simply was not worthy of such trust. He was a good man, he was an kind man, but he was not his stepson and his stepson was not him. Such are the ties that bind us through the acts that create us.

The man wished to clean out his new son’s “junk”. The boy simply had no choice in the matter, even as he was employed to assist in the carnage. With all of the strength he could muster this young man took all those things that bound him to his wealthy existence and threw them into bags. Gone were the things that calmed him in his times of loneliness. Gone was the stuffed pony he had had since his life began. Gone was the wind up radio that played music to him in his infancy. With each toy he played one last time before sending them to their doom. With each toy he held back tears that were months in the making.

Off to the dump they went. Dumps were the benefits to the new farming life his mother had conscripted him to. There, all kinds of things were sent to their graves. Today, a vast chuck of his life was being laid to rest, and with these things the domination of desolation was sure to be complete. With each toss his heart shattered just a bit more. He needed to be brave, this test was one he must not fail, and the tears that were streaming down his face he reasoned were from the bitter cold winds ripping at his soul. Finally, the carnage was complete, although the end had not brought with it the peace he so desperately sought.

One final goodbye to his life was all it took. He saw it instantly under the other debris brought by his new father to this land from the house they have bought. Under the garbage his stuffed blue pony looked back at him as if to say “you betrayed me and are leaving me to die in this hell.” Those eyes looked mysteriously sad and disappointed, and the guilt took over this young boy’s heart as if fell into the pit alongside his friend. Still, he must remain strong and brave, lest his new father abandon him like all others had before him.

The ride home was a blur. The man was talking to his new son, but the boy simply was walking elsewhere. Somewhere between the dump and home, it became apparent to the boy that his strength was misguided, that it was not in acting complicit to the betrayal he had just committed that there was strength, but standing up to it. The tears from the months of change, the loneliness that change had spawned, and the emptiness that his new life had caused. No one had noticed, no one had cared, but now the boy was going to let it out. And let it out he did.

To the man’s credit, he heard the boy and took him back to the dump. Nothing looked the same to the youth, and the pony he could not find. He looked for as long as the man would allow, but saw nothing of the friends he had betrayed without a peep. Perhaps had he just spoken sooner none of this would have happened. Perhaps if the man could feel any sorrow it would not have happened either.

In adulthood, the boy realized that the man took him to a different dump, as to let the boy continue to believe that it was he who had failed his friends. The boy who would become a man realized just how much of an impact that day would have on him, even decades later. This is but one story of a life lived from underneath the greatness that could have been the boy, if only he could have understood sooner the reason for it all.