Dreaming of Silver Roses

“I am good at walking away. Rejection teaches you how to reject. I left my hometown, left my parents, left my life. I made a home and a life elsewhere, more than once. I stayed on the run. Why then, did the burden feel intolerable? What was it that I carried? 

I realize now that the past does not dissolve like a mirage. I realize that the future, though invisible, has weight. We are in the gravitational pull of past and future. It takes huge energy- speed- of- light power- to break that gravitational pull.

How many of us ever get free of our orbit? We tease ourselves with fancy notions of free will and self-help courses that direct our lives. We believe we can be our own miracle, and just a lottery win or Mr. Right will make the world new.

The ancients believed in Fate because they recognized how hard it is for anyone to change anything. The pull of past and future is so strong that the present is crushed by it. We lie helpless in the force of patterns inherited and patterns re-enacted by our own behavior. The burden is intolerable.

The more I did the more I carried. Books, houses, lovers, lives all piled on my back, which has always been the strongest part of my body. I can go to the gym. I can lift my own weight. I can lift my own weight. I can lift my own weight.

I want to tell the story again.”  – Jeannette Winterson, Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles, pg. 99-100

“The weight of this sad time we must obey,” someone says at the end of King Lear, “Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.” At such times the impulse toward ritual is not so much to speak as to act; act what we feel, not what we ought to do.” – Tom F. Driver, Liberating Rites: Understanding the Transformative Power of Ritual, pg. 5

 

“You know me, not much with the damseling….

I hate this. I hate being here. I hate that you have to be here. I hate that there’s evil and that I was chosen to fight it. I wish a whole lot of the time that I hadn’t been. I know a lot of you wish I hadn’t been, either. This isn’t about wishes. This is about choices. I believe we can beat this evil. Not when it comes. Not when its army is ready. Now. Tomorrow morning, I’m opening the seal. I’m going down into the Hellmouth and I am finishing this once and for all. Right now, you’re asking yourself what makes this different. What makes us anything more than a bunch of girls being picked off one by one? It’s true. None of you have the power that Faith and I do. So here’s the part where you make a choice. …

What if you could have that power, now? In every generation, one Slayer is born, because a bunch of men who died thousands of years ago made up that rule. They were powerful men. This woman is more powerful than all of them combined. So I say we change the rule. I say my power, should be our power. Tomorrow, Willow will use the essence of this scythe to change our destiny. From now on, every girl in the world who might be a Slayer, will be a Slayer. Every girl who could have the power, will have the power. Can stand up, will stand up. Slayers, every one of us. Make your choice. Are you ready to be strong?”

Joss Whedon’s Buffy, Chosen, ’03

Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought. – Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, ’01 

…I will go down with this ship
And I won’t put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I’m in love and always will be… – Dido, White Flag, single from album Life For Rent, ‘03

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            I confess, I am not finished sussing out the pattern in these thoughts captivating my mind. There is a connection at least to me. I’m working on it. I think to some degree it has to do with the word “weight” in the first two. I can totally empathize and sympathize with Winterson. I think the beginning of bearing an almost unbearable weight such as the one she mentions in her book, is found for me at least in Driver’s quote. Rites and rituals are healing to me. Prayers spoken by tons of others many times over are healing to me. It’s like reading the Psalms. You find community in the sharing of emotions with the Psalmists. I find it in the sharing of the prayers, creeds, and just the words of others. I am no longer alone and no long insane for feeling the way I do when I find the words. The words seem to me to give me permission to feel and express how I feel and know that I am not the only one to ever go there mentally, spiritually, or emotionally.

          Now I know there are some family members in Christ who wouldn’t watch or quote Buffy as a source of spiritual wisdom. I don’t buy everything the show sells. Fear not. But for me I did hear her and draw a personal parallel that there is a war. It is actually against hell itself – although not exactly as depicted in Buffy, I’m sure. But the war is real to me- in me. The weight is heavy- some days more than others. We aren’t super heroes, we just serve one and the only One. I’m with Frodo and Buffy, I wish it weren’t so. But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean the battle isn’t necessary. Just because the weight is heavy and cumbersome doesn’t excuse me from walking and carrying on. And the good news is we aren’t fighting alone. As Buffy would say, “I just realized something, something that really never occurred to me before. We’re gonna win.” The predicition of a win to come gives hope, but it doesn’t remove the weight or cost of the battle does it. On the other hand, hope does not disappoint. (Romans 5). No white flags. No hands held up in surrender. I’m still chasing these thoughts on the journey from my head to my heart. Mulling is one of my favorite hobbies.

 

Currently listening : Tell Me What You Know By Sara Groves Release date: 2007-11-06

Filed under: life on October 13th, 2008