Suffering...

A white tiger who had suffered at the hands of man but is now in a sanctuary to protect and save his life 

3- 11- 09

Jer. 29:11 “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”

Suffering...

Why does God allow so much suffering? I totally feel like I’m on a boat drifting on the water that is full of sulphur, the product of an erupted volcano, and the tiny boat is taking on the sulphuric acid water and is slowly disintegrating.

The NIV puts the Jeremiah scripture like this:
Jeremiah 29:11, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the LORD. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.’” (NLT)

They changed the words to say plans for you; good not disaster. A future and a HOPE! I’ll take the words any way they come these days because, in my suffering, I cling to His every word, because I know nothing else. 

The other day my hubby woke with a stiff neck also. Now we both have sore necks and we attribute it to the new mattress. We lived so long sleeping on the fifteen-year-old mattress our bodies grew accustomed to the dips and curves, with the new firm mattress, we need to reacquaint our bodies form to the mattress and it's taking its time getting to know us. 

I told my hubby that our bodies are getting older and these pains come with age and it’s been pointed out to me more than twice in just two weeks, ‘getting older is no fun’ from the elders of the world. Since the older generation has planted that seed in my mind, I now feel as if it is my aging body. Time is degenerating my skin, my insides, my everything and it’s only a matter of time before it totally disintegrates. Thanks, elders, here I just thought I had an illness at my young age.

It seems around every corner people are negatively dumping their thoughts on me. It’s as if they’re saying I don’t have enough with my suffering let me dump some more on you. From my mother, “You’re HOW much older than Steven? You better take good care of him, there are plenty of ‘young’ girls out there.” To my mother-in-law stating, ‘this getting old stuff isn’t much fun’. Out of context, it looks harsh but they didn’t know how bad I’ve been, only the people who REALLY care and KNOW me, know! Thank you to my dear friends.

I have done so much suffering in my life I thought I’d have a spell of no suffering but then I laugh, no suffering, that is funny as all get out. Just as I said yesterday that God loves us all the same, uniquely, individually but the same. He knows our suffering and is more than willing to give us comfort during these trying times. I cry out, ‘Lord, give me comfort. Comfort in life and comfort in death.’ Eggshells scattered all around, tread lightly.

I’m sure there are many of you out there saying, “Suffering? You don’t KNOW suffering like *I* know suffering.” I think each and every one of us sees our suffering as worse than the others, yet you need to understand, our suffering is unique to us as individuals. He has a different plan so each person has a different type of suffering. Your suffering is no harder than mine, nor mine yours; suffering is suffering plain and simple! Like a fine garden, some just need a little more tending. I’m in the ‘overly brown garden needing lots of tending’ stage. 

I would like to let my dear friend, who for the past year has sent me funds monthly! Yes, monthly, to ease my burden of paying for supplements and anything I need to ease this pain I suffer with daily. They need to know how GRATEFUL I am because I don’t believe I thank him/her enough. I will keep my benefactor private for now because the Lord knows and that is good enough for all of us. Help is vital to me and so much appreciated, I’m honored that God chose this person to help me. My love to you!

This week I purchased (waiting for it to arrive) a reasonably priced neck traction device that chiropractors recommend for stiff necks and such. Since I can’t afford a chiropractor and gave up taking Naproxen for my pains, this device will aid in the pains in my neck! There has to be relief for me somewhere and maybe this will be the device I need to find a little reprieve, a little comfort. Just letting my dear friend know, the funds are going to assisting me in staying alive! Take that to heart, you’re doing great, my friend! This also relieves a lot of stress from my hubby who has to pay for medical insurance for me, organic food, and anything else this newly high-maintenance gal might need.

While suffering is part of the plan I often think of those that never suffer and have a ‘looks can be deceiving’ life! I honestly don’t think they are not suffering, I just think they have a veil so no one sees their distress. I also think we all suffer and share differently. They might hide their pain out of shame or because they don’t want to be that person that always laments and whines about everything from a stubbed toe to a broken nail. While I usually don’t share my minor discomforts, here lately it’s all I have to offer, muscling through the torment daily with a Popeye of a God who is carrying all of my heavy burdens, and He never complains! *big old smile*

My days are being spent away from the negative dumping ground of social media. Facebook is taking too much of a toll on me and I know my friends understand my time away or they wouldn’t call themselves friends now, would they? I’m told that I’m like a bad penny, I’ll show my face again, but now, the time just isn’t right. When it is, you bet your bottom dollar I’ll come back raring to make you all smile! It’s what I do best.

Spring will be arriving soon, as will my New Year, and my days of isolation may be coming to an end, I pray. I’m assured of that with the warming of the afternoons, the Robins hanging around the brownish/green lawn, and the longer days. I’m not adding sunshiny days because they are still sporadic, soon though, soon! My suffering might have an expected end in sight, one of HOPE! 

May God be with you all! 

Pss. 33:22 “Let thy mercy, O LORD, be upon us, according as we hope in thee.”

Jesus suffered more than us all! 

My pain is nothing!

Quotation Saturday ~ Loneliness

Job 13:13 "Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak, and let come on me what will."

SILENCE

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing 
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.” 
― Jalaluddin Rumi

“The true genius shudders at incompleteness — imperfection — and usually prefers silence to saying the something which is not everything that should be said.” 
― Edgar Allan Poe

“I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.” 
― Chaim Potok

“I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company.”
~ Henry Miller

LONELINESS

“Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.” 
― Jodi Picoult

“Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.” 
― Maya Angelou

“All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.” 
― Tahereh Mafi

“The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.” 
― Mother Teresa

ISOLATION

“Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?”
~ Haruki Murakami

“The parts of me that used to think I was different or smarter or whatever, almost made me die.” 
― David Foster Wallace

“We're all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding.” 
― Rudyard Kipling

“When you're socially awkward, you're isolated more than usual, and when you're isolated more than usual, your creativity is less compromised by what has already been said and done. All your hope in life starts to depend on your craft, so you try to perfect it. One reason I stay isolated more than the average person is to keep my creativity as fierce as possible. Being the odd one out may have its temporary disadvantages, but more importantly, it has its permanent advantages.” 
― Criss Jami

SOLITUDE

“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.” 
― Charlotte Brontë

“Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away... and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast.... be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust.... and don't expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.” 
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar:

I love not man the less, but Nature more” 

― George Gordon Byron

A Perfect Day?

Romans 12:2 (NIV)

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -- his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

A Perfect Day…

Yesterday was as close to perfect as I can ever remember. We rose early in the morning, anticipation was high and excitement filled the house; it was Christmas day. I won’t go into detail of what a glorious day it was by not waking and running right to facebook to see people sharing love pics and well wishes.

After my day of relishing the LOVE of God, spending the day with such an endearing family who actually knows what the meaning of LOVE is, then coming home, stuffed full of some good home-made eating and relaxed with some tea and a movie. The camaraderie of family and stories and just idle loving banter made my heart swell three times bigger yesterday.

I rose today feeling good and refreshed only to peek in on facebook and saw what was LOVE sharing days ago, turned into a pile of hate filled people calling people names and acting like two year olds instead of the mature men and women they claim to be. I guess when popularity and loneliness rules your world, you have nothing better to do than call people names and wholeheartedly agree with those other folk calling names. A sad day.

Pss. 34:1 I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

I’m living in a world full of hate. They try to dress it up with cute pictures but dig not so deep the surface of their skin, they’re bitter souls lashing out at whoever will listen and from the looks of it, hundreds of similar people (they call friends) LIKE it.

The month of reflection has led me to believe that this world is a lost cause. I try to see the good in everything but here lately the negative hating is turning me against all the love I seek to see in the world. I cannot and will not be a part of the evil that is slithering into lives and being accepted. After-all, the laws of the Lord only apply to a select few while others fashion the law and candy coat the Word to suit them when they need it. Dress it up and call yourself a Christian. To be honest, if this is the way Christians behave, I sincerely don’t want to be a part of that religion.

Do you know the word I’m defining here below?

Psychology: (no longer in technical use; considered offensive) a person of the lowest order in a former and discarded classification of mental retardation, having a mental age of less than three years old and an intelligence quotient under 25??? The word is idiot.

The word offends me just as calling a person a retard offends me. It offends me when prejudice and racism collide, just as religion and all those so-called Christians collide.

So are you telling me, people, that YOUR I.Q. is higher than that of the person you called an idiot? Seriously? Look in the mirror. Judge YOUR life before judging someone’s life.

I’ve been offended by one too many people of the supposed intelligent stature who uses this word like dipping their cookies in milk. Tastes good, might was well use it while the going is good. Jump on the bandwagon and wee, wee, wee all the way home.

I’m obviously not worried about offending these people who name call because it is quite evident they have a scholastic degree, make thousands upon thousands of dollars and are productive people of society. No?

I’m tired of all the hate, I’m tired of surrounding myself with people who live and thrive off of negative lashings to feel good. I’m tired, just so tired of trying to be turned into something I’m not. I think I need a new outlet for being alone, filled with love and wonder, in a world full of hate.

Isolating myself is an option; one I don’t look forward to but I’m just so tired of negativity affecting my being that it is my only choice. There is no place else left for me in this sinister world unless I want to be conformed to this world and in my heart and soul I don’t feel that is what God has in mind for me. I'll let all the scholastic, hard-working, higher people enjoy it.

People have taken this Icy Palace I have built for myself and melted it into a puddle for them to stomp through; they have taken my High-horse and set him free to roam unleashing him to a society that would rather see him dead and on their plate for dinner. As long as they feel good, let go and let live. Maybe I’ll have something positive to write about in the New Year.

So much for the Perfect Day…

Jer. 5: 28 They are waxen fat, they shine: yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked: they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge.

Poetry Sunday ~ Isolation

Rom. 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Solitaire

I play the game of solitaire

Isolation of my life.

Gentle peaceful flipping

For the settling of strife.

I long to be free

From impeding worldly addiction

Hours leading into days

The soul shaped in affliction.

A world made up of images

Flashing on a screen

Never breathing in the life

Of the muffled outdoor scene.

This day I will fight to live

Outside the walls I’m in.

My life will never be attuned

To the state of man and sin.

Isolation

Pss.102: 7  I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.

As you all know, or should if you read my blog often enough, I live out in the middle of nowhere. I am in a writers haven; a dream locale with an isolation factor that writers can only dream about living.

Sometimes it’s too isolated leaving me alone with my thoughts; dangerous by all means, my thoughts and me. You would have thought that three days with no internet I would have gotten a lot of writing done but no, didn’t write one thing! I was too worried about if I’d ever connect with the outside world again to want to write.

I live out here on a zillion acre (exaggeration) run down, closed down turkey ranch. To the north of me I have a neighbor who works nights and sleeps days. To the south of me, behind a huge ‘mill’ and shed, I have another neighbor that lives in a trailer. I never see any of them much but I know they’re there.

To the east of me I see a rolling cornfield (what did you expect, it’s Nebraska). In the winter they’ll bring in cows to mow and fertilize the field for next season. To the west of me, you guessed it, another thousand acres of cornfield!

I grew up in Baltimore city and lived in Texas for six years and everything in the city is at your fingertips. The assessable means of living spoil you. If you want a soda (called pop out here in the mid-west) you could run right down the street and grab one. Here, you better have one in the fridge or your plum outta luck, a twenty-mile trek for sure.

How did people out here ever survive, I ask myself? Very humbly, I must say. I have learned why they call this ‘the bible-belt’ that’s for sure. They have nothing but God, His land, corn, His blessing, and football, God’s choice of sport? Wink wink Husker fans!

Living in the middle of nowhere has really taught me a lot about priorities in life. Living in isolation without the internet taught me a few things also. As Adam was grumping all over the place, beau moped even during football, and me, I just played chess to take my mind to a safe calm place. Not that I wasn’t feeling irritable; I just chose to wrap myself in a warm blanket called chess to keep me comforted.

When the internet came back on, Adam had an epiphany, “Now I know why there was no internet, we needed a break, all three of us!” I went on to explain that is what fasting does for the soul, the same feeling he had from no communication with the outside world; the time of reflection, is the exact feeling you get when you fast. He had never understood fasting and me but this weekend he had a light bulb moment!

What message will you walk away with today? Isolation deepens your spiritual journey! It awakens everything in you that sleeps. It carries you on a joyful hayride. Sure there’s the manure lingering, but when you get off the ride, you feel refreshed; cleansed.

Welcome October! Message received!

“Solitude is a chosen separation for refining your soul. Isolation is what you crave when you neglect the first.”
~ Wayne Cordeiro

 

 

Retreat

“Ships in the harbor are safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.” 

~ John Shedd

I had used the term loosely last week. It means: the act of withdrawing, as into safety or privacy; retirement; seclusion. I had written for two weeks straight, post after post and thoughts of new posts were popping in my head like Jiffy Pop popcorn.

The weeklong posts of Truth were very draining on the mind, body, and soul. It took me places I hadn’t thought about because I was safely in a comfort zone, a harbor if you will. I had a second post for Friday, but never got it posted. I guess it just wasn’t necessary to drive it home.

In it I thanked the person who posted that dinosaur stuff on my wall because it made me look deep within myself. In the end, I still didn’t agree with the person, but that’s okay, we’re allowed to think differently. I needed to reflect on the Truth posts I had posted.

The two weeks of posts pretty much talked about addiction to the net, prioritizing and such, and Friday’s culmination of putting the whole puzzle together; we had a God slap moment. That’s the term we use for when it feels like God slaps you upside the head and actually forces you to see just what it is you needed to see.

When I said I would retreat, I just meant pull back, slow down a bit, look around, drink in the beauty and harmonious world around me: cows mooing, leaves falling, winds gusting. It was a seasonal end to all the heat and vibrancy of summer. Summer was falling asleep and autumn was washing over and awakening me.

Normally when I fast, I choose not to eat meat, my choice. I don’t eat much in the way of meat anyway so really I’m fooling myself but not God. But when God hears your plea for a needful peaceful quiet retreat, you best believe He has a way of making you understand; a God-slap moment.

On Friday right before I was going to post my second post, the internet cut out. ‘Okay’ I thought, ‘it’ll be back on soon.’ We waited and waited…and waited. By Monday it was still not on, and didn’t return until 6:15 p.m.! I automatically assumed I just wasn’t meant to post that post.

Being a recovered alcoholic, I knew the signs of withdrawal. Grumpy, irritable, antsy, sweaty palms the works. To keep myself busy, I played chess; probably over a hundred games in three days. I was keeping my head about me.

Adam was angry, my man was ‘trying’ to act all calm, but come Sunday, the anger shot out like a rifle shot seeking a deer to kill! I was irritable but not angry to the extent of lashing out, until the anger was slung at me. Talk about addiction! It was obvious the repercussions of having no internet was having an effect on all of us.

Come Monday and the run around from the internet provider: “Turn off your computer and modem and restart.” Then they said, “We’ll get someone out there NEXT TUESDAY.”  (slaughtered the punctuation on THAT one, eh Deb?) ;)

That’s what they told my man at 9 a.m. but I called in the afternoon and they sang a whole different song. “It’s not YOUR computer, it’s the tower! (the signal bearer) We’re working on it now!”  By 6:15 I heard a scream from behind me as I was washing up dinner dishes planning for a quiet evening of movie watching; Adam was elated!

His IPOD and IPAD didn’t work, so he lost communication to his ‘girlfriend’ in Pa. AND his homework. My man didn’t get to check the stats on his ‘fantasy football’ team, and we had to resort to good old fashioned Bible reading with a, get this, hand-held Bible!

By Sunday I was settling in to this ‘God enforced retreat’, Monday I felt like I had PMS three times over, but I sure got a lot more cleaning of nooks-and-crannies done! I reflected. Two weeks straight of posting and now a quite humbling retreat. This weeks posts will be about what I learned from zoning out!

Inspiration to Write

Now that I’ve made the decision to write, where do I find the inspiration to write and WHAT do I write?

Well first I go to the forum threads at LinkedIn, my new hangout. Topics abound on many different subjects and many ideas for writing topics spring up in my head. I thought about heading into WVU to take some online classes but I’m not ready to immerse myself into that yet.

While Writers Village University is my first love, the dedication I had to the site was lost and I’m having a heck of a time in getting back there. I find I can’t concentrate too well there. I still have ‘friends’ there but getting into a class and writing is just not in me yet. Maybe one day WVU will creep back in like the writing bug? Maybe I’ll find delight in going to class and sharing my writing once again, but for now I think I’ll stick to blog posts and poetry.

I’ve been with LinkedIn for quite a few years now but never felt like a real participant in the community forums. On the site, there are so many writers there it kinda makes your head spin. I’m not talking about wannabe writers, many are published writers, editors, and anything you need to know about writing is found there.

I find great discussions going on way out of my league because these folk seem to have MFA degrees and Bachelor degrees, and slim pickings for the wannabe’s like me. At least at WVU we all seem to be on the same level trying to acquire knowledge and grow as a writer from what we learn there.

While I don’t find inspiration at WVU, there are many that have, if you’re in the right clique. As many of you know, I’m not into cliques and all they stand for. I find more isolation in cliques than inspiration and I think that may be what drove me away to begin with. I’ve always fit into my blogging experience. It’s my haven where I can write share and possibly inspire folk.

I’ve met some great people via the blogosphere and even though you don’t see comments from them all, I know they’re there. They’ll read whatever they can and when I write something that triggers a response, they’ll comment. Other than that, I’m in an isolation booth, the Cone of Silence if you will, where I do all the talking in silent mode, they do the listening in an audience mode and this, my friends, is where our minds meet.

Back to the topic: Inspiration. Where do you find it? For me at this juncture, it has been in the forum groups at Linked In. They ask a question, and people intelligently respond and I feed off of their knowledge. I have written because of them and it is because of them I jumped back in the saddle.

I normally don’t contribute to the topic because most of what is said are things I would have said, so my input isn’t necessary. But I do find it as inspiring as watching the sunrise over the treetops, or the wind bustling through the trees, or the rain (rare to see this year) but rain none the less is definitely an inspiration-filled day.

Inspiration can be found on many different levels; in words, nature, forums and discussions. You just need to see words for all they’re worth and to me words are hidden gemstones of inspirational writing.

What inspires you to write? You don’t have to answer, just mull over the thought for a bit, be inspired and WRITE!

Poetry Sunday ~ Isolation

Isolation

***

The house echoes of the emptiness found inside

like an unending tunnel where light is obscure.

The noise erupts with no one to confide

My lips are parched, as my heart lay pure.

Loneliness wraps my body in its outstretched arms;

nestles me in the warmth of a longing embrace.

I am alone in the silence that bears down and harms

the fullness of my being in this comely place.

The violence erupts but it is far from me

and all I can do is bow my head in prayer

as the isolation swallows my sanity

I seek to find you but you’re not there.

My only friend in sorrowful times of longing

is the empty space of my voice unheard;

Isolation traps me in the field of belonging

Left unattended with the pain I’ve incurred.

The solitude has me in its restless clutch

as no one is here to hold my hand.

I long for someone; anyone’s touch;

so alone in seclusion our beating hearts stand.

Poetry Sunday ~ Home: Alone

Home; Alone

In my ideal world

I isolate myself from the society

that has let me down.

I run through the fields of

golden streams.

I play in the solitude of bliss.

I long to hear the sounds

of rustling leaves.

No voices to distract me;

just peace and quiet.

Even  the quiet carries a hum;

a rhythm of  cascading nothingness

that takes me to a place in my mind

where I alone can talk to God;

and He can talk back.

I yearn to be left alone.

No cares or wares for me

to treasure; just the basic

needs of food and water.

I need to be alone for it is

where God cradles me and allows

me to cry in His arms.

My eyes unleash a river

as my world gets muddled;

He caresses me as His robe is

puddled ...by my tears.

Am I home yet, Lord?

Quotation Saturday

ISOLATION

“Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?”
~ Haruki Murakami

“It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.”
~ Stephen Fry

“If you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.”
~ Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper

“Not Waving but Drowning”

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.”
~ Stevie Smith, Collected Poems

LONELY

“I'm lonely. And I'm lonely in some horribly deep way and for a flash of an instant, I can see just how lonely, and how deep this feeling runs. And it scares the *crap out of me to be this lonely because it seems catastrophic.”
~ Augusten Burroughs, Dry

“The trouble is not really in being alone, it's being lonely. One can be lonely in the midst of a crowd, don't you think?”
~ Christine Feehan, Dark Prince

“You're reaching out
And no one hears you cry
You're freaking out again
'Cause all your fears
Remind you another dream has come undone
You feel so small and lost like you're the only one
You wanna scream 'cause you're
Desperate
You want somebody, just anybody
To lay their hands on your soul tonight
You want a reason to keep believin'
That someday you're gonna see the light
You're in the dark
There's no one left to call
And sleep's your only friend
Well even sleep
Can't hide you from all those tears
And all the pain and all the days
You wasted pushin' them away
It's your life, it's time you face it ”
~ David Archuleta

“Half of the time I don't know what they're talking about; their jokes seem to relate to a past that everyone but me has shared. I'm a foreigner in the world and I don't understand the language.”
~ Jean Webster

ALONE

“Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven't the answer to a question you've been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you're alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully.”
~ Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration. ”
~ Pearl S. Buck

“And the danger is that in this move toward new horizons and far directions, that I may lose what I have now, and not find anything except loneliness”
~ Sylvia Plath

“Lingering is so very lonely when one lingers all alone.”
~ Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

“Outside the window, there slides past that unimaginable and deserted vastness where night is coming on, the sun declining in ghastly blood-streaked splendour like a public execution across, it would seem, half a continent, where live only bears and shooting stars and the wolves who lap congealing ice from water that holds within it the entire sky. All white with snow as if under dustsheets, as if laid away eternally as soon as brought back from the shop, never to be used or touched. Horrors! And, as on a cyclorama, this unnatural spectacle rolls past at twenty-odd miles an hour in a tidy frame of lace curtains only a little the worse for soot and drapes of a heavy velvet of dark, dusty blue.”
~ Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus

Charlie in the Box

"When we feel love and kindness towards others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it also helps us to develop inner happiness and peace." 

- Dalai Lama

Nobody wants to play with a Charlie in the box.  I love that line in Rudolph when Rudy tries to guess his name, “I know, it’s Jack.” and the reply  “No, my name is Charlie,” the sad crying box goes on to say. So why was Charlie on the Island of Misfit Toys? Because, all together now, “Nobody wants to play with a Charlie in the box.”

As a writer, you will sometimes feel this way as you write things no one wants to hear about themselves in your words. You’ve hit a nerve, and with that you get tossed out onto the Island of Misfits. They don’t mean to, but in their anger, they put up a shield of protection against your words and can not see you there. Either they are justifying their actions, turning a blinds eye, shutting you out completely, or running in FEAR of the truth. They remain at a distance, pretending to care, but really they are the ones that put you on the Island. You are now a misfit.

Nobody wants to play with a ‘Charlie in the box’!

It is okay to be on the Island with other misfit toys, because you have reached into your reader and touched them so much that they hurt, are angered, hate or just want nothing more to do with you, yet they keep on reading your words. You become Charlie; alone, in isolation on the Island, but there, you don’t feel the warmth of being loved and appreciated in life. Or do you? I’m okay with that because I have a mission. I’m not here to please all of the people all of the time, I’m here to strike a nerve within you, as a writer! I am not here waving my arms, flagging down a passing sleigh trying to get someone's attention. I’m not a people pleaser and I’m not an overactive drama queen (or king). I will not conform to a way that others have conformed to because God created me to be more in life. The one thing writers do in life is get easily side-tracked and distracted. You can ask any of them

Why do you think there are so many writing posts on GOALS and FOCUS? It’s because we as writers find the pretty colors and images of the day distracting so we stop writing and put our fingertip in the pool of colors and play. We finger-paint our way through, we play and enjoy what is offered to basically anyone, and you all make sure you put Charlie in his place, and isolate him from Santa’s workshop where all the happening elves are making merry.

Sure why not, as long as you don’t have to write.  You’ll do anything to be distracted from it. Go ahead play all you like, but one day you’re gonna say, “Where did all that writing time go?” Well go look in the sand, there is some words there, oops it’s all washed up, which is what you are, if your not sitting at home, writing the story or novel of your dreams! FOCUS people!

I think I’ve went and isolated a few people with my writings about how addicted everyone is to facebook. Some could care less what I wrote and shrug off my posts. They are the ones confident with who they are, not embarrassed or ashamed at all! They actually HAVE lives. But others have climbed into their closet of guilt. It is theirs, so I let them embrace it for a spell. Me? I’m visiting King Moonracer today and asking him if he has plans to upgrade this place. “Yes, Charlie. You will be our bearer of news to the writing community who tells all the boys and girls about us!” Can you just imagine an isolated writer? :)

 It’s okay, I still have you, all my followers and the new writing sites I’m joining will have new friends too. I might get picked up by Santa after all and put in a nice little home! I’m looking forward to it!

Job 4:16 It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying,

Poetry Sunday ~ Alone ~

Numbers 11:14 I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me.
***

ALONE
***
Alone
in the corners of my mind
I scurry to find
no one there
who gives a care.

Alone
in the crook of his arm
there is no harm
He sets me free
while holding me.

Alone
with nary a friend
at the very end
no one true
who really knew.

Alone
in my walk
allowed to sulk.
I saw pretense
how immense.

Alone
with all my thought
a wish for naught.
Take me home
for my soul to roam.

Alone
with a glorious Light
that scares the night.
I will not fear
because He is here.

Deut. 32:12 So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.

Isolation

Psalms 34:17  The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.
***

As a writer, I enjoy the quiet still mornings where the only sounds I hear is the refrigerator kicking on and off, the creaks of the bed where slumberers are still resting and the wind gently tapping on the window, stirring my muse.

When I was kid, I would go to the park and that is where I would never be found on a seesaw, or a maypole, or sliding board, I could be seen swinging high into the clouds. I’d go so high, I often imagined that I could fly and sometimes, with my eyes closed, I did. In the air of the swings forward motion, I flew off of the swing and soared above the park and saw all the people below laughing, giggling, inane behavior,  while the grass swayed, the clouds spun and I was free, finally free, until I realized, I was just sitting on a swing.

Even as a child I liked isolating myself from people. Maybe that is why I chose to write at such a young age, because no one really liked me, I had few friends, and life was isolation for me, reading and writing.

I don’t isolate intentionally. One day I’m happy go lucky, then I turn around and I’m alone in my thoughts with words bouncing like ping pong balls off the page. Words in a sea of foam, go crashing front and center and elude me but I catch them and toss them onto paper and then, it happens, I’ve written a thousand words that I didn’t even know were lurking in there.

I have this thing with wanting sincere people around me. Whether online or offline, I like people who are sure of where they are going, know where they have been, and have found that God is the only thing in life that will get them from point A to point B.

I can count my genuine friends on one hand, and that’s if I had a few digits missing. The genuine one’s reach out to me, comfort me, and make me feel loved, the others use words words words to convey their sincerity and to me, it is more hurtful than actually comforting me in my time of need. And most, who claim sincerity, wave me off like butter on a piece of toast.

Isolation to a writer is a place of contemplation. The small things run off the shoulder like water off a gooses back, (Canadian friends inside joke there.) It’s the larger and grander things that aren’t so easy to just let roll. They’re there, and you have to face them, write about them and move forward! So today, as my friends whoop and holler and have a grand old time, I will cherish the ones that embrace me in my isolation, love me in the darkness of the day, and bring sunshine and light to a cloudy day. Thank you!