marcu_s

Lately I've been introspective---far, far more introspective than usual. To the point where I am trying to admit ugly things about myself and wondering how to make them beautiful.

In The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis tells the story about a trip from Hell to Heaven. These souls are given one last chance to choose Heaven. Lewis was a firm believer in the act of choosing--as my professor in college, the venerable Dr. Peter Kreeft said, "God is a seducer, not a rapist." The idea that God controls our decisions and our paths is a fallacy. We choose everything. And even when we die, we must choose to be with God. God cannot force us to choose to be with Him ("Him" for all intents and purposes....I like to say "Him"). So when we are faced with the glory of God and the wonder of Love Incarnate, we must summon all the courage we can to say "I choose to be with You, the source of everything good in the universe and all existence."

And in The Great Divorce, these souls arrive in Heaven and see that everything there is more of what it is, as opposed to Hell, where everything is less than what it is. These ghosts cannot lift a blade of grass--the grass is more real than they are. And there is one thread that is particularly moving. A soul has, grafted onto his shoulder, a demon who whispers lies into his ear. The demon, as you would expect, is putrid, foul, and the things he says are pure hatred. The soul to which this demon has attached himself is in agony all the time. An angel asks this soul if he may kill this demon. The soul cries out to the angel that he cannot--he is afraid. The soul cries that to slay the demon is impossible without obliterating his own existence, but the angel persists. The angel takes his sword, and cuts the demon off. The soul writhes and screams in pain--but only for a moment, because the soul, who has chosen to rid himself of the thing that killed him, that made him less of a person, becomes more of what he is and what he had been. He is no longer transparent, gray, miserable; he is beautiful, powerful, and very very real.

And the demon, its hideous corpse lying on the ground, opens and out of the demon springs a white winged horse.

Out of the man's weakness was his beauty and strength.

My problem right now is that I am aware--fully aware--of my demon. What my demon tells me is this: I am not capable of love. I am not equipped to love and be loved. I am also not deserving of love.

I am told I am not normal. Others have lives--they have friends. Their friendships are strong and solid and span years. Their friends are healthy and normal, with houses, cars, babies.

I have no friends, not really. The friends I do have are scattered. They are usually tenuous relationships, or unreliable.

There is something wrong with me.

Perhaps this is just exhaustion. Perhaps I am reading far too much Virginia Woolf. Perhaps I need more sleep. But this is how my brain is working, and I am not quite sure how to shut it off. I went through shock, then grief, and now I just feel numb. I am a little ghost.

You are not normal, the demon says. Nobody could ever love you. It seems that I have been told that--by the one person in my life who I should have been able to trust, the one person who should have been my safe place to fall, but she didn't say that, no she didn't. She said to me, Nobody could ever love you. I am older now, and no matter what I do, I simply cannot shake it. This mantra informs everything I do, say, think, and feel. If anyone really finds out who I am, how ugly and pathetic I am, they will leave.

And so I build walls around me. I push people away, and then I wonder why I am so isolated. I push them away to protect them from me. When someone tries to get close to me, I try to tell them: Do not get mixed up with me, I am no good.

The isolation has become my companion. I do not like it, but I do know what I can expect. I do not want to feel, and my heart is tired of breaking.