Antidote … September 22, 2013

Jonathots Daily Blog

(2014)

I am a poison.

It is a rather recent discovery; may I say, somewhat disheartening?

I always viewed myself as a perpetually refreshing drink, cooling and soothing–a blessing, if you will.

I’ve worked very hard … (Oh, forgive me for that. How pretentious.) Truthfully, I’ve simply focused on a couple of principles of congeniality in an attempt to turn myself into a pleasant beverage.

So imagine my surprise the other night, when I discovered that a relationship I’ve nurtured for twenty-one years was actually needful of termination in order for the person I was trying to assist and enlighten to escape my poison.

Yes, to him, I was deadly.

It isn’t true of most folks. Most individuals I encounter take in my elixir and find it intoxicating and sweet. But I must be fully aware that the choices I’ve made, the person I’ve become and the attitudes I hold dear are poisonous to travelers whose bumps in the road have varied greatly from mine.

I wondered if there was a way for me to change my configuration just enough to cease to be venom to this journeyman–and then I came to the conclusion that some things are just not meant to be. The reason we need everybody in the whole world is because the world is big and varied in its tastes, and one dose of medicine does not necessarily heal all ailments.

Still, I felt a deep sense of loss and hurt. Was it vanity? Was it some sort of childish tantrum: “How dare this human being find ME repugnant?”

Did I really care about him? Or only have feelings about him as it related to me?

Good questions. I’m really not sure.

But you see, it doesn’t really make any difference. In this case, I am a dose of humanity which should be bypassed because my chemistry is lethal.

There is a maturity that settles into our souls when we realize that we are not someone’s cup of tea, but instead, their mug of hemlock.

Is it possible to have universal value? Yes. But that treasure always has to contain the word “love,” and the presence of love always means to seek better for others.

I am not “better” for my friend. My way of thinking, doing, walking and living is a source of aggravation.

This is why we need a savior–because quite honestly, none of us are able to save ourselves and the human representations around us are often murderous.

I learned something. I came to the blessed conclusion that we make ourselves available to others, allow them to sip and not insist that they gulp, granting them  the opportunity to determine whether our particular concoction is nutritious to their being.

We grow up as people when we realize that if they need us it is good … and if they don’t, it is even better.

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Poison Pal … July 15, 2012

(1,577)

Foolish man that I am, I had convinced myself that I was immune. I believed that I had built up a toleration against the venom that often spews from your soul in response to my obviously insufficient endeavors.

You want to hear something even more comical? Uniting my faith, hope and charity, I actually contended that I had discovered an antidote to such poison. Yet there is always a new way to be attacked and a surprise ambush available to suppress any claim of innocence.

Why have you chosen to be my enemy? Why have you selected to side with those who are against me–and even though their numbers may dwindle, you try to prop up their meager attempts at revenge by adding greater significance to their misgivings?

After hundreds of letters and notes, we seem incapable of creating any kind of treaty between the two of us. Part of me wants to be absolutely devastated and enraged by what I view to be irrational and unjust accusations.

I feel prosecuted, convicted and executed without ever understanding my crime. I have grown weary in the well-doing of justifying your behavior as frustration that is cast upon me because you have scared away all other possible victims. You are bitter–and there is never a passage from “bitter” to “better.” Bitterness demands that we find the root and destroy it so as never to allow the evil sprout to protrude from our beings again.

Yet I don’t understand such an anemic statement because it carries the double punishment of being inflicted and ignorant. Why is there such a desire, even a gnawing passion within my soul, to strike back at you because you leave yourself so vulnerable with your ineptness, jealousy and failed projects?

You are the walking contradiction to your own philosophy. You are the evidence that drives people away from ever wanting to be created in your image. Yet even as I write these words, regurgitated from exasperation, I feel shame. Or maybe it’s just that I feel trivial and predictable–to be involved in such a miniscule battle over absolutely no available turf.

You are supposed to be important to me. Yet I grow absolutely exhausted trying to expend energy to cause our relationship to have significance when you have relegated me to such a worthless state. I am not accustomed to being treated so. I am not one who automatically is able to produce graciousness from my soul with a demure smile and a silent prayer.

For after all, it’s virtually impossible to initiate activities of a positive nature if you have allowed yourself to believe that your humble talents are meaningless. Yes, I will admit it: I believe in myself. And I resent the hell out of you for trying to make me extinguish the flame of joy and confidence that God has permitted me to have–to be the light of the world.

You never had yours–so you want to destroy mine.

You never loved–so you dream of rendering me loveless.

You never possessed victory–so you want to rewrite the history of my success.

I can’t let you do this, even though I have no will to stand against you, nor heart to be your adversary. You are poison. It is not a poison that has been manufactured in some factory in a faraway land, but rather, squeezed from your own reticent and recalcitrant spirit, and dribbled out on anyone who would suggest that life is good.

• You are Booth–a shot in the dark for my rear.
• You are Brutus–a stabbing pain in my heart.
• And Iscariot–a garden-variety traitor.

But hatred is difficult to me. I don’t know whether it’s because I find it to be surrender, distasteful or just a one-way street that leads to a dead end. For after all, where do you go from hate? With love, you have the options of mercy, grace, tenderness, discovery, growth and generosity. Hate just seems to stop and sit in a corner by itself and gnaw on its own leg.

I can’t do that.

When I listened to you speak yesterday–or wait–was it the lack of words? I forget. But what seemed to envelop my entire being was a sense of your indifference to all my overtures of creating concert between us.

I don’t understand. I despise the sensation of being without remedy or comprehension. Do you really hate me? Or just don’t know what to do with me and have selected to erupt like a volcano in your frustration and indecision?

You are my poison pal. For after all, there is a cross we all bear, but somewhere along the line we have to be intelligent enough not to climb up on it and be nailed down. Crucifixion belonged to a Savior, not to a mere mortal like me, who is baffled by the responsibility.

You are poison. Dare I drink the dregs of this cup and think that I will not damage my own internal parts? What should I do? What can I do? What is permissible to do?

Oh, forget that. I am so tired of trying to be upright that I am downright angry with the notion. You are poison.

Yet … for some inexplicable reason, I still feel compelled to love you.

Love.

Love is often the tenacious bastard, abandoned to foster care, absent the milk of human kindness.

   

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