The veneer

The veneer

I keep Lord wanting to have it all together.  I put forth a certain façade to the world, put on a smile and joke and laugh with others.  True in it own way, but really just a little, it is after all a veneer.  My writing I guess is the same, a mask, one that puts forth an image that is another shallow covering over a vast inner abyss, filled with both light and darkness….and also something deeper I know, but can’t name.    I suppose the facade is real up to a point, but it covers a vast unknown territory that is within.  I often wonder if “Mark”, the person I identify with has any real existence at all.  I see myself in bits and pieces, some pleasant, others pointed and painful, then there are those aspects that are numb and almost lifeless.  They seem to be asleep; perhaps it is necessary that they are. 
What are we Lord? 

I am grateful for my senses, yet they also seem to keep me locked up in a cell, a large one true, but I still feel like a moth beating against a glass wall trying to get out, to fly, to breathe, to soar and in that I doubt that I am alone.  I remember when young, there were times when dancing, when the music took hold that I felt a release, like I was actually flying, no thought, just me riding the music.  The movement effortless, freeing, and healing and yes coming to an end too soon…. the hours seemed like minutes.  The last song of the evening was always a sort of death to me, this landing back on solid ground. 

You are a revelation, yet we make you into an idol as well.  A few verses, a little anger at others, or hidden contempt and we have a ready made Jesus, sort of a really big bad ass, wanting only to kick some butt.   Forgetting that you are the revelation of the incomprehensible in human form, a mystery our faith could spend thousands of years seeking to understand and still only be at the beginning……still we make you like us.  In you, there is no inner abyss, no struggle with rage, hatred or contempt for others, which is a shadow of actual self contempt.  Deep is your salvation, long the purification, slow the growth, yet at times I presume, when losing track of myself, to judge others, to box in what can’t be contained in any way. 

You Lord point to our own inner mystery, for we are made in your image and likeness.  Paradox rules; we find you in those we hate, condemn and perhaps in our deepest hearts, in a place that only you can see and love; the desire to kill.  In doing so, we come face to face with our own demonic rage filled core manifested in our world, with its wars and injustice and yes our scape-goating.  How tired the world is, how weary, yet as if we can’t stop, as if we are addicted to self destruction, we continue on our journey, pretending that everything is all right.  Perhaps it is, but in a way deeper than my understanding can comprehend.