The Way of Holy Terror: An Invitation (Part II)
The second part: The assignment
This is The Meadow, a place to create space for those seeking to be more fully awake and alive in the world.
Last week, I posted Part I of the Way of Holy Terror. Now it is time for the scarier part. I gave myself the following assignment last November. I may have taken the assignment from a book; I don’t remember, but here it is: Speak the most true thing without trying to please, teach, inform, edify, judge, or degrade. I am curious—what would you say if given this assignment? If you feel brave enough to share, I’d love to read your thoughts. And now, onto Part II….
From 11/12/23: The Way of Holy Terror: An Invitation (Part II)
Assignment: Speak the most true thing without trying to please, teach, inform, edify, judge, or degrade.
I am nothing, no one. I am not beautiful. Am no longer young. My mind is no longer sharp. I have loose skin and jowls. Neither am I noble or disciplined. I love comfort. I hide from pain, turning in on myself, blocking everyone out. I don’t wake up early. I stay up late. I eat ice cream every time I want it. I don’t count out M&Ms—I eat them by the handful. I used to want to be good. Used to think I was on the road of holiness. Then I saw what love looked like—from a middle-aged non-Christian who didn’t even spell well and sometimes said ignorant things. My idea of myself crumbled after that. I’m still picking up the pieces wondering what’s worth keeping.
And who are you?
What stories do you tell yourself?
What’s preventing you from opening that door, letting the holy darkness in to claim you as its own?
We fly to therapy, schedule massages, drink a second glass of wine. Binge the third episode of the Bachelor. We follow rabbit holes on TikTok, buy products to make our life better or more beautiful.
I do it!
I bought it—the latest book by X, the Substack subscription, the Patreon, the spices to make my boring microwaved food taste amazing. The Calm subscription, the flute-like tube on a necklace to calm my anxiety.
I’ve researched psychedelic therapy, found the most expensive tattoo artist in Orlando, and spent hours searching for the perfect image to ink on my shoulder.
We do it!
I’m not judging
I’m just whispering
Maybe there is more.
It is the way of emptying, not adding
The way of opening a door and it’s all dark outside and you free fall
in blind trust alone
that you will be caught before you smash your brain on the concrete.
It’s the way of holy terror.
For this God, this God that created the fire of the sun,
Is not a pet kitten
Is not your grandfather
I don’t even think he’s nice.
He’s not been nice to me.
He’s been a refining fire.
He’s been truth that stripped me naked and left me gasping
One taste of him and I hide for weeks in a cocoon of soft blankets and sugar.
It is the piercing blue eyes of the lover who won’t let you look away from his gaze when he enters you.
He’s not cruel but he is deliberate.
And he wants you to be awake.
To wake up.
But waking up is terrifying.
We wake to see death right by our side—
Wide jaws ready to snatch all we love and hold most dear
Death always seems to win.
This is no prosperity gospel.
This is not “everything will all work out.”
This is:
You finally get pregnant after years of trying and then pregnancy sucks. Nine months of nausea. Everything but crackers makes you want to vomit. You split wide open in a vaginal birth as your doula disappears and the pain meds get injected too late. You scream and a baby is born and all you feel is relief to not be in pain. But the baby, something is wrong. Something is wrong. And you spend the next 20 years fighting the world for his care.
This is:
Your father is finally retired after a lifetime of painful work and then he gets a heart attack and loses his retirement and dies broke and in awful pain, a skeleton of a man.
This is:
Schools telling kids they can’t talk at lunch, taking away their recess, adding hours of reading instruction and taking away art. Kids unseen, shushed, squeezed into boxes, suffocating.
This is a brutal world. And to wake up is to wake up to our own impotence to fix, heal, or make anything better.
So, why would we wake? Why not all be Alfred J Prufrock, where our biggest worry is whether to eat a peach?
I want to sink my teeth into the ripest peach. Tear apart its sweaty flesh, let the juice run down my throat, my face.
I want to run so fast I break the sound barrier and my feet leave the ground.
I don’t want to be good, nice, or pretty.
In the room the women come and go, speaking of….Taylor Swift.
AI is here, and Holden Caulfield’s phony has triumphed. Botoxed faces, dyed hair, sand-blasted skin.
Where is the real?
Making fun of the fake doesn’t open the door to the real
You have to put your hand on the handle
—The handle is hot, it’s burning
You have to turn the knob
—It‘s hard, it hurts, my wrist is breaking
You have to pull the door inward
—I’m suffocating!
And then you have to let go and breathe in what
walks through that doorway
It might be your death.
It most probably is.
Do you believe in resurrection?
Tick tock
Tick tock
Better get moving, get productive. Do something, post something.
Get that run in. Do your 12 minutes of meditation.
This God is not a god of productivity.
What is productive about a platypus?
About a day of rest?
This is a God of Being
Not Doing
Doing spouts forth from Being
Not the opposite.
I have had all these things locked inside me
Like an underwater chest
A treasure
And fear of being found out has kept me from saying it
And fear of being ignored
And fear of being dismissed
And fear of being ridiculed
So I tuck in my shirt, put on my face I keep in a jar
The face that makes me acceptable to others
Or at least invisible
If I didn’t put on this mask, they’d laugh at me, lock me up.
Take away my kids.
(This is the voice of fear speaking. It is very familiar to me.)
I am usually a very obedient student of fear.
Do you hate me now, seeing my weakness?
All I have ever wanted was to belong. I’ve put on my face. I’ve checked the boxes. I’ve been a good citizen. I vote! I pay taxes! I tithe to the poor! I text friends on their birthdays. I write down my gratitudes. I stop at one candy bar. I smile at the stranger.
—I am a monster.
Despite the face, the tucked in shirt, the checked boxes, the smile
I can’t hide my wanting.
It seeps out my pores.
It smells acrid like sweat. Sweet like sex.
I wipe it off, fix my face, change my shirt. Smile back in place. I’m listening, yes. I won’t interrupt. I nod my head. Apologize when irritation cracks through.
I’m a good girl. Good girl.
Woof woof
But I know the truth.
I’m a wolf with unhinged jaws.
I want to swallow the world, licking my lips
as I gulp it down.
Photo by Jeroen Bosch on Unsplash
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