A Crisis Of Credit, Identity Theft

It is nearly impossible for me to write anything anymore. I have overdrawn my checking account; I am deep in the negative. There are little slips showing up in my mail box: the bank wants its money. I dig deep into my pockets, I search beneath the cushions of the sofa, I paw through the rejectamenta of my car's glove box. Nothing but a few coins.

Surely the bank will not care if I tape them to a card and toss it in the post.

____________________

Perhaps I am exhausted by a particular pleasure. It's a sordid one, I admit, and one thoroughly pervasive in our culture. It is the pleasure derived from criticism, of reading criticism, of being a critic. It is the fatigue that befalls the cynic, particularly the reluctant cynic.

But maybe it's not about criticism. Maybe I am tired of defending what I believe. Maybe I am worn through, having given way like the denim that covered a little boy's knees. Or maybe I am empty, not because I have given too much away, but because I can't find anything to replenish my mind. In this case, it's not what comes out of a man that corrupts him. What corrupts a man is that there is nothing going in.

Perhaps.

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Of course, the problem lies with me, within me. I am a fool for looking "out there" for things to fill the void. The poets and prophets know better (or so they say) and I should too, as I've read their couplets and been burned by their ire. To look elsewhere than myself is to cast blame, to look for a target onto which I might cast aspersions. It is to out-source, if you will, the problem, the cause of the malaise. My grief is not, ultimately, rooted in injustice, or in the vapidity of presidential campaigns, or in the obscenities of culture. My grief is mine: I am the source of my weakness. For I have, in part, put too much meaning, too much import and value, on things outside myself. Such objects of devotion are indeed idols, and they may take the form of real people, like a spouse or a president; or they may be ideas or ideologies or promises uttered by a candidate reported to be as good as Christ.

Indeed, I DO place too much meaning on things. I once was rejected by a woman -- a woman! -- because she thought I held sex in too high esteem: She chided me that sex was "too meaningful" for me. I recall at my 20th high school reunion a conversation I had with an old friend, Helen. She told me that in high school I scared women off because, as she said, "you wanted to get into their heads, and not their pants." How could I reply that I thought that was what women wanted?

I confess my guilt. I have put my hope and trust in things.

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What does it mean to be happy? Is it enough to to get up in the morning and drink tea while watching the day's birds gather outside on limbs and lawn? Is it enough to ask God to forgive me, again, for forgetting that He is not an idol, a talisman, a magic lamp? And is it enough to say little prayers, just little ones? Is it enough to ask God questions in the morning, and then, beneath the deep night's full moon, ask the same questions again? Does a loving father ever tire of little talks with his children? Is he deaf to the chattering choruses of "why, why, why?" Does he grow weary of giving answers?

In all my years loving birds, I've never heard one bird change its song, nor have I ever grown weary of hearing the same winged symphony. Let the chickadee sing the same song all day, for it comforts me. The crow soothes me. The oriole and the rose-breasted grosbeak bring me no small joy.

Of course, I correct myself. There is one bird I know that does change its song. I will not mention that bird here, for its name almost suggests harassment. But I love that bird's nocturnal tunes, though its voice is that of all other birds (and other similar sounds) and not its own. Perhaps today I am like that bird -- that voice of many voices -- calling out in the night, trying out many songs, hoping to land on one that is, in the end, the voice I thought I had.

And I wonder, in the end, if happiness is really rather simple, and it has just one voice: Gratitude.


Peace.

BG

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.