Anguish

Dearest love,

I have just finished writing you a rather long and anguished love letter, the likes of which I cannot, in all good conscience, even contemplate sending...let alone to you. It would be best for me to burn the thing--or to post it to Assisi.

Alas, I am cowardly! And what I ask of others I scarcely dare contemplate for myself. Far be it from me to send people running for the hills then. The thing is though, with every post that comes to to Assisi I become more and more distressed and irate. The worst of it is though, my distress is ninety percent pure envy.  And yes, I do remember enough of my catechism to realize that envy is counted among the seven deadlies. But so it is.  I am an old dragon, and dragons fly with their mate or they go it solo.


 I am not so bloody self-assured that I am immune to the darkest depth of doubt where my gifts and talents are concerned, and well, what it comes down to is that I have decided it were better for all concerned that I quit Assisi entirely.

I recognize genius when I see it, Suzie, but I am not so mature or so noble that I will gladly share the bloody field with it. That is strictly a male thing. But so it is. Alas, I am not even beyond the crudity of spiritual one-up-manship. I also recognize spiritual superiority when I see it, and spiritual superiority coupled with genius I will tolerate in no other man, least of all if he happens to be playing ball on my home turf. Quite honestly I wouldn't trust the Lord Jesus himself to be alone with you for five minutes. Him least of all, actually.

I am truly ashamed of myself. And well I should be. To think that I would let envy and machismo and plain old ego stand in the way of world-peace.  But so it is.

I am feeling extremely insecure just now, especially where my writing is concerned, and now, having to share you with so many others in an open forum--all of it is making me feel downright inadequate, stupid, impotent and very much the total schlump. And all the more so because now that you have Michael on board I have become utterly superfluous and irrelevant anyway.  With him to take care of it, the whole fucking world is in good hands.  Well, he can have it then.  I bow out and concede the humiliation of galling defeat. Around him and his pretty, elegant phrases, his glowing wit and his intellectual brilliance I'm nothing but a tasteless joke written on the side of a toilet stall.

No, I am not jealous.  I am envious as all hell, and that is far worse.  If I were merely jealous I would have only to murder him, and be done with it, but to so wantonly waste a mind as precious as his on so indulgent and trivial a prodigality as homicide--that would be truly unconscionable. I cannot help but like what he says.  That bugs me. If I hear one more word out of him I will never write so much as another word on any forum but rather will I cast my pen into the sea and forever hold my tongue.

And by the way...if you wonder why so many forums turn into cat-fights between infants....look no further. Helen launched a thousand ships, dear.  It was her pretty face that ended Troy, no less than that, and hardly more.  People might start wars on account of misplaced idealism, but no ideal however noble ever stood in the way of simple human insecurity. We tend to forget that the world in which we meet is in some ways far more real than the one which houses our bodies.  Alliances are formed here.  Intrigue abounds. It is all very, very real. And who should know that better than you and I?

Its people we have to deal with, after all.  Terrified people.  And terrified people are known to do irrational things--like slaughter each other in the name of universal peace. And we must not forget either that is for such as these that we become as less than nothing, over and over again.  And against that very real injustice we must guard our own pain and the violence thereof lest it strike the very ones that gave it just cause.

Michael carries a sword, remember? It wasn't forged for lack of use. It is shiny and new looking, but only because it is washed in the tears of the lamb. And at what cost? Would we buy peace for less? What is it really worth to us and what does it mean to us?  Such are the questions we need to seriously ask ourselves and each other. Because the first thing our desire for peace is going to come up against is not a legion of devils. No. It is going to come up against our own very human folly and ignorance and weakness. On such fair heights as those will rise and fall the fates of mice and men. The rest is just details!

I guess I need some reassurance just now. I know that you love me and that our love is forever, but still--tell me again that we are an indissoluble unit--a team as fast as the ramparts of the very sky despite the infinite extent of my ignorance, my execrable skills as a writer and my utter lack of sexy human graces.

Okay, so if you left me I could forgive you...but not if you left me for a mortal man, however shiny and new.