{"id":13064,"date":"2014-12-26T18:00:09","date_gmt":"2014-12-26T23:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/?p=13064"},"modified":"2014-12-26T20:07:40","modified_gmt":"2014-12-27T01:07:40","slug":"a-year-of-hard-roads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/?p=13064","title":{"rendered":"A Year of Hard Roads…"},"content":{"rendered":"

photo-2-small.JPG<\/a><\/p>\n

For have you not retrieved from exile the desperate lives
\nof men who never found their home? Have you not opened
\nyour dark door for us who never yet found doors to enter?<\/p>\n

—Thomas Wolfe
\n_______________<\/p>\n

Well, it\u2019s that time again. Seems like not that long ago, when I last posted that last blog of the year. When one looks back and takes stock a bit. I guess that\u2019s what one is expected to do. It\u2019s what I\u2019ve done, mostly, in the past. Look back, recount and reflect. And tab it out, all the stuff that happened. Good, bad, ugly. And I was figuring to do just that. But when I sat down to pound it out, there was one thing that kept surfacing in my head. One new realization, one new thing of wonder, that stood out above all the rest.<\/p>\n

That right there was the opening paragraph for my last blog of 2012, almost exactly two years ago. And I went back, and looked at that opening paragraph. And decided to copy it over, word for word, to open this last blog of 2014. Back then, that \u201cnew thing of wonder\u201d I discovered was how much I am like my Dad. And it was a big deal to me to figure all that out. This year, that new thing of wonder is way out there in left field, in a totally different dimension. But still, those opening words are every bit as true as they were two years ago. Just in a different way.<\/p>\n

2014. It\u2019s been one rough and hellish year. I won\u2019t beat around the bush about any of all that. It was a year of real hard roads. A dark year, when pretty much anything that could go wrong went wrong. Almost from the first day, it was that way. Well, at least since last March. March has been kind of an evil, skittish month to me, in the past. That\u2019s when Ellen left our home, in March, seven years ago, after seven years of marriage. It all was what it was, timing wise, and I\u2019m sure the month of March would protest, if it could, that I hold it in such low esteem. And yeah, maybe I have a little chip on my shoulder, at it. But still. Just look at the record. This past March was when my heart went all whacked out and crazy on me. It was pretty brutal stuff, and it came down in a real dark place. I wrote it all out when it happened. <\/p>\n

I remember talking to a friend, soon after I got out of the hospital last March. When I was on all that poisonous Coumadin they sentenced me to take every day. I was pretty depressed about it all, and told him so. He told me. If you get your heart worked on, especially if you\u2019re a man, you will go into real depression at some point, soon after you get out. My friend was talking about the more serious heart procedures, like the one he went through, more than ten years back. Mine was just a flutter, that they went up and seared. <\/p>\n

And I told my friend. Yeah. I hear that. I wasn\u2019t in a good place emotionally, when my heart went all crazy. And I remember how vivid all of life was to me, right after I got out of the hospital. All of it, the colors, the feelings, the intensity of it all. I guess that happened because you get a real sense of your own mortality, when you get your heart worked on. And yeah, I sank down into a real dark place, right soon after I got out, too. It was all pretty brutal. And I stayed there in that darkness, off and on, for way too long in 2014. <\/p>\n

One thing I did, though, this past year. I wrote it as it came. I wrote from where I was, from all the dark places that came at me right out of nowhere. And I gotta say this. I look back at my production on the blog this year, and I feel pretty satisfied. Some of that writing is the best I\u2019ve ever done. The best that ever came out of me, including the book. And I don\u2019t need anyone\u2019s permission to say that. I can just say it, because that\u2019s what I think. That was one bright spot, looking back over the bleakness that was this year. The writing that came was first class stuff. Not all of it. But some of it. And, yeah, sure, I know. It\u2019s all free, right here, that writing. It just doesn\u2019t matter to me, that little point. That\u2019s how I produce. This blog is the norm, the place I speak from, the place where my writing voice was born. The book was an aberration that may or may not happen again. <\/p>\n

After March, here came April. That\u2019s when Mom left us, after a brutal week-long struggle with the flu. They told me, the ones who were there at the end. It was not a pretty, peaceful passing. It was the ugliness of death, the ugliness of life slowly seeping from a frail and wasted body, when there was nothing left to hold on to. There was no dignity, there at the end, for Mom. It was a cruel death. Dark and senseless and brutal. The family gathered from all over, and we grieved the matriarch of our clan. And then we buried her. It was an intense and bonding thing. <\/p>\n

Somewhere in there, soon after Mom\u2019s funeral, I kicked the medical people out of my life. Got off all the pharmaceuticals they had me on. It was all pretty strange, in a lot of ways, how that all happened. And from somewhere it came to me, about right then. Sit down and write. Write your next book. So I boldly stated on my blog, soon after March. Some serious writing\u2019s coming. I don\u2019t know for sure what it is. But I\u2019m feeling it. And I\u2019m fixing to invite it all in, real soon. I don\u2019t give a hoot about a sequel. I really don\u2019t. If it doesn\u2019t come right, it\u2019ll never get told. And I\u2019m totally fine with that. I\u2019d rather be remembered as a \u201cone hit wonder\u201d than to ever crank out another book that\u2019s not coming from my heart, simply for the money. <\/p>\n

And now, as 2015 comes at me, I\u2019m fixing to poke around a bit, to see if a second book can come right. I have a pretty good idea of the parameters of that book, at least how I saw it when I was getting ready to go in and relive it. It\u2019ll open, with me driving up to Aylmer to see Dad, like I wrote in July of last year. It\u2019ll open with the opening scenes of The Lion in Winter. And it\u2019ll close with the two most wayward sons stooping to place roses on the soft earth above their mother. Between those two scenes, I figure, there\u2019s a flashback book in there somewhere, about what all happened, and how it all got to where it did. In 2015, I plan to play around with all that. I most definitely plan to. I have no idea if it\u2019ll take off or not, the writing of it. If it comes, I\u2019ll speak it. If it doesn\u2019t come, I\u2019ll wait until it does. But I feel it coming, the next chapter of my story. It\u2019s close. Soon, it will come. It\u2019s close. <\/p>\n

And this is just how it went, last summer. I was figuring to work a bit, on the sequel. I had the outline in my head. And just about when I was ready to walk into that opening room, here came more of the pure hell that was this year. Little Abby drowned. That pretty much took the sails out of anything I had, other than walking into life and writing what I saw from where I was. It was a brutal, brutal loss, the death of Abby. I\u2019m not sure if the extended family has fully grasped what just was taken from us, as a clan. Well. I mean, I\u2019m not sure any close or extended family can ever fully grasp the depth of such a loss. It all made me want to rend my clothes and curse the heavens in despair, back when it happened. But I didn\u2019t curse, and I didn\u2019t rend my clothes. I just wrote the story, instead, from where I was. Abby\u2019s blog and Mom\u2019s funeral blog. Those two narratives are among the very best of anything I\u2019ve ever written. <\/p>\n

And then Dad almost left us. I mean, it was that close, he was gone. Somehow, the man pulled back. He is one tough, tough, old guy. And I went up to see him, just a month or so back. He was excited to see me. And now, he\u2019s all excited to be going down to Pine Craft, the first of the year. It\u2019s what keeps him going, the excitement of all that. The anticipation. That, and he\u2019s still got another three volumes to write, for his memoirs. He just came out with the second. My Stretch in the Service. He sent me a signed copy, and I\u2019ve been perusing it. It\u2019s much better writing than his first book was. I think the man is finding his stride, when it comes to telling his story. I\u2019m reading stuff I never, never knew before. <\/p>\n

And I kind of looked forward to it, the last blog of this year. It should be pretty simple, to get riled into a real rant about it all. That\u2019s what I figured, and that was my full intention, when I started writing this. To get all riled up. To grumble and seethe at God. To just tell Him how it is. To rage at Him like I raged, back when Mom was just hanging on for no reason, except He wouldn\u2019t call her home to Him. And yeah, I\u2019m still a little pissed about how that all went, with Mom. Moving on up to now, though. <\/p>\n

My life has been nothing but pain, lately. That\u2019s what I figured to tell the Lord. Come on. You can do better than that. Give me some blessings, once in a while. Not that You haven\u2019t. Like the Bible Study. That came out of nowhere. But lately, those sure have been sparse. I\u2019ve seen nothing but bullshit, most of this year. And yeah, I\u2019ll use that word when I\u2019m talking to You. You know full well what I mean. It\u2019s been crap, and You know it. I\u2019ve been self-medicating, in ways I do not like. I need to get a grip. I\u2019m just waiting here, to get all healed and speaking praises. Come on. Work your magic. Heal me from this year. <\/p>\n

Those are the things I figured to say to God. Without any shame. You speak from your heart, that\u2019s what I\u2019ve said before. That\u2019s what Pastor Mark always preaches. If you\u2019re brooding and wounded, speak from that place. Well. It\u2019s not turning out quite the way I thought it would, the writing of it from that place. And I\u2019m not quite sure how to describe it all. So I guess I\u2019ll just turn to a story that I feel like telling right this moment, for some reason. It\u2019s a story I heard many times as a child. Mostly I heard it told in church, as a tiny little sliver in some otherwise long and droning sermon. In rough memory form, the story goes like this, right here. <\/p>\n

There was a prophet, back there in the Old Testament. A prophet from God, living out there in the wilderness. In the land of a heathen king. The king knew the prophet, knew that he was a man of God, a man who had some special powers. And the king came to the prophet one day to call in a favor. Or maybe he was courting, for the first time. I don\u2019t remember. But the king wanted help. There were some people passing through the kingdom, a great tribe of warriors. And the king was very scared of that tribe of warriors. So he came to the prophet with gifts of great finery, gifts of gold and linen and fine clothes. \u201cCome with me to a high place,\u201d the king said. \u201cI want you to curse the invaders. I want you to curse them in the name of your God.\u201d<\/p>\n

The prophet was a bit of a shyster, I\u2019ve always thought, from hearing the story. Not saying that I would have reacted any different, had I been him. I\u2019m not judging his heart. He was flattered that the king came to him for help. He was flattered, to be so important. And he agreed, quite cheerfully, from what I heard told. So off they went, the two of them, and the king\u2019s large entourage. The king took the prophet to a high place, and they looked down on the great tribe of warriors, camped out in the valley below. \u201cOK,\u201d the king said. \u201cNow curse those people for me. I\u2019ve paid you good money, to do this. So curse them, in the name of your God.\u201d<\/p>\n

The prophet stepped up to speak his curse, just like he\u2019d been paid to do. But strangely, when the words flowed from him, those words weren\u2019t curses. It was all blessings, that came out of his mouth. They would be victorious, wherever they marched, those warriors down there in the valley. They would be victorious. And the king, the very king who was paying the prophet to speak, that king would be their servant. <\/p>\n

I imagine the king was pretty speechless, right off, after the prophet quit speaking. But not for long. You can bet he hollered at the prophet. \u201cWhat? I hired you to curse the children of Israel. You took my money. And you just went out and blessed them. Are you insane?\u201d And the prophet was all greasy, being the shyster he was. Pay me again. I\u2019ll curse your enemies, this time. I think the prophet had every intention, to go through with his promise. He figured he\u2019d deliver a curse on the king\u2019s enemies, this time. And the king bought it. He paid the prophet again. And again, the two of them went to a high place, from where the prophet would spit out all the curses he was paid to speak. They would be cursed, those invaders. <\/p>\n

Again, the prophet opened his mouth to curse. And again, only blessings rolled out. The king about had a stroke. And he yelled at the prophet again. \u201cWhat in the world do you think you\u2019re doing? I\u2019m paying you, here.\u201d And the prophet could only shrug his shoulders helplessly. He could only speak the words the Lord allowed him to speak. That\u2019s what he told the king. And in the end, the king gave up, trying to tell the prophet to curse his enemies. It obviously wasn\u2019t working. I figure the king actually feared the prophet as a man of God. Otherwise, he would just have had his head chopped off. I figure there was fear, there, in the king\u2019s heart. Because that didn\u2019t happen, no matter how mad he was at the shyster prophet. <\/p>\n

And what does that little tale have to do with anything? You might ask. You might, indeed. I\u2019m in a very strange place, here. A place I\u2019ve never seen before. I mean, I want to rage against all the crap that this year was. I want to seethe, and I want to vent against God for all the BS that came at me in 2014. I really, really want to. Just as much as Balaam wanted to curse King Balaak\u2019s enemies. I really want to speak all that darkness, cry to the heavens, call out in despair and grief and gloom. But I just can\u2019t. It\u2019s so clear to see, from here, when I\u2019m trying to write it. I can\u2019t speak curses. I can\u2019t grumble against that which God does not want me to speak. I just can\u2019t do it. It\u2019s like my hands are tied. <\/p>\n

I can only speak words of blessing, looking back over the year that was. And I can only speak those words from a grateful heart. Because all of life is a gift. And all of life is a precious and beautiful thing. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve always claimed to believe, when things were pretty much going my way. It\u2019s either all of life, or it\u2019s not, what I believe. And I have only words of blessing, for all this past year hit me with. Words of blessing, because it all was what it was, for reasons I will never understand. The Lord does that. Brings stuff into your life, to forge and shape you. Oh, yes. There was all kinds of forging and shaping going on that I wasn\u2019t seeing, back when I was focused on all the crap raining down around me. Oh, yes, there was. <\/p>\n

Funny thing is, though, when it comes right down to it, I\u2019m not even sure what real words of blessing sound like when you speak them. I\u2019ve never been here before, in a place as strange as this, where I\u2019m called to speak when I don\u2019t know for sure what the words I\u2019m supposed to speak sound like. But I\u2019m committed to speaking them. I\u2019m not quite sure how this will all turn out. I\u2019m in a new place, and I\u2019m just telling you what I see and feel, walking through that new door. Just give me a little time. I think I\u2019ll figure it all out.<\/p>\n

I have no idea what 2015 may bring. I have so looked forward to this year being over. Just to move on, to leave behind all those hard and ugly things. And I simply don\u2019t know. Maybe that new place will bring even worse stuff than what I saw this year. It doesn\u2019t matter, though, whether it\u2019s worse or better, what the New Year will bring. <\/p>\n

All that matters is this. I\u2019m looking forward to it. And it will be a year of blessings. <\/p>\n

Happy New Year to all my readers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For have you not retrieved from exile the desperate lives of men who never found their home? Have you not opened your dark door for us who never yet found doors to enter? —Thomas Wolfe _______________ Well, it\u2019s that time again. Seems like not that long ago, when I last posted that last blog of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13064"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13080,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13064\/revisions\/13080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irawagler.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}