Peace! Be Still!

Peace Be Still (#20)

And he awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. Mark 4:39

I have been afraid my whole life. It’s something I’ve learned to live with whether it was fear of my mother and father’s battles destroying the fragile world I’d come to call family or of hoping no one found out about my sexuality when I was a boy. Either scenario was the apocalypse and I’ve lived at that awful precipice all my life, never knowing what situation would push me over into the abyss. That fear has morphed over the years and changed into other kinds of fear when I and my siblings were old enough to stop my parents from fighting and I got tired of trying to hide my sexuality. Fear is always with me.

Over the years it has come to cover me whole like a cloak. It shields and comforts like the friend you never had growing up to make you feel safe. It keeps you alert at the mall, or walking down the street in your own neighborhood. Your body learns instinctively to bear itself in a certain hunched stance so the cloak never slips off. It shields you against the words you might be called (and have been called so many times before); those words can be as sharp as the tip of arrows to cut deep and bear a poison that can paralyze the mind into an embarrassing stasis. I’ve come to realize that those who say they have a thick skin and the words don’t bother them are often lying. The words cloud the air like a toxic cloud and we all breathe it in and somewhere down the road of life it turns cancerous, causing us to see the world from the skewed and killing angle of fear. And that’s when you realize that the fear is everywhere. If you’re not careful you’ll begin to believe that the fear is all that is there in the world because so many are subject to it.

Still Spirit is attempting to show me another world that counters that fear or at least leads me to understand that I don’t have to be a slave to it.

Recently in the process of adoption, I had to forego a weekend with my son to do battle with one of the organizations handling the foster care/adoption process. I did talk to him beforehand and explained to him that he wouldn’t be coming to spend the weekend with me. His first question of course was, “Have I done something wrong?” I explained to him that he hadn’t and I had to wrestle with grown folks about some grown folks stuff around him, but when it was settled I’d get him again.

I missed him that weekend terribly, but it was a process of learning to trust that the universe would unfold as it should and hopefully that that unfolding would be all good. As much as I’ve tried not to put it in good vs. evil terms I still have to fall on the side of judgment that expects that a good and loving thing will emerge from the ashes of pain and suffering. Hopefully, out of such hard decisions that we have to make in life that are neither popular nor look good on the surface that good will emerge or should I say the hope of life for something better.

The opportunities for fear to get the upper hand in my soul are forever rising. There was a conversation exchanged today with someone who made the comment about my leaving at 5 o’clock that “You’re salaried and you can stay longer as much time as we’ve given you off to get your son.” I thought it was one of the cruelest things anyone has ever said to me, but when I came home and sat with it, I had to stop and realize that this is just a means for me to make a decision. I can start looking for another job which I’m always open to, it’s just that dealing with getting my son has made me put that search on lockdown for awhile. Then this happened. I thought to not say anything wondering what would happen if I spoke my mind, if I said how I really felt about such a cruel remark from someone always claiming to help me get my son. It makes gifts offered and kindnesses shown forever suspect and you learn to trust less and less.

I have had to face my fear all over again when I look at those things that could threaten my getting him like a viable job. I’m deciding how to deal with this. Bide my time until I can find another job with less people knowing about the joys and trials of being a new father or I can say something to defend myself. I’m more than likely to say something and let the chips fall where they may. Again, I’m facing my fears and hoping that the universe will unfold as it should and that nothing can stop me from getting my son.

I’m learning to not be enslaved to my fears as people decide they can play my vulnerabilities against me. I have to learn to shed that cloak I’ve developed over the years to protect myself against hurtful words and people who think they’ve got you figured or cornered because you’ve had the audacity to take that great leap of faith and love someone in spite of the hundreds of hurts that can be shot at me in a day’s time.

Yes, I’ve been afraid my whole life and I’m not that far from still being terribly afraid every day God sends and I rise up out of my bed to walk out the front door. Still, I’m a courageous black man for not lying to myself about how I feel and what frightens me about the world we’ve come to live in. And the fact that I will not lay down and die proves to me that the fear has not won yet. I have the scars from many battles with the fearful who have a problem with my existence and with my own fears, but I will not let anyone make me prostitute my own soul, even at the possible loss of love. That’s the real victory I think spirit is trying to teach me: Peace! Be still! No fear! In the midst of drama, I can still angle my heart toward a hope that expects the universe to unfold as it should in spite of all our fears and somehow I will get my son whether at this job or another one.

c. Raphael—God has healed
© 2007