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Love leads captivity captive
He is an average guy. He considers himself in his mind’s mirror for a moment. A Joe among the Joeys, no pretense no Jonesness. There he stands. Chestnut brown air, a cool tan complexion. Slender on the wiry side. When he first caught her attention she said – Auburn hair, so rare naturally, and he replied – Most say chestnut, so for you to catch my shade I must stand out in your eyes. She laughed, and back then he thought – This is all I need.
And yet.
He studies the Shriek. A shrill figure, with wires growing all over its head and with a loud grating voice. Inside it a woman bawls – Why have you not thought about it, why must I always tell you. And more, it goes on – Is it threats you want me to put out, must I threaten you? He hopes not. Or if she must, that it won’t be the one about the legs. It was with a painful resignation last time that he breathed an audible relief at her threat and told her – Do what seems right to you. She rightly interpreted it as – I could not care less. Threw the accusation right back at him and got a worse admission from him – It would not be a loss, I have no taste for you.
Their marriage came to a halt. It was already on a slippery slope, a smooth slide downward, but that admission sent it crashing right to the ground.
But then.
She relented, gave into his pace. A perpetual low of indifference, it bogged you down but after a while you could get used to it discoloring everything it touched. The family dinners, exhausting and insufferable. The job barely worthwhile to get through. The friends, not interesting anymore. The couple nights out at pubs, bars, or restaurants, weary and dreadful.
And the child.
The child. Oh that boy. It was easy with the oldest one. They dumped him at the grandparents. His parents who had rejoiced the day when the last out of seven children left the nest, were oddly enthusiastic about taking care of their grandchildren. Even for prolonged amount of times. Her parents were strict and protective of their golden years. After laboring to bring up one child, they made it clear at every given opportunity, that they needed time and eternity to make up for the years lost.
No it was the youngest.
A babe really, so sensitive and clingy. A mouthful really, who liked to hang on both of his parents. Not that eager to play with his age-mates. Really not eager to play at all. A simple soul who was just happy to study and observe the world around him. And happy to pick up on the negative traits he observed. And happy to gleefully mimic them to no end.
So they found him pilfering things, he knew they would gladly give him if he would ask. In fact they often gave them to him without him asking. They found him lying over insignificant and obvious things. They found him hitting kids with whom he had no prior history of conflict with. They found him asking to taste a sip of what they drank at family and friends gatherings. And they found him getting a taste for the off-limit drinks.
So they kept him at home.
That is until the clog of indifference seeped into him. One day they found that he had carefully stolen his mother’s best pair of kitchen scissors and meticulously cut through his father’s favorite wool blazer. He was so tired at that time and wanted to provoke the boy to obedience, so he took his belt and went after the boy bad.
– No respect for your father and no respect for your mother, may it be with me ever so severely if I do not purge that evil root before it takes hold of you.
It did not leave any marks on the boy. As he was measuring the belt and going through the motions for applying the strokes, for maximum exposure and intended pain, the mother broke out of her revelry and snatched the child out of his lap. Those scissors where expensive. The sales employee, a stout figure of a man who was clearly used to costumers complaining about products expiring before their time because of misuse, had repeated again and again – Madam, with all due respect, only use them for vegetables. Vegetables. Maybe occasionally herbs. But please I plead with you, preferably vegetables.
So she went home and repeated the sentence over and over. Also they had a pair of wonderful textile and paper scissors, which the child knew.
With the boy shaken in her lap she did not say anything. But the day after the boy started hitting her. He tried to kick his father too but it was a weak attempt. He remembered his dad’s readiness to retaliate with real violence. Then he bit his older brother hard in the shoulder, and then they both knew that this one was off-track on the road of life already.
And yet, he had barely walked on the road at all.
So here they were. The woman inside the Shriek is accusing him of not taking responsibility for his behavior. Or considering how it may affect the next generation. This be the verse he thinks, and wonders if the poet was making a prophetic statement, because it fits his life to the I. That shrill voice goes on in a circle – Why have you not thought about it, why must I always tell you. And more, it goes back to the same point – Is it threats you want me to put out, must I threaten you?.
He hopes not.
Once he loved. Once he looked forward to each day with expectancy. Life is not easy, he knows that, but this dullness is harder to bear than affliction. In fact the boredom of what his life has become is an affliction that is bringing him to the verge of tears. Other men turn to the drinking cabinet. Some of their married friends, the men especially turn to illicit relationships on the side.
– It brings back the fire, you know after you’ve seen all and had all, she cannot wring more out of her body, but a fresh one, oh yes it is like being lit.
He does not bother to tell them he hates to be set aflame. In fact he chose her because he was afraid of raging flames that suck out the oxygen in the air and soon go out after ravaging the land. No he looked for glowing embers that keep the fire alive and the hearth going long after the flames have settled down.
So he found a wife.
And know he wonders where the face of his love is, for he cannot search her out in this shrill, dried out creature.
A thought comes to his mind.
– Try God.
And he remembers.
He encountered some street evangelists on the way back from work. He was too weary to fight off their meek request to preach Jesus to him. Figuring that they could not do much harm he gave them some of his time. Really it had been a pleasant surprise when they shared only one scripture and let him go.
“...“And try Me now in this”
Says the Lord of hosts,
“If I will not open for you the
windows of heaven And pour out for you such blessing
That there will not be room
enough to receive it.”” (Malachi 3:10)
– Try Me it, says in his head, and he wonders. Should he try god? How crazy would that be. Maybe less crazy than sitting here reasoning with this creature opposite him.
He sighs out loud, put his hands to his heads and says in a soft whisper – I am sick and tired of this my life Lord God Jesus, you are Lord right? Those who call themselves your people told me you are the God of all the earth.
The shrill noise stops, in fact all sounds stop. It is as if the visible and the invisible realms hold their breath to listen in.
– If you are God who created everything, God who called Abram, God who was the fear of Isaac, God who wrestled with Jacob, God who brought the multitude of the Hebrews up out of Egypt by fire and water, by signs and wonders, if you are the same God who brought the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir, and if you are God that brings salvation to all men, then please, please help me Lord, I beg you help me in Jesus name.
Those are the words that come out of his mouth from a deep hidden place within him. Words and understanding from a place within he did not know exist. Later when he looks back in memory, if it served him correctly, he just wanted to say something of the likes of – Oh Lord God Jesus Christ, I ask you if you exist prove it to me and help me out of this gross situation that my life has turned into.
Soon after when his life is turned upside down, and all things are shaken the right side up he can see God’s immediate response to his sincere request. It is a chain reaction in the unseen realm, whose ringlets expand to touch all areas of his life. His washed up marriage, his troubled children, his overburdened parents, his neglected friendships, his sidetracked job, his self that was in deep deep bondage to forces bigger, evil and more ancient than what his mind was ready to accept when he called on the name of the Lord.
That old tale of the garden, the two people within it who in pride believed in a lie from the Father of lies, and the children born in banishment with a nature of lies. It had always seen like a fairy tale to him. The old-fashioned European ones with twisted endings. How was he supposed to swallow the fact that he from the moment conception inherited the stain of a convict? A babe and yet condemned, in exile and enmity with his creator. All the while knowing that the old enemy was still around at large, wrecking havoc in the hearts of all men.
But that is later.
Now is now, and as the last word exhales from his lips, he sheepishly looks up and sees a stunning sight.
She. Her. Bénédicte! His wife, yes, his blessing, oh, oh, oh, oh Benny! Ohhh how had he not seen her? So frail and so thin, too thin, so worn out. Her lush, peach skin tone with a soft blush to it, all gone, replaced by a blue and gray outer layer and green around the eyes. And her lipstick smeared around her mouth, how could this be, she was always so vain?
– See I have so thin lips, and my husband has a plumb mouth, and I want to stand out so what is a woman to do, she would say to everybody they met.
And laugh, that loud scratching, scattering sound, so rough, so uneven coming from her flat, slender figure. And her hair, thick, smooth, long and well kept, a soft smoldering blond color, with rich brown undertones to it that always swung this way and that as laughter shook her body. Now it is like a haystack, and thin, when did she last take care of it? Now he looks her in the eyes, so red and swollen, so tired and despairing, how long since he last looked into them and saw in their depth his beloved friend?
And now her voice, he hears it. Raspy, low, exhausted. The voice of his friend afar off. Not the fierce, demanding and present sound of her usual voice, the only part of her that always demanded attention.
– Madden, are you OK? I’m sorry, I just don’t know what to do, I speak and I speak, she says – But you don’t answer.
Her voice breaks, he did not know it could do that. All other parts of her seems breakable. Her tentative bond with her dismissive parents. Her unrequited love for her neglecting friends. Her determined yet underappreciated devotion to the hungry kids in their neighborhood. Her flat, thin body, like a soft reed ready to be broken off. Her hopes and ideas of a happy family life. What a small, brittle woman he thought when they first met, I better lover her good, so she can stand straight in this harsh world.
She goes on – Please speak to me, you’re my husband and friend Madden. I miss you so bad.
She cries, the tears well up in her eyes. It takes her by surprise he can see because she too thought that the were no more tears to cry.
He has been unkind to her.
He breathes in and wonder what just happened in the last few months, even years? Where had his mind gone, where had his soul been hiding? Either way he is grateful to be present by the touch of God. Here in this moment he wonders what words to speak. He knows he will have to be careful, compassionate and purposeful with his words now. Because he does not dare to rely a second time on that voice from that deep hidden chamber within to rise up and speak peace, reconciliation and love to his wife.