The War

Spotify tells me that Grave was my most played song during the last revolution around the sun. Followed closely by Unsteady, Carry You, Breathe, and The War. Somehow the combination is an oddly appropriate summation of my personal life this past year.

Even apart from the world's shared hardships, this year hurt. But also healed. And for once, it healed more than it hurt. Began in a grave I had carved into the ground with my own hands. And ended with realization anew that life is WAR. There's beauty and laughter and quiet peace along the way, but every day in this life is a BATTLEFIELD. I need a phylactery for that.

I've spent far too many days avoiding the draft, telling myself that everything's okay when the reality is this: the city's crumbling before my eyes. When I think of all the good I've not done, all the wrong I have, the complacency that's taken such deep root in me, and all the souls with whom I've never shared Hope, it's quite frankly terrifying. I've lost the sense of life as war. And I've done my part in letting my world and the one surrounding me go to pieces because I've felt so shattered myself.

But for the first time in many lonely years, I felt at some point in this last revolution that perhaps Hope was for me. That He was not against me, lying in wait to strike me down for my actions and inactions, but leading the charge as the Great Warrior and asking me to follow.

Moments of change are mostly small. All my searching for THAT ONE MOMENT was pretty foolish because guess what? It came---continues to come---in pieces. Maybe because I was. Still am in so many ways. Far from free, but better. And I thank God for better.

About two years ago, I wrote the poem below, when I was deep in that grave. Reading it now, I manage to see hope that I barely glimpsed then. A battle cry rather than the white flag it was for me at the time. And this isn't the first time I've shared it. Posted two years and a day ago with "here's to a year of fighting for the victories" tacked on the end. How I failed. How I'll fail this year too. But that's what forgiveness is for.

...

Soldier, why?

Standing there

Bathed in blood

Not your own,

Do you choose

Not to turn

And run?

Soldier, why?

Wild-eyed, do

You lay your

Weapon down

Surrendering

The tired fight

For this life?

Oh, solider, don’t you know?

The most painful death of all

Is died not by the warrior, nor

By the renegade, but by he

Who stops dead in his tracks

To watch his comrades break

And wait for his time to come.

Soldier, why?

Barren and

Unattended,

Does your

Headstone

Echo with

Words?

Here lies one who perished:

Not for fighting for his life,

But for not fighting for it.

Worse than

Something

Is nothing;

At least in

Something,

Soldier,

You tried.

...

So here's to a year of really fighting for the victories.

Not alone, but with the Warrior at the helm.