Haibun: My Heart
I come from a faith tradition where I’m taught my actions expose my heart: what I do and say reveals the stories I’ve been living out of. Jesus, the center of this faith tradition, echos some ancient and sacred Proverbs when he spoke, “...For whatever is in your heart determines what you say.” (Matthew 12.34, NLT). Needless to say, this idea has roots for those who take Jesus seriously, or were raise to.
I know a little bit of what it looks like for me. If I am responding to my helpless situation with a revenge fantasy, in time, I will rely on anger as my hope and resolve. It’s a simple story, my anger makes all hopelessness go away and that feeling of scared is swallowed whole. (Although it really doesn’t go away like I tell myself, it more hides for a time.)
If I escape from rejection by a woman I’m attracted to with a sexual fantasy where I am in complete control, I’m really rejecting who I really am and can be seen as and making the woman my scapegoat and someone in full submission to me. I have avoided being vulnerable with myself as to who I am and who I can be seen as. Yet, the reward is in the cycle of lust and rejection and escape into more lust. Like most rewards I’ve been referring to, the reward is there until it isn’t. Often the reality of the reward’s failings is too late.
On the other hand, I can hold my enemy with an open hand, smile, and let them go. When I’m in this grove, I forget the offense quickly and often times don’t remember. That offense isn’t the story of me being a river that lets life flow through me and generating an alternative power and force. Like a poorly written novel, the details of the offense are unnecessary information to the driving plot development.
I see this exposure like winter: the stripping away and the revealing. Winter lays bare the field yet shows the beautiful fingers of the branches against the deep colored sky. Exposure is also the handing over of the me I was told to hide by other fifth graders and letting that younger me drive fast away from scary things. Or it be the buckling up of that fifth grader and saying, “we can get there together, but we go this way.” Exposure is always me and the the direction I’m heading.
Only watching thought in and thought out tells me where I’ll end up with my words and deeds.
cactus guts revealed.
back, the green shell peeled; unsealed.
exposed like winter.
I know a little bit of what it looks like for me. If I am responding to my helpless situation with a revenge fantasy, in time, I will rely on anger as my hope and resolve. It’s a simple story, my anger makes all hopelessness go away and that feeling of scared is swallowed whole. (Although it really doesn’t go away like I tell myself, it more hides for a time.)
If I escape from rejection by a woman I’m attracted to with a sexual fantasy where I am in complete control, I’m really rejecting who I really am and can be seen as and making the woman my scapegoat and someone in full submission to me. I have avoided being vulnerable with myself as to who I am and who I can be seen as. Yet, the reward is in the cycle of lust and rejection and escape into more lust. Like most rewards I’ve been referring to, the reward is there until it isn’t. Often the reality of the reward’s failings is too late.
On the other hand, I can hold my enemy with an open hand, smile, and let them go. When I’m in this grove, I forget the offense quickly and often times don’t remember. That offense isn’t the story of me being a river that lets life flow through me and generating an alternative power and force. Like a poorly written novel, the details of the offense are unnecessary information to the driving plot development.
I see this exposure like winter: the stripping away and the revealing. Winter lays bare the field yet shows the beautiful fingers of the branches against the deep colored sky. Exposure is also the handing over of the me I was told to hide by other fifth graders and letting that younger me drive fast away from scary things. Or it be the buckling up of that fifth grader and saying, “we can get there together, but we go this way.” Exposure is always me and the the direction I’m heading.
Only watching thought in and thought out tells me where I’ll end up with my words and deeds.
cactus guts revealed.
back, the green shell peeled; unsealed.
exposed like winter.
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| & Haiku: Exposed Cactus |
