Perchance, Perchance

My questions never end, you know. And sometimes I am unprepared to even ask them, to form them into sensible words. I awaken sometimes and am so sure, so very sure, that someone...someone was talking with me just before I opened my eyes. I kick back to the surface of Here and when I lift my conscious face out of Wherever I Was, I am disoriented and off-balance, as if someone pulled a crutch from beneath my arm or a chair from under me.

Perhaps my Father has sealed the answers to my questions in a scroll, in a book, and perhaps I am the only one worthy to break the seal on my own span’s volume and read  — but my worthiness will only be full on the night I finally accomplish my earthly stay and follow the One Who remains such a puzzle to me for all my life’s heart-thumps.

Sometimes I read words I’ve written a day or a week before, and I don’t even recognize the careful, safe sentences I trowel into the cracks of my paragraphs. “I believe my Father cares for and is deeply interested in His children.” Now why did I write such a thing when I know it’s not true? I hope my Father does these things, but to proceed from “hope” to “know” on the printed page is dishonest. Lucy has pulled the football out from in front of me too many times for me to have the kind of faith I wish I had. It’s easy to strike the pious pose; I remember how, years ago, I needed to see agreement and unity in the faces of those with whom I was friends. And I remember with shame those who stared back at me with honest questions and refused to Say The Words or Acknowledge The Doctrine. Who was I to make such demands of people who sought fire and morning light and words that followed them down into the waters of sleep?

What do I know? Oh, so little. So very, very little. Along the boards of a single day I can drive so many splinters into my palms that I will never be able to grip what eludes me. And every one of those days brings more questions, and slighter hope that they will even be addressed, much less answered, in the time I have left here. Slighter hope.

Perhaps this is why madmen seek sleep so often. Perhaps they are neither tired nor indolent, but rather aware. Aware that in sleep, someone might speak to them, and that the conversation might not get cut short this time.

It’s so very difficult to express myself honestly. Too many forces batter at the little bent paper match I am extending towards the far, far candle.

~ S.K. Orr