Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
— Prov 13:12
Perhaps you have never had a roommate who left a bag of potatoes in an unused cupboard – which you eventually located by the smell several months after he had moved out. Or maybe you never had the opportunity to take apart a garbage disposal that had not been working when you moved in to the apartment and discovered what was clogging it up. Or perhaps you have not been exposed to the contents of a refrigerator that was first underwater for several weeks, then without power for seven months.
I have not been quite so fortunate. So I quickly came to the realization that it doesn’t matter what you started with; after enough time, everything organic decays into the same black filth.
So too with hopes and dreams deferred and things left unsaid. It does not matter how great they were in the beginning, in time, it all becomes one vile mass of black filth. I had this imagery in my head for a long time before finally coming up with the perfect word to describe it; and that word is putrid.
Do you guys ever wonder what the hell I’m talking about on this blog?
As I think I’ve mentioned, a little while ago I spent some time reading a lot of my old posts. Intriguing stuff, I must say… and I wished there was more of it. Yet frustrating too. I would read a few of the vague references and think, “Ooh… I remember that day…” Then other posts would be merely something like, “You won’t believe what happened today.” What, that’s it? TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED! I was there and I don’t even remember. Now what’s the point of a post like that? Sometimes I’m vague because I’m never quite sure who will be reading it. At other times I’m vague because I know exactly who is reading…
I suppose all along I thought that one day I would have the answers that I was looking for, and that someday this would all come together and it would all make sense. It eventually became clear to me that that day was not quickly coming. So, a few months ago, I reached a critical mass and decided that I just wanted all of this trash gone from my heart. ALL OF IT.
It’s taken a bit longer than I anticipated. I once had a particular piece of emotional baggage that I carried around for about two years before finally looking inside only to discover that it was totally empty. Guess I don’t need THAT anymore. I had somewhat hoped that a similar thing might happen again. But this time, I’m just finding bags inside of bags inside of bags. In trying to go back and fill in the gaps, I often find myself leaping over chasms just to get to the holes that I wanted to fill in. Here we are in April and I haven’t yet finished describing the events of January. I sure hope that I haven’t missed anything interesting in the meantime.
Last year I went to New Orleans to help people clean out the trash and start to rebuild their lives. Then I came home and did the exact opposite in my own heart. Mulling all of this over, it seemed like there was only one thing for it:
Back to New Orleans!