My nephews like things perfect.
One has to be successful the first time or he wavers between crying and quitting.
The other needs his socks pulled up snug, no wrinkles, no bumps.
I know those feelings. I'm sure we all do. We're all kind of weak. We're not the heroes of my imagination - the heroes that in the face of danger wield their swords and scream "Freedom!", but rather, we are the weaklings cowering in the corner and crying "Why me?"
I spent a weekend, a long while back, watching the Lord of the Rings series. I was moved for at the time, it reached a little too deeply. In the face of ten thousand Orcs and other horrible creatures. With middle-earth in ruins. With a highly unlikely strategy resting on the success of two hairy little hobbits . . . in the face of terror and odds beyond my imagination, in spite of impending doom: they kept fighting and hoping.
Sometimes I think if my enemies were a physical creature I could stab with a sword, this whole struggle might be a lot more satisfying.
But who am I kidding, more likely I would scream myself into a not-so-heroic catatonic state.
Or more likely, in a non-blockbuster production: I'd just try to hide.
I don't like to acknowledge the ugliness of this world because then I have to acknowledge this world is not perfect. And then I have to accept that this world is not perfect. And that means I have to accept others, loved ones as well as enemies, as imperfect. And, worst of all - accepting myself, as I am, as I've been accepted. That redemption is for me too . . . that's an idea that has been just a marble rolling around in my brain. Something I just keep looking at, but not really touching as it rolls and clatters against the walls of my perceptions.
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