Taming the Monster

I didn’t create the monster. I just fed it.

“Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die!”

            ~ from the Princess Bride

We find ourselves locked in by our grief, our pain, our hurts.  Some of us spend our entire lives chasing after some figure or image of what might give us the revenge over these demons.  But that chase often takes the insidious creature and feeds its appetites.  The monster grows, it multiplies and devours from the inside out.  This is the monster I helped breathe life into over many years and many trials.  Never realizing that one day I’d find healing. But at the cost of not understanding what it meant to live my life without the powerful magnetic force of the monster’s cravings.  Like learning to walk and talk in a different language, without the strains of shackles or inner prison bars.

I am Inigo.  And if you don’t know that reference I would suggest going and picking up a copy of William Goldman’s The Princess Bride or watch the classic film.  Amidst the quest for ‘true love’ is a secondary tale of one man’s journey to revenge the death and scars that have plagued him his entire life.  Only at the end to find that he didn’t know what to do without it.  Revenge can eat us alive and tear at the fabric of our character.  It can seethe into every pour and devour hope.  Kill love.  

I offer hope.  I’m not selling prosperity doctrine.  I’m not blinking my eyes down in Houston with some false promises of living beyond this world’s hurts and entanglements.  I’m learning.  Growing every day that I live with my monster.  And yes, I live with my monster.  Why would I want to take such a huge part of my life and have it ‘exorcised’ away?  It is me. You can’t have Chad without the dark. You can’t have me without the child that is still silly and full of life at times.  They both remain in me.  And finding peace with my story can only come from accepting me.  Loving me.  Scars, wicked hurts, hope and all!  I have a magnificent hope within me. It steadies me when I can’t understand God. Allows me to scream to him and also rest in him in the same breath.  I gave my pain over and in its place was given room to truly love.  To live unchained.

My monster now lives as a golden retriever puppy learning to walk beside me.  Even my pain has had to learn a different way.  Instead of a terrible force of destruction, it is now learning that I will not allow it to dominate my life.  But to carve it out and send it away would be like cutting off my right arm.  I know it’s there.  I know that I have to be careful of some places, triggers and even people who would let her off the leash and run off causing havoc.  But again, it’s not the same.  A puppy doesn’t act in vengeance or seeking to destroy.  It’s just learning the smells along the way and wanting to explore.  So this is how I embrace it.  I know me. I know me better than I’ve ever known myself.  But I’m not a totally different person.  I am a mix of the child, the man, the beast, the cleric.  And beside me walks the golden that I am training, allowing to be with me, but not run rampant.  

I need to step to the side for the moment and acknowledge one important thing.  I do NOT accept the Beast that created all of this in me. That person has their own reckoning. He must deal with his own demons. What he did was wrong.  And I hope that he finds solace in his own pile of shit. I will take my part.  Feeding the pain and fear.  And I will work on me, now living without its terrible influence. 

So I come to the point where I get to forge my own path.  Up mountains, through valleys.  I’ll sing and dance.  Laugh and cry.  I will take every opportunity and embrace each breath.  I know there are still hurdles to overcome.  I know there will be pain and hurts.  But I will stand through those moments and come out on the other side.  I’m not in the revenge business anymore.  I don’t need to avenge my spirit.  My daddy in heaven has already done that for me.  He’s allowed me to not check out, and honestly, I’ve tried.  Twice.  And it’s not the answer.  I am sitting here beside a little four-year-old boy.  He wouldn’t be here without my pain, my hope, my struggles.  He is beautiful and precious.  Alive!

And I am a blessed man because of all that brought me here.