You Are With Me….

Let me paint you a word picture, maybe a video-

Who is with us?

We are all traveling through this world one step at a time. Faking our confidence in those steps most of the time. Sometimes, it feels like we are alone, like before, like years ago when we were young, middle aged-now. Some even decades older.  Our lives are seasons sewn together. Measured times making up a life, some of those measurements uplifting, some somber—some dramatically so. Not too many people remember the roller coaster, almost all remember the illness, the divorce, the loss. We feel alone and don’t realize who is with us.

Times where, if you could be part of its stage play, on a somber night, you are sitting around a campfire. Probably alone as the others of your kind had left the coming fray already, fleeing into the woods and the paths beyond and you are left. There is no escape now, nowhere to run, if you could even run with the bad knees or hips you have and you simply ask yourself, almost with a snicker, ‘where would I go?’

You sit at the fire—alone, and toss some of the remaining sticks of wood on the fire, bringing its fading light up, hoping by doing so it would warm you mind and heart and the hands in the gloves which offered little protection against the moist cold. Surrounded by the evil and pain that is surely coming your way, the fire does little to sooth you.

     You have…an old staff….

You have the remnants of an old staff and an old boy scout knife and you start to shave a point on the end of it, something from an old fence, you suspect. At dawn in just a few hours you will be overrun with life. The Enemy will surely gobble you up and leave nothing around to let anyone even know you had lived—here, once. Your life could have been one of trauma and joy, riches and poverty.

This night, you are facing the demons who came into your brain in the middle of the night reading as if from a list, the things you have failed at, things you need to do with no time to do them, taking any rest you might have gotten away as if just to allow the final spear to  your soul of your loss. There is virtually no chance of you surviving this season, this part of your personal or professional life. No one is betting on you. They are all gone. It is only you. Alone, next to a fading fire, an increasing chill and all you have is an old fence pole.

     Your mind is fully awake

You work on the stick aimlessly honing the end to a dull tip, then a little finer. Your mind fully awake, the dreams have stopped and now the reality of the night and the season you are sitting in are real. They are going to happen. You realize you have metaphorically two bullets in your pocket. For a moment you raise your eyebrows and think there is something, maybe. But as you look at them you realize they don’t fit anything you have and they don’t match each other. You almost hear Evil laugh and the hope-filled joke he played.  Earlier that night, you realize they crawled into your brain and tapped the wall of your skull and asked you endless questions of what ifs, so what’s, and how many. Bringing you fully awake and realizing you are about to get overwhelmed with the coming dawn.

     They are coming.

You stare into the fire. They are coming.

You are predicted to lose the day, the moment, the job, the life you had worked for and thought was a destiny worth living. They will mark your end with a few words of fake solemness and winks and grins to each of the others.

What they didn’t realize, what they didn’t know was who you were—in your core. Who you put your faith in, even if it was a weak faith. They didn’t realize you were who you were—that person. You continued to sharpen your stick, turning it in your hands and occasionally stopping to feel the tapered point. It was all you had, that and an old song playing in your head, arriving from some old file of songs you once knew with a beat which still caused a fire to rise in you. You played the song over and over and over in your mind, remembering an old concert with a woman or a man you had long since forgotten. The end of the wood in your hands grew more and more tapered, finding a point.

In the morning, if not sooner in the darkness of the night, They would come. They would scream and yell and have bodies painted to celebrate their coming victory over you.

     …an old bottle of scotch.

You looked down and there, under the bench you sat, was an old bottle of scotch. You smile, because you know He left it. There were three types you had made up in your mind—love, contract, and war. This was the king of war scotches. It was used when nothing else was left. It was the drink before one would be overrun and their names seemingly erased from the board.

You didn’t worry about a glass, you opened it and drank out of the bottle. Your face puckered like an old woman. You shook your head and took another sip while the melody of the song played.

     It was time.

It was time. You can hear evil begin to awaken in their camp at the other end of the meadow. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. They were chanting some puffed piece of artificial chest pounding.

You looked back down and stroked the end of your stick with the knife, taking another sip or two between strokes of the blade on the wood. You become calm, peaceful almost. It was just you—alone. You can hear those who were earlier in your brain, as you hone the end of your stick, sipping the scotch from the bottle you hold between your legs, hearing them laughing.

You smile.

Because what they don’t know, what they never asked, is who you really—are.

You are one of many skills, truths, experiences, loves won- and loves lost—experiences. You stood in the gap at times you didn’t even realize. You’ve made bad decisions, and righteous ones. You have won, and you have lost. But in all of it, you have been in the game. You have been in the throw of life’s battles. It is the Almighty you have wandered the darkness and found. A God who never leaves, never falters, even though you think you are alone, decades have gotten you to this point, to this knowledge of your life.

     You smile.

You rub your ruff hands over the end of the pole, and then you smile. Reaching down between your legs and lift up the green bottle with the black label. The old song you hear as if it was playing live in your head. You have no idea why it took up residence there—this morning. But it was perfect. The Plan was perfect.

You were to lose and lose badly according to the score card. No one would remember your name, you were told.

No one.

The sun was nearing the horizon, the early morning noise of their camp was heard to come to life, a little at a time. There was no rush for them.

…and none for you.

     No one would bet on you.

You turn to the open field and stepped as if you had a purpose, the staff which a few hours before was just a used-up pole was now an object with a new life, a new purpose—a new destiny. No one would bet on you, including you—except One other. And it would be the only bet you would need or want.

Perfect. The camp was in view. The Evil and their challenges seem perfectly placed. You step towards them as if walking in a park but only with a purpose of step. It was a destiny of your life written one letter at a time as you cross the field. The music of the old song playing in your head. Your steps pick up. You change the pole with its new purpose from your left to your right hand. A smile comes on your face, the words to the song start to pitch. Soon, you are in a trot. Its alright, its Perfect.

No one sees you running towards them. Why? There was no threat there. Evil owns this field their thoughts soothed them into a belief there was nothing to fear. They owned you.

A picture in your mind of a God, looking like an old cowboy at a bar, grey hair and goatee, slowly turning a scotch glass of what you were just drinking. He turns towards you after some fearful conversation in your questions and voice and smiles at you. He loves you, loves to listen to your words an when you speak. ‘Why me?’ You ask about some inane task.

He looks back at his glass and turns it a quarter turn. ‘Do you trust me?”

     You had to look away.

You had been here before. Him asking, you hesitating with an answer. You were younger then. You had to look away.

He didn’t flinch. He just smiled and turned his glass again.

Now, decades later, here you are again. But you are different. You are seasoned and aged. You are scarred and bruised. But you know stuff. You are stuff. People see a difference and wonder what it is in you. There is a soul in you on fire when you think of yourself walking across this open meadow. The old man at the bar is somehow with you. Only, well, he is not an old man at a bar. He lives in you. He chose you, maybe just for this moment.

     The movie theme plays louder

You begin to run now. You have been told you can’t run, you’re too old. The melody from the random movie theme plays louder, ‘shake down, break down, take down—your busted.” You hear over and over. Your pace picks up. It’s as if you are not touching the earth. Your legs are moving like youth, you fear nothing, you have no care, and the closer you get, the euphoric feeling of it all flushes your race.

It is you, facing certain death and disaster—

—or maybe not.  ‘For thou are with me….’

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