Transparent and Raw

While meeting with my counselor last week, he asked me what my life would be like without guilt and shame. I told him I didn't know. It's not that I don't think it's possible; it's just that it seems imaginary. I can't picture something I've never experienced. You'd think (I'd think!) I would desire that life I do not know, but in all honesty, it scares me. Even though the grace of God would fill the void of guilt and shame, my present fear of how that would play out overwhelms me. It's the fear of the unknown.

We often find ourselves comfortable in situations, no matter how painful. The ease of familiarity is much more welcome than an unknown, even when the unknown is described as bearable and even blissful.

I wrote this poem a long time ago, and it came to my mind as my counselor and I were discussing this fear of life without guilt and shame. I told him, "I don't even think I knew the depth of the words when I wrote them. They were just words, but now they make even more sense to me."

PRISON

The prison bars of loneliness
Are frozen to my fingers.
I only grasp them
With a hope to see past.
The icy chill of iron
Rides upon my face
As I strive to stare
Out into the darkness.
Midnight looks me in the eye.
Black, like oil, emptiness stands.
The wicked pillars in my grasp
Hold me within a cell,
Which I could never escape.
And if I could, what then?
Space? Emptiness? True isolation?
The chill of the cell creates
More comfort than black uncertainty.