Branjun's Escape - Part 2

Note to Reader: This is not my usual style—not that I’ve been writing long enough yet to have a usual style!  I suppose it’s more accurate to say that I would not have initiated this setting or this plot, but it is, instead, a writing exercise.  It all came about like this: I have a friend who is a master storyteller, although he balked when I called him such.  He wrote a short story called “Branjun’s Escape” that left the main character stranded.  When I inquired about a continuation, he threw down the gauntlet and challenged me to extend it!  Yikes!!  That’s rather intimidating, not only because it’s his story, but also because I don’t remember the last time I wrote a piece of fiction!  Grade school, perhaps?  But I had to admit that it was a useful and challenging exercise to take another author’s plot and extend the story.  So here goes nuttin’…OK, Captain Blog Master, this one’s for you!

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The shaggy, old wretch beamed a misshapen smile.  Even with several front teeth missing, presumably from the club of the dungeon guards, the old man’s face was still pure joy.  It made no sense in this dark place of hopelessness, but the wretched man’s eyes contained such warmth and life as Branjun had never seen.  Had the old man gone insane?  Well, even if he had, his was the only voice in this hellhole who dared speak the word “escape.”

“Come to me later tonight after the other prisoners fall asleep.  My helper will take care of the night watchman.”

Now Branjun knew the prison’s torment had cracked the old man’s mind.  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” he moaned, raising his shackled, bloody hands. 

The man shook his head.  “Listen.  Branjun, if you’re going to escape, you must learn to trust me.”

Branjun stewed.  The king had forgotten him, and his only hope in this God-forsaken pit had turned out to be a complete crackpot.  Why should he be surprised?  But something didn’t add up, and it nagged at him.  With each hour-—no, with each minute—his will vacillated like a pendulum’s swing.  “Forget escape, and just focus on numbing the pain as much as possible.”  “No, anything is better than this; hear the old man out.”  “This hopeless dungeon is your life; the sooner you get used to it, the easier it will go for you.”

The hour finally came.  No sound, no stirring could be heard throughout the prison except labored breathing and fitful snores.  Somehow the night guard had obtained a bottle of rum, and had drifted into a drunken stupor deeper than a sound sleep.

“Psst.”  This time, it didn’t come from across the cell.  It came from somewhere close.  It made no sense, but it felt like it came from inside Branjun.  “Psst.  It’s time.  Go to him.”  Branjun felt like he was arguing with himself.  Perhaps he was going mad.  Is this what people had described as hearing voices in their head?  “These chains won’t let me!”  Why was Branjun even talking back to the voice?  It was a good thing the other prisoners were asleep and not overhearing his insane conversation.  “Just do it.  Do as he says.”

The shaggy, old man lifted his head, looked straight at Branjun, and said, “Come, Branjun.”

Branjun obeyed without thinking.  He walked right through the shackles as if they were mere holograms, past the rack upon which a fellow prisoner had been tortured just hours ago, and across the cell to the old man.  He had been confined for so long.  Savoring the stretch in his limbs with each step, he marveled to be walking upright.

The old man remained shackled.  He lifted his gaze to Branjun.  Again, those eyes!  Such tenderness and yet such fierceness combined; how was it possible?

“You want to ask me a question,” the old man read his mind.

“I…I…it’s just…” Branjun didn’t know where to begin.  “You’ve called my name three times now.  The guards don’t even know my name.  How do you know me?”

The bedraggled, old man turned up one corner of his mouth in amusement.  “I know a lot more than you can imagine.”

“How did I just walk through my shackles?”  The old man only grinned and gave the non-reply, “We need to clean you up.”

At that, the man ripped a filthy piece of homespun wool off of his tattered sleeve and rubbed it into a bleeding, pussy wound in his side.  Branjun’s stomach curdled.  He recoiled as he realized that the crazy old man was extending the foul rag towards Branjun’s own hands.  The old man was unfazed.  “Give me your hands,” he said patiently.  Branjun obeyed.  He didn’t even know why.  But as the old man rubbed the bloody rag over each scab of Branjun’s, he felt a tingling warmth enter into it.  Before long, his hands were dripping with blood so thick he could not even see the cuts and scabs beneath, but his hands felt whole again and the dull pain in his knuckles was gone, even when he clenched his fists.  He couldn’t take his eyes off of his bloody, healthy hands.

“Helper, a clean cloth please.”  A clean cloth dipped itself into a bucket of clean water.  Branjun started.  He didn’t even have time to wonder how the bucket of clean water had made its way into the cell.  The cloth hung in midair, then floated over to Branjun’s now trembling hands and began wiping off the blood.  Branjun’s face went white as he realized that the scab over his left ring finger was gone, but a scab over the old man’s left ring finger had appeared.  With amazement and horror, Branjun realized that each cut, each injury of his had not simply been wiped away, but actually wiped onto the old man.  The shaggy, old wretch looked more afflicted than ever.

Branjun stared, a huge lump forming in his throat.  This wasn’t fair.  He wondered how the old man had done this, but what he wondered even more was why.  And why, if the old man held so much power, did he spend his days hanging out in a damp, fetid hellhole like this dungeon?  If he knew how to escape, why didn’t he escape, himself?  The man’s newly bloodied hands were still shackled. 

Finally, Branjun could contain himself no longer.  “Why are you here?” Branjun blurted, “Why waste your life in this hellhole living the life of a prisoner if you don’t have to?”

“I do the will of my father who sent me.”

Father.  That single word sent a cold numbness through Branjun, immediately cancelling the warmth he had felt from the healing tingling in his hands.  “What kind of sadistic father would send his son to this infernal place?  Even my father wouldn’t do that!”

“You speak of things you do not know,” the old man calmly and gently replied, “I know many things.  I know your father.  And I knew your father’s father.  And his father before him.  Now there was a real troublemaker.  It’s become quite the family tradition, doing time in this prison.”

“How do you know my father?” Branjun’s eyes grew wide with fear.  A knot was growing in his stomach.  “And just how old are you?”  The man’s stories were too fantastic to believe, yet Branjun had seen such magical things with his own eyes just now—unless he was indeed going mad.  Maybe this was all a lunatic’s dream.

“Your father is confined to another cell within this very same prison, only he doesn’t realize he’s lost his freedom.  His cell has windows and sunlight enough for him to keep studying and working and carrying on.  Others have tried to warn him, but he chooses not to listen.”

“Of course he doesn’t,” Branjun’s whole body tensed as he recalled his latest conflict with his father.  “Let him rot.”  Branjun spat on the ground.  Suddenly, Branjun began slipping backwards, being pulled from behind by an invisible but inexorable force, like a preternaturally powerful magnet dragging him back across the excrement laden floor and back into the shackles that snapped their icy, metal jaws around his wrists once more.

Alone and Not Alone

November’s half-moon shining bright,

Half cloaked in dark, half bathed in light,

Reflects the mood I’m in tonight:

Alone and not alone.

One side still trusts the Lord and knows

His plans are good; I can repose.

He walks with me through all my woes.

No, I am not alone.

But that is not my only side.

I fight it!  How I want to hide

From my own self the tears that tried

T'escape the lash tonight.

Loneliness.  That awful word

The icy moon has often heard

Orbits never touch—absurd

To ever wish for more.

Yet I am not the moon, so then,

I may someday be loved again.

O Lord, You know by whom and when.

I rest in You. Amen.

When Things Go Wrong

I should be contra dancing right now.

But sometimes, things don’t go as planned.

Sometimes, something dreadful goes wrong.

Sometimes, it’s just something small, a first world problem.

Last night, I had a tire blow out while driving with the kids in the car.  That felt biggish to me.  Not cancer big, and not homelessness big, but it was big enough.

It was big enough to get our adrenalin pumping, reminding us of our vulnerability to accidents and even of our mortality.  But it was precious that when my son’s voice began to take on a worried tone as he exclaimed, “Mom, that’s our car!  It really doesn’t sound good!” I told the children, “Well, how about you pray while I focus on finding a place to pull over?”  And my two children did pray.  And God kept us safe.

It was big enough to be hungry because we couldn’t eat dinner until 9:30pm that night.  But it was such a proud moment as a mother to realize that the kids made it through a couple of stressful, hungry hours without significant fights, bickering, or complaining (until the last ten minutes, anyway) before stumbling back into our home, tired and hungry, but home once more.  Can it be possible that all the times I tell them that we need to be kind and respectful to one another even when we feel irritated and unwell are finally starting to sink in?  Well, that’s probably a bit much to hope for.  I’m sure we’ll have plenty of relapses (all three of us).  But I was still proud of them last night.

It was big enough to remind us of what life is like without a car.  I had to cancel appointments today and rearrange plans.  But it inspired gratitude to realize that we do usually have functioning wheels, and what a blessing that is!  And while it took longer than expected to get our car back (leading to the fact that I could not leave York on time, and am thus missing my beloved contra dancing at this very minute), the fact remains that I do have a car.  Tomorrow I am free to wake up at a crazy early hour and commute to Philly on my own timetable to chauffeur the kids to their co-op before getting myself to the office.  Those wheels represent freedom.

It was big enough to have to rely on friends for help after AAA towed our car to the mechanic.  Initially when the tow truck driver asked if I had anyone I could call to pick us up, I said, “Well, I’m a single mom and my family's back in Philly,” but then I realized that I have, indeed, been blessed with kind and generous friends I could ask, even here in York.  It was such a precious blessing, then, to realize I have friends who are willing to change their plans and step in to help us when needed.  After a stressful couple of hours, the embrace of a warm hug brought such sweet relief I couldn’t help but exclaim, “L, you’re a lifesaver!”

There is always the “it could have been worse” approach to comforting oneself when things go wrong.  For me, I was struck at God’s mercy that the tire didn’t blow out earlier in the evening.  I knew it was going to be a busy night.  Things were timed and staggered just right so that I could drop my daughter off at ballet, turn around and drop my son off at basketball practice, turn again to pick up my daughter just as her ballet class ended, and finally go pick up my son again from basketball.  We were finally all reunited after the running around, heading towards our late take-out dinner when the tire blew.  I was just so thankful that the tire didn’t blow earlier in the evening, because that would have stranded one or both of the children!  “It could have been worse” always exhibits God’s mercy in action.

I once had an unpleasant week where I had to work on a Monday and a Wednesday, and the kids and I took turns passing a sickness back and forth on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, with short respites in between.  When I shared with my sister how merciful God had been in timing it all so that I would not have to miss work at a time when I really needed the income, she remarked with a grin, “Heather, only you would thank God for the way He scheduled your sicknesses!”  But I do think that God cares about those details, whether He works them out in a way that matches our desires or not.

When things go wrong, it’s annoying (or worse).

When things go wrong, it’s enlightening.

It illuminates our true beliefs.  Do I really believe that God is sovereign?  Do I really believe that He is in control of all things?  If so, then I will pray and not worry.  (In reality, I did both last night.)  If so, then I will accept that the changes in my plans are part of His Plan.  Maybe then I will feel less self pity and be more watchful for what God is doing instead of the plans I thought were best.

I know I’ve grown far more from the things that have gone wrong in my life than from the things that have gone as planned.  Does God sometimes love us so much that He allows or even causes things to go wrong for us so that we will grow?  I know I’d never ever EVER choose to be inconvenienced, much less pained.  Even after seeing the growth in my life produced by past pains, I still wouldn’t choose pain on any given day.  I’m just not that saintly.  But God chose it for me, and He is good.  Of course, He’s not the author of evil and we can’t blame sin on Him.  Ultimately, all pain comes from sin, whether we can easily point to an injustice from a clearly identifiable person, or whether we have to trace it all the way back to Adam and Eve and the Fall and the curse (Genesis 3).  But God has proven Himself capable of turning sin on itself and using it for His own good purposes, as at the end of one of my favorite stories in the Bible, when Joseph sincerely told his brothers who had sold him into slavery, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”  (Genesis 50:20)  Yes, maybe God does sometimes cause things to go wrong, from our perspective, anyway.  He certainly allows it, but if I've learned anything about His character, He is good and He can be trusted.

Now, will I react this peacefully to the next event that goes wrong?  Probably not.  I’m a lot like my kids.  I might have a shining moment, but I’m sure I’ll have relapses too and I always need to learn my lessons more than once.   But at this moment, even though I’m not contra dancing, I know I’m OK.  (And in case you don’t know it, that’s a powerful statement for me to confess!)

Prayer From A Single Mother: How Do I Raise A Son?

Oh Lord,

As I look at this family portrait hanging on my wall, I remember the circumstances under which it was taken.  It had been only four months or so since the separation from my unfaithful and abusive husband, and life felt like utter chaos.  I felt like I was constantly hanging by a thread, but You, Oh Lord, kept me hanging and not falling!  My new church in my new hometown was updating their photo directory, so I scheduled an appointment for the three of us, our first family portrait without their father.  I planned some cute coordinating outfits (not the ones in the picture), but on the day of the appointment, their father caused yet more trouble that delayed us, and we had to go to the photo shoot in our clashing colors.  But when I saw the setting with the Joshua 24:15b quotation, my heart cried, “Yes!” and I knew that portrait belonged in the center of our living room whether it clashed or not.

Almost two years have passed.  The children are bigger now.  My daughter's bangs that she had cut for herself without permission have now grown out.  As I look again at this family portrait hanging on my wall, my heart aches.  I ache with longing.  I ache with gratitude.  I ache with the heavy sense of the weighty responsibility of being the spiritual head of our household now that my husband has abdicated this position.  Lord, you know I do not wish to carry this weight alone.  You know, Oh Lord, how ill-equipped I feel.  My son is now twelve years old.  He is becoming a man.  He is at that stage where he needs a man to speak words of life and truth into his young frame.  When I hear him speak admiringly of his father, it produces such a great tearing in me, because I know the awful things his father has done.  And yet, his father is not pure evil.  In fact, the tragedy is that there is so much that was good, or at least that once appeared to be good, in my son’s father, and yet his life now lays in such a ruin because of the bondage of the sins Satan has used to wrap around his soul and choke him.  Oh Lord, I beg of you to not let my son’s natural affections for his father lead him to justify his father’s actions or minimize their evil, or worst of all, to follow in his footsteps.  Lord, please guard my tongue when I speak of my son’s father in front of him.  I have so little to say of his father that is good.  And my son notices it.  “Why don’t you speak nicely to Daddy?  He speaks nicely to you.  Why don’t you give Daddy a second chance?” Oh, but my son, you only see such a small part of the story!  If you only knew!  If you only knew the thousands of second chances I’ve given him, only to have him trample them underfoot with mounds of fresh wounds compacted atop.  If you only knew that the small pieces of our communications that you have seen are not representative of the whole.  If you only knew that your father is a master masquerader who was able to fool an entire congregation for years and walk in darkness while posing as a minister of God’s light!  Oh my son, how could you possibly be equipped at twelve years of age to see through your father’s ploys?

Being equipped.  (Sigh.)  I feel so ill equipped.  When and how are we ever equipped?  Only in You, Lord, only in You.  Thank you for reminding me of the story of Deborah and Jael (Judges 4).  The men of Israel had abdicated their positions of leadership as well, and You equipped a woman, “a mother in Israel” (Judges 5:7), to judge Israel, to lead them into battle, and finally You delivered the commander of the Canaanite army into the hands of a woman to slay. 

(Image credit: The Sleep of Death by Douglas Ramsey)

Solomon, too, felt ill equipped.  His request of God to grant him wisdom (I Chronicles 2:7-13) was born out of the gravity of the responsibility of leading God’s people as king.  You, Oh Lord, have placed me in a position of responsibility to raise up two precious children to serve and love You.  Lord, they are Your children before they are mine.  But they are the greatest treasure you have ever entrusted to me to steward for you, and I don’t want to mess this up!  Lord, how can I, a woman, teach my son to be a godly man?  I never wanted this responsibility.  And certainly not on my shoulders alone.

And yet you remind me that I am not alone. 

I feel alone.  I want someone with flesh and blood to come and speak with us, to help us, to teach my son with me.  But You are here.  Teach me to rely on You.  Teach me to be content in You.

You remind me that other men have been raised by single moms and have grown to love You with their whole hearts.  My own dear pastor is a powerful example.  Thank you for him, Lord!  Thank you for his encouragement to me that his mother is his hero for leaving her abusive husband and plucking the boys out from that household to raise them by herself.

Lord, I don’t know how, but I know you have equipped me.  You don’t call us to tasks without equipping us, even if that equipment consists solely of the knees that You gave us, bent in earnest prayer to You to intervene.  My heart is still heavy, Lord.  My eyes are as wet as ever.  But I trust You.  I know You will intervene to teach my son what I cannot teach him as a woman.  Lord, I give my children to You.  What else can I do?  I rest in the knowledge that You are good, you are powerful, and you love them.  This is Truth.  I will dwell in it.  I will make my home in it.  I will take refuge in it.  You are enough; I will believe You.  Thank you, Lord.

In Jesus’ name AMEN!

At A Curtis Recital With Daddy

Have you ever noticed that so often it’s the things that money can’t buy that fill us with joy and overwhelm us with gratitude?  This past Friday night, I felt that way about the gift of music, a date with my Daddy, and the blessing of growing up in a big city like Philadelphia that has so many amazing resources, such as free recitals at Curtis Institute of Music.

From all over the world, students flock to Curtis to study to become professional musicians.  Thankfully for the natives, these students need audiences to practice performing!  So Curtis opens its doors several times a week during the school year to allow the public to enjoy free recitals from tomorrow’s musical stars.

I had attended a few Curtis recitals prior to this past Friday night, and met some interesting people there.  Once I sat next to a fellow who turned out to be an ex-punk rock band member.  Upon viewing my surprise at his revelation, he explained that he enjoyed music of all types, from punk to classical.  And why not?  But this past Friday night, I had my Daddy for a date.

I have always taken after my Dad in so many ways.  I look a lot like him, and remarkably similar to his Italian mother in old photos taken at my age.  I share my father’s reserve, his conviction, his love of books, his melancholy streak (with an anchor of hope in the Lord), and we are both what I would call “social introverts.”  I’ll have to devote another post sometime to my dear Dad.  God certainly blessed me with such a great one!  But in all my 42 years, I cannot recall a single father/daughter date.  Well, this past Friday night we finally made up for lost time.

The first performance was lovely from a musical standpoint, but between every movement of the piece, the clarinetist kept adjusting her instrument in such a prolonged manner that it made both my Dad and me a little nervous, as we discovered later when discussing the performance.  But the second performance—oh my!  The second performance was breathtaking…although thankfully not for the performer, because it was a vocal performance!  In contrast to the modest black dress of the clarinetist, the soprano sashayed onto the stage in a flamboyant dress with tiny flowers of every color under the sun against a white background.  She was the embodiment of confident feminine charm, in her high heels, perfectly coifed hair, and lips with the crisp redness that only a flawless application of lip liner can impart.  Her dress was the type I adore so much, with fitted bodice and a knee-length skirt so full that if she were to twirl like a little girl, it would fly up in a full circle.  (It would be perfect for contra dancing, except that her neckline was lower than I would consider wearing in public.)  Yes, she had a mesmerizing presence from the time the stage doors opened, and the audience could not take their eyes off of her.  But when she began to sing—oh, the music!  The first piece was Mädchenblumen, Op. 22, by Strauss.  Previously, the name “Strauss” had always conjured up waltz tunes in my mind, but this piece was very different.  It was a song cycle in four parts that celebrated four different feminine archetypes.  Perhaps sometime I’ll devote a separate post to the thoughts it inspired for me.  I listened intently and tried to skim the English translation as quickly as possible, wishing there were a way to do so without tearing my eyes off of the captivating performer for a single second.  I wondered if my friend, who lived in Germany for four formative years growing up, would be able to understand the German lyrics as they were sung.  If only he could have seen the performance.  He could certainly read the libretto on his own, but oh, how much he would have missed without beholding the beguiling presentation!

The soprano used her body, hands, and facial expressions to play the four different roles in character as she sang them.  While singing of the wholesome, peaceful Cornflower, her lips parted ever so softly and her breath escaped the ruby lips as gently and unhurriedly as an exhalation after waking naturally from a restful sleep, yet the sound of her sonorous voice still managed to fill the chamber with its richness as she enunciated every sound with clarity.  While singing of the saucy Poppy, she draped her body against the piano, casting flirtatious looks with unabashed feminine allure.  Every archetype was uniquely and charmingly portrayed.  After the Strauss piece, she sang a French piece by Poulenc.  Since French is my most beloved tongue in all the world, I expected to love the Poulenc piece even better than the Strauss one, but as it turned out, the lyrics were too dark for my taste; they made love sound downright morbid!

It was fascinating to watch how the various musicians’ personalities colored their performances.  Nowhere was this more clearly highlighted than in the contrast of the two cellists.

The first cellist marched onto stage in stiletto heels, but these were nothing like the soprano’s light and airy heels.  Instead, the cellist could have made the most fearsome of drill sergeants.  Every line of her face was severity as she sat down and lifted the bow, her bare arms pushing past the meticulously simple lines of her austere black attire.  Slender and long, those arms bore no sign of any frivolity, their only curves deriving from muscles formed by long hours of practice with bow in hand.  Hers was a beauty, to be sure, but an exacting beauty.  If I listened with eyes open, I could think only of harshness.  I tried listening with my eyes closed.

When you were a child on a hot summer day, the kind made for spaghetti strap sundresses, did you ever attempt to give each other summer chills by ever so lightly glancing your fingers over the bare skin of your friend’s upper back between the aforementioned spaghetti straps?  I did.  With eyes closed, the music of Brahms’ Trio in A minor, Op. 114 entered and enraptured me, producing those tingling chills from the inside out.  Actually the chills alternated with fire, but mostly chills, as the low, resounding notes of the cello vibrated deep inside my belly while I listened.  The undulations of the music felt like floating on a wave in the ocean, as musical tension and release followed one another in succession.  Music can be so powerfully, intoxicatingly sensual.

But if I opened my eyes, the spell was broken, and all I could see was the drill sergeant using her bow like a saw.  Music is love, I thought.  Where was the love for her?  Does she even know how to love?  I felt sad for her as I realized that her music seemed to be fueled more by a sense of drivenness, rather than by love.  But she reached her goal through force and intensity and technical mastery, and received a standing ovation from a number of people in the audience.

What a contrast, then, was the second cellist!  Accompanied by a guitarist, together they graced us with J.S. Bach’s Concerto No. 5 in F minor, BWV 1056; Suite in E minor, BWV 996; and Matiegka’s Fantasia in forma di serenata, Op. 30.  This cellist was a music master, too, but any observer could see that playing was indeed play for him.  There was a lightheartedness in the easy manner in which he held his instrument as an extension of his own body, not at war with it, but in symbiotic harmony.  There was a relaxed joy on his face that can only emerge when long hours of practice have freed one from worrying about the technical details.  So this cellist, too, had labored long and hard.  But for him and for the guitarist, the result of this previous investment was a delightful conversation between them and their instruments, as their instruments sang to them and to each other.  I have heard it said that the cello is the instrument that most closely mimics the human voice.  And what a conversation it was!  There was a playfulness about the music as the cellist alternated between stroking and plucking and one unusual motion that resembled a musical surprise tickle, and I felt in observing the facial expressions of the cellist that he must be the kind of man who has a good sense of humor.  Indeed, at the sound of the musical surprise tickle, a gentle chuckle escaped involuntarily from my Dad’s mouth.  It was impossible to keep the joy locked up inside.

All in all, my Dad and I left the music hall feeling so incredibly blessed to have experienced such an exquisite musical delight as that evening at Curtis…and for free!  I’ll be curious to follow the future musical careers of my favorites (soprano Emily Pogorelc and cellist Chen Cao).  And to you, Dear Reader, I wish you all the joys that money cannot buy.

Welcome!

Welcome to my practice blog.  I’m glad you stopped by!  If you’re here, it’s either because you’ve stumbled upon it randomly or because I’ve personally invited you.  And if it’s the latter, it means you are among the trusted few, because I don’t intend to share this blog widely at all.  So thanks for being you!  But please be forewarned: if you’re reading this, you are also my guinea pig.  You see, a dream has been forming in my heart for some time, and one piece of it involves starting a blog with a specific purpose and a specific audience, with the goal of blessing others by sharing the comfort with which I’ve been comforted.  This is not that blog.  Instead, it is the recommendation of a friend who wisely counseled me to cut my writing teeth by starting a free-form blog.  So here it is!  I anticipate that it will be the dumping ground for many miscellaneous entries—journal entries, memoirs, philosophical musings, maybe even some fiction and poetry if I really get adventurous—as well as the training ground for the very act of writing.  So please lower your expectations and have a look inside!  Oh, and one last note: as long as it comes from a loving source, I welcome any constructive feedback that will help me become a better writer and blogger.