Christ showing his wounds.
I've been posting on FB long enough.
No matter what I post there, be it personal or commentary on current events in the Church and the world, I manage to upset someone or draw mockery - especially from Catholics who can be incredibly hostile and blind to goodness. So I post and add commentary, only to remove it. I still keep the posts because it's a convenient archive for when I return to blogging. That time is now.
Yesterday I remembered my dad's birthday and noted how my feelings have changed about him, as well as sorrow for my holding a grudge against him. I was documenting a kind of breakthrough in my relationship with him, yes - after all of these years. I was thinking of writing more.
Then my brother intrudes with a rebuke that I always bring up the past and tells me to stop. It was exactly the type of response I used to get from my parents, my older brother and his friends. It was how they reacted to my attempts at painting, writing - even the books I read. It was then and is now dismissive and disrespectful, despite their 'good intentions'.
It's why I moved away from home, from family, from the neighborhood. It's why I'm back here on the blog
I have a project, which will never be finished, but which I must continue to work on, to document until I'm no longer able to do so.
It’s not that you don’t love them anymore.
You’re trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.
When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven’t seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don’t start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.
- Naomi Shiab Nye