The Years Lost to the Locusts

Most of my life has been devoured
as if by a plague of locusts. Torn
out of childhood by the sins of my father
and those his father,down
to the seventh generation I have been
swarmed. The locusts that fed on my soul
manifested themselves as psycho-sexual abuse.
I was driven into a frenzy of constant criticism.
I became self-deceptive: I came to believe
that however much others might harm me
I was the true cause of of my own abuse, and
I made sure that it was true: I destroyed every
good thing that came my way. I collaborated with
the darkness that fed on me. I filled with
self-loathing and passed judgment
on everyone else. And yet,
like a fisher of demons my nets overflowed
with the judgments of others against me.

It was still easier to be holier than others,
but when I was alone, I was never holy enough.
Well versed in my own weaknesses
I could sense most people's pain quite easily,
but cruelty came to my tongue even more easily.

It may have been my growing uneasiness
over how easy it was to be unkind to my own son,
that finally proved to me how bankrupt I was.

I had believed for so long
that God had indulged Himself at my expense,
that He had inflicted the sins of my father's house
on me when I had done nothing to deserve it.
But the harms I did to others, the unkindness
I'd shown to my own son, could not be blamed
on anyone but me. I had been collaborating
with my own darkness for so long,
I could barely tell where the shadow of my own sins ended
and where the darkness of Malice began.

But I had been to Golgotha before,
I knew that the cross we were meant to bear
is the paralysis of will that comes when we realize
that we can neither do the good we mean to do, nor
can we not cause the harm we'd rather not cause.
That was the spike of the Law on which I knew
I had to impale my self-will,
so I did:
hideous visions arose
to frighten me off that spike.

I was swarmed by malice,
but I held myself to that death, knowing
it was a battle I could lose
only if grace did not exist.

I was swept through madness and
spiritual war zones.
My self-will died over and over
and each time I was
resurrected
with a little less self-will.

And I found
I could separate my shadow from the darkness,
I found myself alone in a river
called the Perpetual Sabbath.
The locusts had gathered on its banks.
There was no work - no level of goodness
I needed to achieve in order to remain in that river.
It was my birthright,
like my love for my father and my son,
it had been there all along, and yet
even as I realized that, the locusts
began filling the river, crawling over
the drowning corpses of their own kind to reach me,
but the river was deepening, and I realized
that my house was now free from the sins of its fathers.

As that knowledge eroded the sand on which I stood
I surrendered my need to hold God accountable
and I lost my footing. As the locusts reached for me
I submerged and was carried downstream.

When I resurfaced, they were gone.
I had come into sanctuary - for good.

And though it has not happened yet,
I know that someday
everything I lost to the locusts
will be restored.