Asleep at the wheel

Prologue:

“Truth can be outraged by silence quite as cruelly as by speech“- Amelia Barr


Nestled atop a garbage bag, outside the entrance to the Redfern housing
projects he grew up in, he spied a toy truck made of metal, covered in coffee
grounds, rice and wilted lettuce. He cleaned it up and was quite happy to claim
it.

It was missing a wheel but if you kept your hand on it, it wouldn’t tip
over and you could pretend it wasn’t broken. He kept it hidden from his father,
played with it at night when no one was looking. It had headlights that glowed
in the dark, coolest thing he’d ever seen, hi-tech back then.

Decades later, he finds himself behind the wheel of a semi-tractor, instrument
panel softly aglow, waiting in line for an overhead heavy lift machine called a
transtainer, to load containerized cargo onto the bare chassis his rig was
hitched to.

His thoughts drift back in time and he recalls a day, walking hand
in hand with his Father. Something caught his eye by the curbside, crumpled
atop a pile of dirt in a construction ditch. He was reaching for it and almost
had it before being yanked back by his Father yelling: ”that’s sucio (dirty),
don’t touch that!”

He didn’t know what it was, in his eyes it appeared to be a discarded balloon
and he wanted to try to blow it up to see if it was still good. He was sure it
was, looked wet but it had just rained. It had a funny shape at one end and at
the other an unusually large ring at the opening. He cried and cried, struggled
against his Father’s firm grasp but he prevailed. He should have known from
past experiences the futility of resisting a big strong adult when no one‘s
watching and they want something from you. He said : “I’ll buy you some
balloons” but knew he wouldn’t because far as he knew, adults never kept their
promises and if they give you something they take so much more in return,
besides he wanted that one.

Drawn…
To broken, filthy things,
broken inside, stained and damaged beyond comprehension in ways as yet unaware
of.

Years pass and this moment frozen in time, comes to mind. When a prostitute
holds him in her arms and tells him: “God loves the broken”.
She is an honest merchant, who delivers the goods at a fair price, no breach of contract, no
bait and switch, no hidden agendas and no drama. Nobility, honesty, inner
beauty, humanity, reality, collide with delusions and contradictions. Slipping
away, inexorably drawn into mental illness but it all seemed very normal
somehow in this haze, this convoluted version of a “big bang theory” made perfect sense to him.
He hears the roar of the semi, snapping him back from the drift and doesn’t
even recall putting it into gear.
He’s rollin’, befuddled by the things he’s able to do on auto-pilot
(dissociation).

Avoiding obstacles, maneuvering, running hard, mind always laboring at a high
idle speed…
even when standing still.

While asleep at the wheel
(the shovel man)

L
O
S
T

Couldn't recall how i'd gotten there.
Tried to find my way out of the woods uncertain of who I was.
This rude awakening, enleadened me, weary and ashamed by past behaviors,
realizing that in some instances, I’d also been misjudged and slandered by
presumptions. Memories recovered and there’s no denying I was caked in mud and
reeked of a cesspool but also began to understand where I’d been and how I had
reached that place. Much to sort through later, for now I focused on finding my
way again.

In the distance, I heard cars passing by and knew I was on the right track but sensed
that time was short.

High pitched buzzing, pinging sounds all around me, impacting the ground.
Dirt and leaves exploded upwards, then exquisitely fluttered down on a ray of
sunlight, Captured like a shutter in the blink of an eye, imagery committed to
memory for such a time when a peek of radiance might be just enough to get
through another dark day.

Laboring for every torpid step, on a somnus ambulare (sleepwalk) through an
asphyxiating miasma, I walked a minefield urged on ..as if heeding a call.
I came to rest under the shade of a tree that seemed to bear "strange
fruit"(Billie Holiday).

Hungry and tired, I shook the tree and seemed surprised…to not be surprised,
when snipers tumbled out. I cocked my head to one side and gazed upon them as a
bewildered child would, who’d been conditioned to accept the absurd as real but
secretly fought a losing battle all alone. Sounding a ‘call to arms’ no one
paid heed to, with a hat on my head made of folded paper and a cardboard cutout
sword in my hand. I was imprisoned there in that skewed limbo, shadow boxing
ghosts’ in my mind, a sitting duck to anyone who could truly see me
(derealization).

Flashbacks spanned decades and I was always distracted,
redirected, chasing after them with a butterfly net like a man possessed. Now
they’ve moved on, some have passed on and I have been left with only denial and
alienation.

They could not kill what was already dead, but I was soon to discover that my
life such as it was, never belonged to me.
Seeping blood and honey I scratched my head, shrugged my shoulders and
continued on. Leaning contrary to the wind of repressed memories, buffeted by a
stinging rain that made me wince, nerves twitch, shoulders stoop, keeping my
head bowed, I forged ahead unknowingly mimicking a drunkard’s stammer.

Time didn’t matter…different people for different things are indifferent to
time. Functioning solely on survival instinct I pursued an ideal of normalcy as
if I ever had the slightest clue what that meant. I tried to fit in the best I
knew how…but it was like “Edward Scissorhand’s” attempt at micro surgery.

Any benefit of doubt, compromised by the illness that overtook me from being unable
to cope with the abuses I’d suffered and forgotten but that hadn‘t forgotten me.
Things I could not remember fully but felt the constant pull of. Caught in a
current I tried to swim against but could not, drowning in a kind of ethereal,
mental, sea of inebriation.

Computers were not common then but looking back, the only way to describe it
now is, as if someone had hacked into my brain and changed the programming from
whatever I was meant to be, into future self-destruct mode by one single act
compounded by more. Though the one was devastating enough, the mushroom
cloud…on a time delay.

Taken advantage of by the unscrupulous, who preyed on
the vulnerabilities, gullibilities of compromised awareness. So evident to them
and not me. “Are you my Mommy? “,said the lost baby duck to the she-wolf. Love
heals, unconditional selfless love can rescue you from the deepest depths of
darkness, I know that now.
The weight of who I’d been, the things I’d done and
those done to me, made my knees buckle and just want to give up. I tried to
stand up but my equilibrium was too far off kilter, I could never quite fully
regain my bearings.

Deceived into entertaining the false belief that giving myself
up to my enemies or those I’d affected by the sins before me, by actions or
inactions, would have made any difference. That perhaps peace and rest could
have been attained by allowing them to tear me to pieces to satisfy their
bloodlust for vengeance, by a lynch-mob I did not even know existed. They
talked in circles to me, at me, under the guise of friendship and sought to
ensnare me.
But even in the state of insipid, misguided foolishness I had
somehow defaulted into, Grace was with me and “Greater Is, was and will be, He
that is in him, than he who is in the world.“, whether I knew it or not, I was
his child and He answered the prayers of a wounded child echoing across time.
Forgiven by Grace.

They made no accusations that I might have defended myself
against, They were aware more than I of the latency of my illness and hoped
that with the proper stimuli, it would emerge to convict me in any generic way
to satisfy their hidden agendas but there was no real profit in it. They struck
gold for I spoke boastfully out of my head and did not even recognize the voice
that was coaxed from hiding deep within my mind, where I had unconsciously
imprisoned my deepest fears, guilts, shames and regrets. It alarmed me even
more than any imagined threat could ever have.

Now forced to fight for composure, my job, my home, my sanity, my love, lost dignity, self respect and moreover, the now exposed enemy within, but Gratefully not fighting alone.
Time to choose a side or be pierced by arrows from both sides.

Their efforts yielded them fool‘s gold, pick-pocketed from a hapless fool to
entertain a kind of sick twisted voyeurism for the benefit of misguided
vigilantes. Now perspectives had changed, living it, watching it, understanding
it from an objective perspective now by Grace. While at once struggling to break free from it, regaining control over
obsessions, compulsions, staying in lane between the lines, following sincere,
silent, subtle directions…by a faith I thought I had lost completely or perhaps
never really knew I had. “A sick mind…doesn’t know it’s sick“ (John
Bradshaw-Healing the shame that binds you)!

“If you’re capable of one thing it stands to reason, why not the other?”
So manipulate me into admitting something damning. Judases! I had nothing to
hide from anyone who asked, but they never did or maybe they were too afraid
to. Like the words I wrote, always freely given. I was not equipped to give an
honest answer in defense mode anyway, they must’ve known that. (Matthew 7:2)
“For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure,
it will be measured to you”.

I was functional to a degree, though incapacitated in ways I was oblivious to,
but they knew what they were doing and continued devoid of compassion and with
sardonic premeditation as if only for sport.
The hunters released the “hounds” to flush out their prey,
Wounded it, but it got away.
Served a purpose most profound,
startled, but eventually,
alit upon solid ground.
“Man’s rejection…is God’s protection”.

I’d been a fisherman that was my passion, so I decided to go fishing…myself as
bait, I needed answers regardless of how painful they might be. I went looking
for “it”, just couldn’t leave “it” alone.
They held up mirrors as shields as they converged upon me and drew swords some
carrying lit torches. Friends or foes or family in my blurred reality, I didn’t
really know anymore? In a “vertigo haze of stop-motion strobe light”, the
sleeper awakened into a nightmare of shattered illusions! “I looked through my
reflection in a window, a transparency of me stared back as I gazed into the
world outside and it occurred to me,…with equal intensity in the cold night
through lascivious eyes, my reflection was looking in“, but whose reflection
was I seeing ?

“Consider my Tormentors, in the “book of faces”, they were many misled by few,
who “thread” as one. Some of them never even knew me, but that didn’t dissuade
their hurtful tongues‘. I could see why now, of course I couldn’t get it, I was
“it.”
There was no logical reason why I should still be alive, they believed I was
dead and in a very real sense, they were right. Old accounts had to be settled I
supposed, the threat of the “awakened” neutralized, a psychological/spiritual
hit squad of sorts? Made me wonder what they were hiding, they certainly had a
lot more to lose now than I.

The quiver in the young poet’s voice on the phone as he kept repeating;
“Remember, do you remember? …remember?” But, I couldn’t remember, at least not
right away or why it gripped me with fear, it wasn‘t the individual.
I knew I had been set up way back then at least twice, but didn’t know by whom
or why, retaliation perhaps, at the time I was overwhelmed by manic depression
to such a degree even standing was a challenge, my mind in a thick fog.
If One could die from shame, then I died a thousand times. What does a child do
when he awakens from a nightmare?
He runs into the arms of his parents/parent.
What if he instinctively always knew there was never any real comfort to be
found in that but had to pretend it was real to get by (co-dependency)?
Denial, repression, so sickeningly deep churned inside me...unconscious of the
beast I’d once given free reign to in my despair and weakness.

I truly believed it was gone.
Not gone but hidden!
By Grace, the beast is gagged and bound.
By Mercy, what was lost is found.
The debt paid in full by the blood of the “Most Holy”.
The voices of the assassins that remained, faded off in the distance. I had
voluntarily killed off my own “character“…anything more was simply overkill but
despite losses stemming from their own machinations backfiring, they didn‘t
stop or maybe they succeeded .
Doubts, for a moment filled my head for I was
just a man with the stone dislodged from my heart and stones embedded in my
skin for so long that the flesh grew over them. Tempted, to turn and run to
them and say "here I am, do as you will". As if “the debt” be owed to
them, NONE but He may lay claim on what was gifted! They succeeded, they killed
the man-child I was…I had to die, so that the Man I never really knew and who
had “fallen” could rise….and humbly kneel.

Another voice...not literally a spoken voice, nonetheless a voice and so much
more. More than just a feeling or an instinct, a gentle whisper of a breeze,
but like thunder in goose-bumps, speaking to every iota of my ‘being’ and that ‘I’
could no longer ignore.

As if being told: "C'mon...just keep coming...don't look back. Pay them no
heed. Follow Me...don't be deceived, don’t get stuck again…look how far you‘ve
come, crawl if you must, C'mon home Son, Supper's on the table" (“…thou
preparest a table before me, in the presence of mine enemies…“).

This is “The voice” in my heart for so long, I could not accept as real. That I
was blocked from receiving, that I now know without a doubt had always been
with me; that of my Creator.
For so long, drowned out by all the noise in my mind whispered in my ears by
demons loosed upon me at the age of “VI“, at the hands of those entrusted with
stewardship over me and the insanity of subsequent years of dysfunction…so much
time wasted.

I had shut my eyes tightly from the pain, held my breath for so long, but was
too afraid and emotionally crippled to break free from the viselike
psychological grip. A “scapegoat” smeared with blood and sent into the desert
as in a Jewish Atonement ritual (abandonment), carrying the shame of several
generations of my family“-(John Bradshaw). Nothing made sense to me in the
contradictions I was forced to endure. Conditioned to trust authority, trust my
elders but betrayed by the very same time and again.
I was off and running,
hiding, changing faces and places all in my mind, winding uphill all the way.
Insipid, cagey, mischievous little rascal I was and smart as a whip, when I
wasn‘t reliving the broken recording in my mind, of being degraded, whipped or
sexually abused!

One of seven, considering the history I only recently found out already existed
before my birth, why wasn’t anyone paying more attention? Ostriches! Soul murderers!
Enablers! You knew about them and you covered it up…you knew what they were
capable of! You left me wallowing in a lifetime of “toxic shame,“ acting out,
acting in. “Who told you, you were naked?”, “why did you hide yourself from
me?” At the age of “VI” before morality or conscience could healthily develop,
abandoned in every way, these formative stages completely Obliterated, now you
want to judge?!
Hypocrites, you kept covering up for them, when I tried to talk
about what happened to me you shut me out and I shut down inside, didn‘t even
know I had. I pounded my fists into my chest, dismissed myself as crazy for so
long I actually believed it…became…“It“. I ventured forth by the force of my
own will, my bones ground to dust, eventually reduced to muttering faithless
prayers under my breath like a madman to a total stranger.

Embracing the insecurity and ‘NO’ self esteem that I was deceived into
believing, free to roam but enslaved nonetheless. “Where is Joseph?”, ”He was
eaten by a lion Father”, literally, spiritually! Sold into slavery, handed over
to the enemy and forgotten, I didn’t come to know a pharaoh but decades later,
did come to know a King! Always afraid to bear false witness to a God-given
gift once again for fear of ridicule or indulging in self-glorification or to
seek the approval of others, seeking refuge in self effacing and obscurity, I
took my "talent"
and buried it in the ground. I could not speak in my “True Voice”, or fully
comprehend what was happening, so I turned again to You at the appointed time,
when You showed me how to pray in earnest and what to pray for. This time it
was different, this time…was in “His” time, a momentary amnesty from the
constraints of “time” necessary to return to my senses, in the “Now“ that never
passes away (The Music of Silence-David Stendl). I felt the embrace in too many
ways to deny.

“There is no trial set before you but such as is common to man; and God is
faithful who will not allow you to be tried beyond that which you may endure;
and who along with the trial also will make a means of escape in order that you
may endure it”
(First Corinthians 10;13).

It was never meant for me to attempt to find meaning in this world, that was
never my calling and why I became so Lost. I’d literally seen the real face of
a demon, still fresh in my memory. A dark mist, like a small cloud that seemed
to move slightly, distinguishing itself from the ambient dark, I had awakened
because I felt like someone was watching me, from within the cloud, a figure
began to take form, in my child’s eye, looked like the outline of an inverted
shovel with dark penetrating eyes moving towards me. I was frozen in fear
momentarily then dove under the covers trembling, sweating, gasping, and
wrapped my arms around my Father, who was fast asleep on the convertible sofa
alongside me.

It was my first anxiety attack (the first circuit breaker
tripped), more would follow in the years ahead. I was soon to be lured with a
bribe but “it” wore the brotherly guise of familiarity and trust, cornered,
bullied, violated, murdered spiritually and emotionally (the second circuit
breaker tripped…miles and miles of desolation“). Initially “it” seemed very
caught off guard to have been perceived and knew “it” had to silence me for I
was a threat, divide and conquer, turn brother against brother like “it” had
already done so many times before, spanning ages…and in every war.

In subsequent years I began having severe panic attacks and felt like a freak of nature, I couldn't understand why I would sweat so profusely and my chest would tighten, face turn red as a beet. sometimes this happened in school, most times when I felt an attack coming on I hid alone somewhere until it passed. When I accepted Christ as my Lord and saviour I received a revelation at the age of 50, I wasn't crazy just reliving the trauma, I've never had any counseling only self-help books and such (only within the last couple of years).


BENUMBED…by the drunken, belligerent, blind, fight clouds of older sibling’s
rivalries….like giant violent tumbleweeds, intermittently sweeping across my
mind over the years wreaking havoc and devastation at the damnedest times,
pausing…only long enough to take another swig, distracting away from unbearable
truths.

No one believed what I had seen anyway, they were blinded, by the same
blindness that eventually overtook me. That empowered “it” further and a
foothold was established. After awhile I couldn’t remember a thing about what I
had seen (back to sleep), this cycle would repeat itself, of lost memories over
time (blocking/repression). Order…eclipsed by mayhem as chaos ruled and behind
the scenes a sinister conductor led this cacophonous melee of “gangly, morbid,
spectral marionettes“, entangled and captive.

Sure there were moments of
serenity, celebration, good food but always accompanied by booze and nervous
laughter before the next invasion, we were all taught by example to laugh at
other’s misfortunes and overlooked our own shortcomings, everything was always
made into some kind of perverted, age inappropriate sexual innuendo joke. So
easily blinded to the true Enemy, “Enabler” never “Saw” and “abuser” never
“Did” and apathy didn’t “Care”. Each had become quite proficient at the shell
game and could redirect one against the other, till everyone was confused and
no one was to blame, sadly I had absorbed it all too well (hyper-vigilance/distrust/insecurity).

I tried to resist the “dumbing down” effect but the casualties continued
mounting and still no one ever stepped up to take responsibility (ticking time
bombs). Sometimes you just gotta’ take that stone in your hand, toss it up in
the air and let it land square on your head, consequences be damned, it‘s still
better than casting it at someone else!
My father over-protected us to the
point of dependency…he was just protecting himself. But the damage had already
been done and all the cigar smoke exhaled on rum soaked bloody sacrifices,
coconut shells and self professed saints dressed in white, draped in puca-beads
in the world couldn’t divine what was to be unleashed (Santeria) and she stood
idly by, classic enabler .

We were forced to participate in this madness and
threatened with severe consequences if we resisted. My silent scream shattered
the stained glass imagery in all the churches of my mind into shards, as I bled
inside (the third circuit breaker tripped)! Taught to lie to perpetuate a story,
keep it straight, coached, bullied again, pushed in a direction I had no
control over. Compensation boards, doctors, lawyers, I was his little
interpreter, yanked out of school, to suffer vulgarities, belligerence, by a
snarling narcissistic attack dog, spewing vitriol at everyone and everything
that stood in his path towards a reward he was never entitled to.
Lies became truths and truths became lies.
Behaviors are learned young (formative years) ”teach your children well…,”
Comes to mind.

My personal hell that I was coerced to live, alongside of obstinacies,
perseverance, in light of being absolutely, shamelessly, unconscionably, Wrong!

I was red-faced, ashamed and embarrassed by my Father’s behavior and apologized
for him every time he’d storm off at these appointments and the Son began to
become a nervous wreck, who was I supposed to turn to (“…miles and miles of desolation“)?
Everybody around me was also affected, wounded, emotionally crippled in some
way to different degrees. Years later when the compensation settlement finally
arrived it seemed hardly worth it and more a curse than anything else, I wanted
nothing to do with that “blood money”, while my older siblings drooled over it
when it arrived.

I shied away from it and felt disdain for what it represented.
My Father asked me what I wanted and I replied: “nothing“. I wore my best mask
but I had no sense of who I was and not aware of becoming “frozen“. I now know
where and how the true battle is being waged and how I got derailed, time is
irrelevant. I’d been shown many times but dismissed it simply as abstract
dreams that felt all too real to accept in the absurdity of the unreality I had
lived.

Why would Angels and Saints have anything to do, with one such as I?
I was traumatized and hid in the deepest recesses of my mind, who was driving
when I fell…“Asleep at the wheel“?

Now I can no longer claim the luxury of
ignorance nor condone acting the fool amongst fools. I can’t change the past
but I can stop the insanity within me.
Now that my Sight has been restored along with my memories, after the initial
shock and horror…I see.
(Job 12:11) “Does not the ear test words as the palate tastes its food?”

I’d had enough, should’ve killed an elephant or three, it wasn’t meant to be a
cry for help and fooled the white gowns again to get past another locked door, I
was only fooling myself.
“He” wasn’t going to let me go that easy…though all I wanted was for it to be
over, desperate prayers eventually found their mark, pounded on my chest,
someone yelled “clear!”

My body spasmed the breath of life restored into my lungs, the tripped circuit breaker reset, the lights came back on.

The cockroaches in my mind scattered for cover but I had on my Father’s pointy
shoes and not a one escaped into the cobwebbed corners (time to wake up).

The “gift” still felt like a curse, my body had reawakened but my mind could
not clear a path to my heart, not till all the threads of tangled webs that
still clung to me could be dispensed with over time.

I HEAR YOU now Lord and speak in boldness without fear to proclaim your Glory,
what you‘ve done for me and how real You are.
How you loved me at my worst, took all the broken pieces flung them into the
Heavens and showed me the completed puzzle and the universe within a grain of
sand that was I therein, forgiven and simply grateful to find rest upon your
shores.

I know I am being called to serve in some way but I am faced with a formidable
challenge, for who will now pay heed to a talking donkey (Numbers 22:22)?

Therein lies the test, brilliant in design though not mine to claim but ironically
enough, I finally begin to understand.

God will humble the proud, chastise and correct his chosen, this is Love and
teaching in its purest, most perfect form bestowed upon one least worthy (Grace).
That “peek of radiance“ I had cleaved to for so long, pales in comparison to
the light that is Yours alone Lord,
The lamp that fills the emptiness inside me
with Your healing lovingkindness.
This is my testimony…


And this is my prayer.
Forgive me Father, forgive them Father, forgive my sins against “The Body of
Christ”, bless my family, bless my enemies, and all those I led to sin by
influence... I beseech thee, “seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:22). I humbly
pray thee…have Mercy, free me from this curse if it be thy will and from
restless spirits, deflected now by “The full armor of God” your Word provides
(Ephesians 6, 10-17); but who continue to wander the earth nonetheless seeking
the ruin of those souls still caught unawares as I once was and all along my
desperate, erratic, flight from you I once did. Without you I was dead,
ensnared, immature, leaning on my own understanding, bereft of wisdom or
discernment. Running from you, smashing into the brick walls of a truly
troubled and confused mind. Now I know I cannot live without you, that there is
no “life” worth living without “You“. I am Yours Lord, all that I am, all that
I have is Yours, now and forever Amen.

( My Mother recounted to me a recurring dream she’d have, in it I was a child
and my Father had his hands over his eyes counting out loud…and I was scurrying
about searching for a hiding place. She said we seemed really
happy…“hide-n-seek“. )


"Love must precede hatred, and nothing is hated save through being contrary to a
suitable thing which is loved. And hence it is that every hatred is caused by
love."- Thomas Aquinas

Matthew 15:27...She said, “Yes, Lord, yet do not even the dogs eat the crumbs
that fall from their masters’ table.”

Matthew 10:14 …“Shake off the dust under your feet as a testimony against
them.”

Ephesians 5:13, 5:14 "...but all things become visible when they are exposed by
the light,
for everything that becomes visible is light."
For this reason it says;
“Awake sleeper,
And arise from the dead,
And Christ will shine on you”




(12/2010)