Listening: Dead Can Dance, Toward the Within

Just finished listening to This American Life on KCRW's Webcast. At it's very worst it tells me fascinating stories about people I'm usually left wishing I could meet. At it's very best, like today, I'm left feeling like I spent the last hour sitting in the middle of a field while a great storm rages about me. I'm thrilled and depressed, beaten but alive, all at the same time.

They only had two stories today. They were of kids who went to extremes because of the trouble they were in. Because I'm at work I couldn't listen to the whole thing but I got big chunks together. The first story was about two girls who ran away from their mother in Oregon while they were in high school. They lived and travelled in the punk scene addicted to several drugs, hitting bottom, bouncing off and continuing on. One crashed finally in Tuscon and was returned to her mother. The other made it to Texas before deciding to call her mother. It was certainly heart-wrenching and I think about all the other runaways out there and their parents who go to bed praying they'll call.

The second story was of a guy in middle school - eighth grade I think - who (I think) overreacted to some stupid shit he'd done and the trouble he was facing. But it was told with such a morbid grace that I found myself holding my breath to hear more. It seemed like he was depressive, possibly bipolar, but what do I know? As he talked about way to end his existence - attempts at hanging himself, taking pills, slashing his wrists and finally burning himself - I started shivering because I knew exactly what he was talking about. He didn't give any reasons for wanting what he did. In this case he wanted to escape some trouble.

He talked about how his attempts were always aborted because his body would fight to stay alive. He couldn't cut his wrist deeply enough to keep it from clotting, when he let his weight go from the chair he stood on to hang himself he would start to get faint and his body would move to stand him up again.

The will to survive is almost sick in its tenacity.

I've known people who've tried to kill themselves and their attempts have always failed because of some personal intervention rather than some interference from without. Maybe it's some inner grace, maybe it's subconcious hope for tomorrow, maybe it's truly a touch of the divine that holds you and says "not yet." Some of these experiences have helped people work at living rather than trying to die. They've certainly seen something I've never allowed myself to. My brain quickly short-circuits any plans for self-destruction, always asking, "what about this, tomorrow? what about that, next week? You've taken more than you've given, is that the position you want to leave in?" Self-righteous little bitch.

*sighs* Only other thoughts for the day worth noting are prayer requests. This is for real, so if you believe, then please, join me. Add your own prayers and whisper them, cry them out, sing them aloud. If not, then please do me a favor and hit the back button right now.

Let there be Peace on Earth, and let it Begin with Me.

We are tired of the hatred and the destruction, please give us relief. We are weary of the cruelty and uncaring of neighbors and the impatience of our own exhausted hearts.

Please show us the way to Peace. Please help us to find the patience, courage and strength to seek peace at all times and in all ways.

Please guide our leaders that their priorities remain first and foremost with love and reason and cause them to leave pride and supremacy behind.

We ask for calm, for peace, for love.

We cannot directly affect our brothers thousands of miles away, and though their troubles will likely not touch us, we are affected nonetheless and so we beg Your intercession. Their hatred and distrust has blinded them to the possibility of peace and growth. They see only the desire to respond to destruction with destruction.

But we understand too that there are many who grow so tired that their hope wanes and their own faith falters. We pray for them as well. We pray that they feel Your precence and know some peace.

Their war is older than some of the generations fighting in it. For them, for the next generation we beg for peace. It is an unbalanced life that never knows peace, only blood and vengeance.

We cry to You in the season when we remember Your gifts to us, Grant us Your Peace.

In Your most Holy Name,
Amen