This is Journal-keeping!

It occurred to me this morning that blogging is really journal-keeping, and that is a very cool thing! I've been awful about it throughout my life, and the times that I have written, I either destroyed as a teenager because I was embarrassed by myself, or I can't find them. Sigh. Soooo... perhaps now there will be some record of my life, for what it's worth. I think it's really interesting to read others' thoughts and experiences, but mine seem either depressing or dull (or both).

It All Came Back!

Recently, someone close to me painfully related the details of a false accusation against her. It wasn’t a huge deal compared with some bogus allegations, but it was to her what all false accusation is: hideous, corrosive nastiness. My reaction to her tale was instant and visceral: “How ugly! False accusation is filth!” That last word was hissed with all the vehemence of my soul, because it brought back to my mind the terror and anguish of the times I’ve been assaulted (yes, assaulted) by false accusation. Long before I experienced it myself, my whole soul groaned with the need to fight this pestilence. I resent and despise every incidence of this nightmare-producing evil, wherever and to whomever it occurs. If you haven’t experienced it, you cannot imagine how devastating, humiliating, and ugly it is, a lethal time-release arsenic, slowly poisoning, poisoning. And its victims writhe.

To my great disgust, I’ve been thus victimized several times. In every case, there was no bit of truth to the nonsense spewed by sick, vindictive minds. One of my mantras is that “unhappy people make other people unhappy”. Truth. Usually, the accuser’s own poor choices led to whatever distress they chose to blame on others, who often gave them aid when no one else would, and in craven dishonesty, in cowardice, they blame anyone but themselves: The woman who brought her sleeping child into my home, laying her down to nap in a dirty diaper without mentioning the mess, and then blaming the child’s poor burned bum on me. The paranoid drug addict whose neglect of her children caused them emotional problems as well as exposure to countless uncontrolled situations, but who later blamed their family’s serious troubles on me and mine after we’d offered months of refuge and succor. (What sick, disgusting, foul, unspeakable ROT.) Once, someone hiding long-ago emotional trauma that had nothing to do with us, allowed filthy images into her disturbed head and then projected that execrable soul-slime into our lives. Each of these finger-pointers was clearly troubled; but still (or perhaps because of that), the filth they smeared stung and burned, leaving scabs and scars and causing inexpressible pain. Their psycho ranting and sick tales maligned and destroyed; but their only concern was for their own pain if their own bullets ricocheted, causing other innocents to bleed, too. That they believe their own nonsense does little to alleviate the suffering of their victims, who are quite often people who deserve to be basking in the delight of humble gratitude, rather than enduring the emotional leprosy inflicted on them by tainted hearts and diseased minds.

The nightmares I’ve occasionally endured have caused me to ponder long and often. False witness is centuries old, but just as volatile and destructive today. When God dealt with a people so stiff-necked and stubborn that He chose to give them only ten commandments to obey, one of those edicts forbade falsely accusing. Interesting: theft, adultery, murder, false witness, all on the same tablet; all carved in stone. And no wonder! All four acts are vicious, selfish crimes. Murder takes a life; but false accusation can do the same. Betrayal of either sort stabs, its resultant arterial bleeding draining life. Robbed of reputation and peace, the accused can wither away, never recovering what was lost. At least a murder victim can stop feeling the pain; for the calumny victim, the torment goes on and on. And in agony, they scream and scream; and no one hears.

False accusation is, of course, repugnant in its innate injustice. It mocks the very foundations of a country fueled by the blood of patriots and heroes. As Martin Luther King said, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. But calumny is also a specialized form of torture, physically excruciating as income, health and freedom erode, yes; but also psychologically destructive. To be accused of what one did not do is humiliating! Paralyzing! Isolating! Robbed of security and self-esteem, victims often dread even speaking about the horror they endure, because the retelling burns like vomiting Dran-O after being forced to drink it. Deep down, the false accuser likely knows the depth of the sin, the breadth of the wrong, and that’s why they justify their actions by upholding the lie and passing it on as fact. But a lie is not true because someone believes it to be true; nor does a lie become truth through repetition!

On top of that agony, there hovers the fear that somehow one’s listener might believe the nonsense, because the adversary is very clever, and so very eager to spread insidious, infectious lies like biological warfare, decimating innocents across a fathomless abyss of gossip-mongering. And so those scalded suffer alone. Meanwhile, nasty suspicions float free in the air, infecting even those with testimonies and brains, as nonsense comes dressed in clever costume, deceiving, enticing, and conscripting the unwary into an army that steamrolls and stabs, heedless of the carnage.

For me, the only consolation is the knowledge that one day the truth will out. One day, a loving Father will gather His wounded legions in His arms and pour out solace on all of us who have groaned under this especially heinous burden. In the meantime, I’ll bury myself in the presence of the Comforter, drinking in the life-giving water of His assurances that the nonsense spewed on me and mine is just that: nonsense; and that He knows the truth. He knows, and He weeps with me. That has to be enough, because for now, that’s all there is.

After a night's "sleep"

So, I lay awake thinking about writing. When I did manage to sleep, I woke four times because ideas kept nudging me awake. I've been listening to Amanda Dickson's "Wake Up To A Happier Life" and loving it. She asks, "What makes you lose track of time?" Writing is definitely IT. I feel more alive while spouting ideas onto paper than at any other time. "Misfit Me" feels actually human-- surprisingly a part of the race-- when I'm doing that. Yesterday I got a card from a sweet lady, Lucille. She complimented my writing style, and thanked me for my words. WOW. What a much-needed and well-timed boost!

My first blog ever!

Whoa. I'm now officially a citizen of Planet Blog. It's a weird feeling. When I began writing, my choices were notebook paper, legal pads, or the ever-exotic airmail paper. This is so trippy!