Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed.
Emily Dickinson
This is for the one who tried, really tried. This is for the one who gave it his best shot and still came up short, for the one who applied himself with all his mind and heart and strength but in the end reaped no glad harvest. This is for the one who chose the good way but stumbled upon the stones of its rigorous demands. This is for the one who, more than anything, longed for righteousness, bright and clean, but who was not able attain to it. This is for the one who sought the noble, the excellent, the praiseworthy, but instead found defeat, disappointment, and despair. This is for the soul for whom the oil of gladness failed, for whom the early and latter rains did not come, the one for whom the promised land of milk and honey is but a grief and taunt.
This is not what you were told it is supposed to be. You cried out for deliverance that did not come. You beseeched the heavens for an intelligible gesture, but the skies remained detached and blank. You searched but did not find. You knocked but the door was not opened. You asked but it was not given. You are stranded, bereft as dust, in the valley of dry bones.
Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down!
You prayed to be changed, prayed so hard, but you remain in the cell of the same self. Those wonderful words which had led you to your knees are now flavorless husks, brittle sticks that prick and scratch but do not bud. In spite of the sacred admonitions, you are bone weary of fighting the good fight and, seeing no other option, have made disconsolate peace with the enemies of your soul. It seems that you must cohabitate with them, and so you sketch out their sovereign regions, each to each, the boundaries illusory and porous. The temple of cards yet stands in the center, but only by your sheer will. It is the sole remaining testament to an elusive sanctuary.
Why, O Lord, do you stand far off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
Come, let us sit together, you and I, here in this lonely place, the wails of the doomed rising from the abyss on the one side, the joyous shouts of the blessed cascading from the holy mountain on the other. It is enough. I will not be like Job’s friends who offered true but empty consolations. I will stay silent, my tongue abashed and still, except, perhaps, to say, and only once to say,
“Yes. I know.”
