Wow!!

That sounds so much like me when I lived in a world of "shadow 
people" and "helpers"! I don't think I really had any idea of the 
depth to which I was isolated, brittle like glass, fragile as a 
dream, strong as a stitch, weak as a dying reflexion.

I was afraid of everything and everyone, so up went the construct of 
intellect, "knowledge", fact, humor, while at night, I drugged and 
drank myself away from even these constructs.  I led a lonely, 
heartless life, always wishing that the ground would simply swallow me.

Now, sometimes, I feel strange.  Right now, my growing girl wants to 
do wierd things with her hair like have my name cut in it, ware beads 
and bells, get lots of tie dye clothes, etc, etc.

I am super emotional and cry at everything, right in the middle of 
Church, just bawling my head over the way Pastor Don says a word 
because it sounds Canadian and I wonder if he misses his country of 
origin sometimes, or how sweet, kind, and just grand Daddy Jesus is.

I wish I could run barefoot through the sanctuary because it would be 
fun and playful.  I have seen Jesus be playful during many of my 
prayer sessions and, quite often during the day, HE will smile and 
laugh and physically nudge me.

Well, gonna sign now.  73 and 88's.

LOVE IN HIM,

purple Mari



At 05:35 PM 3/25/2007, you wrote:
>Please Hear What I'm Not Saying
>
>Don't be fooled by me.
>Don't be fooled by the face I wear.
>For I wear a mask, I wear a thousand masks. Masks that I'm afraid
>to take off, and none of them are me.
>
>Pretending is an art that's second nature to me, but don't be
>fooled, for God's sake, don't be fooled.
>I give you the impression that I am secure, that all is sunny,
>and unruffled with me, within, as well as without.  That
>confidence is my name, and coolness my game.  That the water's
>calm, and I'm in command, and that I need no one. But don't
>believe me, Please!
>
>My surface may be smooth, but my surface is my mask, my varying
>and ever-concealing mask.
>
>Beneath lies no smugness, no complacence.  Beneath it dwells the
>real me, in confusion and fear, in aloneness, but I hide this.  I
>don't want anybody to know it.  That's why I frantically create a
>mask to hide behind, a nonchalant, sophisticated facade, to help
>me pretend, to shield me from the glance that knows.  But such a
>glance is precisely my salvation, my only salvation.  And I know
>it, that if it's followed by acceptance, if it is followed by
>love, It's the only thing that can liberate me, from myself, from
>my own self-built prison walls, from the barriers that I so
>pains-takingly erect. It's the only thing that will assure me of
>what I can't assure myself, that I'm really worth something.
>But I don't tell you this, I don't dare, I'm afraid to.
>I'm afraid that your glance will not be followed by love.
>I'm afraid that you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh.
>And your laugh would kill me.
>So I play my game, with a facade of assurance without, and a
>trembling child within.
>And so begins the parade of masks, the glittering, but empty
>parade of masks, and my life becomes a front.
>
>I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.
>I tell you everything that's really nothing, and nothing, of
>what's everything, of what's crying within me.
>So, When I'm going through my routine, please don't be fooled by
>what I'm saying,
>Please listen carefully, and try to hear what I'm not saying, and
>what I'd like to be able to say, what for survival, I need to
>say, but what I can't say.
>Honestly, I dislike the superficial game I'm playing, the
>superficial phony game;
>I'd really like to be genuine and spontaneous and me......
>But you've got to help me.
>You've got to hold out your hand, even when that's the last thing
>I seem to want or need.
>Only you can wipe away from my eyes the blank stare of the
>breathing dead.
>Only you can call me into aliveness.
>Each time you're kind and gentle, and encouraging, each time you
>try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to
>grow wings, very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings.
>With your sensitivity and sympathy, and your power of
>understanding, you can breathe life into me, I want you to know
>that.
>I want you to know how important you are to me.
>How you can be a creator of the person that is me, if you choose
>to.
>Please choose to!
>You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,
>You alone, can remove my mask, you alone can release me from my
>shadow world of panic and uncertainty, from my lonely prison.
>So do not pass me by.
>Please don't pass me by.
>
>It will not be easy for you.
>A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
>The nearer you approach to me, the blinder I may strike back.
>It's irrational, but despite what the book says about Man, I am
>irrational.
>I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
>But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls.
>In this lies my hope,
>My only hope.
>Please try to beat down these walls with firm hands, but with
>gentle hands, for a child is very sensitive.
>
>Who Am I, you may wonder.
>I am someone you know very well.
>I am every man you meet,
>I am every woman you meet.
>
>Author Unknown.