Gates

February 21, 2017 jeanne w.

I am a world of interior landscapes. Separated by fences. Accessed through interior gates of different shapes and sizes. Wooden whitewashed gates. Metal chainlink gates. Iron, bronze and gold. Cast-iron. Barbed wire. Electric. Internal gates that stand in different states and conditions. Closing and Closed gates. Opening and Open gates. Broken and destroyed. Forgotten, lost, abandoned and unknown. Gates. With names. Identities that live inside of me, so large that they call out. Beckoning me to enter in the land, walk around, and explore... Discover. Outcasts, waiting to belong. Prisoners, wanting to be set free. The sick, longing to be made well. Me. Needing love. Treasures. Buried in the dirt. Beauty. In the ash.

I am a vast land with many gates behind which live both Pain and Beauty, mixed together, in the soil. Of my heart and mind and body and soul. Where Baring Pain and Baring Beauty are planted. Here. In the Land Of The Living.

I was a little girl in a white terrycloth jumper with red and blue piping lining the zipper that ran up and down the petite frame of a seven year old body that was playing in the back yard bordered by a grey metal chain-linked fence. I was a little girl sweeping the dirt over the threshold of my playhouse with a yellow handled straw broom because I liked to keep my little house clean. Like Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I heard a familiar voice calling me. "Where are you?"

Jumping up with his paws between the metal triangles, Mike beat me to the gate. His tail wagging so hard the latch clinked back and forth on the metal pole that secured it in place. A familiar hand. A hand that lived in our midst. A rough and dusty hand, weathered by Pain, reached over to pet the top of Mike's head.

And then the palm, creased with Pain, lifted the metal latch and opened the gate.

"Follow me."

As I skipped from concrete stone to concrete stone along the side of my big house, I can still hear the gate shut behind me.

It had to be done out there. Outside the gate. Outside our camp. I had been chosen. The ritual planned. Long before that Time. I was being taken out there... being sent into the wilderness. But not until he could lay his hands upon me, so he could transfer all the shame and violence and guilt of Pain that had bubbled up inside of him. Into a volcano. Of Pain. So big that it had to release. It's ashes. So they were spread out. Over me. It was there, outside the camp. That I would bear his iniquities. The guilt of his sin. Because he couldn't. He wouldn't. Bear it any longer. He didn't need to tell me that I was now a goat. I just knew. I was the goat, covered in the ash of his volcano. I was made the goat that was to carry the shame. Of Pain. Wandering in the wilderness. Alone. The world crashing against me did not care. Did not know. Because a goat. Knows. To bear it. Sent. To wander in the wilderness. Alone.

I could not return to my big house through the metal chain linked gate. It was closed. To goats.

So I returned to the big house through the adult front door. I was not carrying the remnants of an ice cream cone as promised on that hot summer day; but instead I was carrying the burden of never being a child again. I was now a goat. And I knew it wasn't safe out there anymore. Nothing was safe anymore. Not for a goat. This goat knew there were predators hunting her now. Looking for a little goat. To carry. The shame of their Pain. And my little goat heart beat with a new rhythm of vigilance and my terrified goat flesh burned with so much shame... and dust and ash now pulsed through my veins.

I went into the little girl's bedroom and closed the door. And hid. My brokenness and his. I hid. In pain. A goat. Sent into the wilderness. Alone. The little girl was now abandoned. Locked behind the metal chain-linked gate with a name. Ashpoth. She was back there now. Alone. Where she lay sick. Her faith in man and God, broken, into pieces. In the sand. Along the Mississippi River next to a lone tree, whose wood felt her body cry. Under the bridge, where her childhood was held safely in Time. Under the canopy of leaves who saw. Her innocence. And rustled with her as she lie. Shattered. In the shade that brought the cold of day.

She was now a prisoner. Her identity set. In stone. In tiny pebble stones that heard it whispered in the air what she was. A goat. No longer was she from the Backyard of Innocence that lived on the other side of the locked metal chain-linked gate. The dirt had been swept over the threshold with a broom, and was now mixed with the sweat and grime and wet sand of Ashpoth. I was on the other side of a closed gate, and there was no getting back in the Backyard of Innocence. Not when you're a goat.

It was part of me now. And I was part of it. Ashpoth.

I spent the first half of my life closing gates. Being locked behind and on the other side. Of gates. Sealing off fragmented territories with disjointed boundaries in my heart and my mind and my body and my soul. Abandoning the forsaken. Ignoring the silent cries. Behind closed gates. Where Pain lived. Because the past was the past and I was done with that. Case, and gate, closed. That. Was. That. And the past still is the past and I am done with that. And that. Is. That. But God. There are treasures. Behind gates. And Beauty lives there, too.

And my gates call out through sights and smells and sounds and Time and Space to trigger emotions that take me back to being seventeen and twelve... and seven. A number 2 pencil escorts me down the hallway to High School Gate, where I stand looking in on my English class where Mr. Miller told me I could write. Imagine. A goat can write?! I was so happy to hear that... I was gifted. I didn't know a goat carried gifts, you see. Until Mr. Miller, who stands with me behind that High School gate, still saying... "you can write. you can..." And the smell of dirty socks and my kids' old gym clothes pick me up and dump me on the other side of Middle School Gate, where I stand naked and ashamed in the locker room showers. And I keep opening the gate and saying, "you're beautiful. you are... just the way you are. you're beautiful. you are...." And the sound of a clinking metal fence and the feel of wood and the rustling of leaves still drives me across the bridge in an old blue car with vinyl blue and white sticky seats over the Mississippi River. And sends me. Wandering in the wilderness. Alone. The world crashing against me does not care. And Baring Pain. Reveals. The open gate. Baring Beauty.

I am spending the second half of my life opening gates and keeping open gates open. Just like this gate, this wooden whitewashed gate that stands with me, here at Our Hebron Home™. It's name. Shamat. Where I listen. For gates that call out. From the wings of the morning to the far side of the sea. Beckoning me. To enter in, and rest. In the midst. Baring Pain. That I might find release. From Pain. And that Pain might be released from me. So she can quietly leave. Her work done. Because I don't need her to take me over the edge. Not here. Because this gate is open and opening. Baring Beauty. With Us. In Sand We Share. Here. In the Land Of The Living. Where freedom really does still ring. Can't you hear it?

Behind my gates live both Pain and Beauty, mixed together, in the soil. Of the landscape of my heart and mind and body and soul. Where Baring Pain and Baring Beauty are planted. Here. In the Land Of The Living. The world crashing against us does not care. With Sand We Share. In this Place for Pain, where I stand. In Grace. And grace, alone.

My gates. Call out. My gates. Have names. Because my gates. They live, inside of me. And their identities are large. Large enough for... Baring Pain. And. Baring Beauty.

Gates. Have names. They do. So stand here. With me. Please. As I hold out in an open hand of hope, Sand We Share. For a Time such as this. In the Land Of The Living. A Land. Of Grace. And allow your land to grow quiet. It will. And then you'll see the names written. With a number 2 pencil. You'll smell them. In dirty socks and old gym clothes. You'll hear them clink under a dog's paws. You'll feel them. In a lone tree's wood. As you reach up high and run your rough and dusty hand, weathered in Beauty, over names. Set in stone. And you'll sense them. In the rustling of the leaves. That see. Baring Pain. Taking you over the edge into the deep blue water, where a reflection, once hidden. Is now revealed. Your reflection. Baring Beauty. Is not me.