John Matthew Gillen's Blog
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Torn Psalms and False Proverbs
Heartbreak worketh horrors in the souls of menAnd vain is the strength of man to remedy the terrors of God
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Anniversary Dream
A dream of justice
Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on UnsplashI dreamed.
It was at the one-year anniversary of our never speaking again, and there was a court-ordered meeting to settle accounts.
Inside, there was a party with all her friends and family.
I could hear them all laughing and talking, but I wasn’t allowed in.
I sat outside in a small antechamber alone. It was dark. Blank walls. Bare floor. No furniture except three chairs.
I don’t know how, but I knew she was supposed to come. Then a different woman I’ve never seen before arrived, and a man I didn’t recognize appeared in the other chair.
I remember feeling a little bit irritated. As though sending this woman in her place was a sign that this meeting wasn’t important enough for her to spare even a few minutes of her time.
The woman said, “She’s occupied with other things and won’t be joining us, so let’s get started without her.”
The man spoke and said, “Great. This should be quick. It’s just the normal one-year check-in since the spiritual divorce to see you both and ask, Are y’all straight? Is everything good between you two? Is there anything unsettled on your account?”
He looked at her first. She spoke quickly and with an air of completeness. “Yes. Absolutely. All good on her end. Nothing more to say. No complaints. All good from our side.”
He smiled and looked at me, expecting to be done quickly.
“NO!” I said. Firmly and forcefully.
“No. We are not okay. I am not okay. Nothing about this, or about what happened between us, or how it ended, was okay. At all. I have a lot of pain, a lot of complaints, and dozens of outstanding issues with everything that happened. I suffered to an extreme degree. I was abused. I was exploited. I was emotionally blackmailed, manipulated, and sexually abused. I was lied to. I was cheated on. I was devalued. Discarded. My soul was murdered. I was betrayed in the most gruesome, brutal fashion over and over, and there has been no accountability. No reconciliation. No attempt at repair. No earning of forgiveness. Nothing has been resolved or redressed. Nothing is settled. We are not okay. I am not okay. This is not okay. No.”
He looked at me in silence. So did she. Like they were both hoping I would say, “Never mind.” And just let it go so they could forget about everything and be done.
This angered me. It filled me with the fire of righteous indignation. It angered me because it was unjust. I had been sinned against. I had been abused. And neither of them cared enough to bother about justice for my murdered soul.
So I raised my voice and continued.
“When I offered to share my experience, I was accused of trying to manipulate and attack her, so I held my peace.”
“When I offered to collaborate on forgiveness, I was told that she had already forgiven me and herself and implied that if there were still any lingering resentments, those were my fault and had nothing at all to do with her or her actions. So, I held my peace.”
“When at last I asked to make peace, she again declined as though everything were already at peace. The next day, I read Ezekiel, where he says the people cry, ‘peace, peace, when there is no peace.’”
“All of this amounts to an avoidance of reality on her part and an erasure of my experience. Ultimately, she has engaged in a years-long denial of my right to my own existence and legitimate experience. As though I only exist as an object in her story, not as a soul with my own subjective reality.”
“And this decision to not come herself in spirit, but instead to send a stranger’s spirit, who I do not know, to take her place without my prior consent and to deny any wrongdoing and to try to sweep me and everything she has done to me under the rug forever, is absolutely, unbearably, violent, and utterly unjust.”
“I want this also added to the record and to the list of evidence showing her continued abusive behavior towards me.”
Again, they both looked at me in silence.
“Did you hear what I said!? I said, ‘No.’ Everything is not okay, and I want that recorded in the permanent record. I do not consent that everything between us is good. Our accounts are not settled. I continue to appeal to God for justice. For retribution. I do not justify the wicked. I do not hold her blameless. I do not absolve. I continue to call upon the Almighty judge of heaven and Earth to look upon our case, to judge betwixt me and her, and to require it at her hand and of her house. Amen.”
He looked at me and nodded that he understood.
The woman looked at me with contempt. I answered. “You can tell her that for over two years I have waited for her spirit to come and commune with me. For two years in these dreams, she has avoided, ignored, and denied me. When I see her, she refuses to look directly at me. When I speak to her, she can’t hear me. When she does interact with me, she speaks at me, not to me. She has refused completely to face herself or what she has done. And my gift to her. My great offering of love to her. Is to refuse to let her off the hook until she faces herself and her sins. And in facing them, free herself from them. Until she does that, I do not hold her blameless. And until she does that, I call upon Almighty God to mete out justice and retribution to her and her house.”
The woman turned and left in an angry rush, without saying a word.
He looked at me. This time, he seemed less in a hurry to get away from me and more sympathetic. There was an air of comprehension in his face. Like he had seen and understood something he hadn’t before. Like he had become aware of a long-standing problem that he should have seen sooner, but had failed to appreciate.
“I’ll see what I can do.” He said. “Don’t worry. I understand. I will handle it.” He said.
He reached out and touched my shoulder.
“You don’t need to do anything. Leave this with me. I’ll handle everything. I promise you. I will handle this.”
His words calmed the raging sea within me. And I gently nodded my thanks.
“It may not do any good.” He said, “but I want you to understand that she doesn’t have the capacity to offer any of what you are justly entitled to.”
I looked him in the eyes. “She can’t do it, John. She can’t face it. She doesn’t have the spiritual capacity for this. You’re right, of course, but just because you’re right doesn’t mean that she can make things right. You have every right to appeal for justice, and you are right to leave it up to God to create that justice, but I thought you might do yourself the kindness of accepting that justice is beyond her capacity to give. There’s nothing anyone can do about that. It’s just what’s so.”
“I understand. Thank you.” I said. “I would appreciate you making that clear to the Almighty, too. Because if she lacks that capacity, she’s as much of a danger to others as she has been to me and to herself. Something must be done by the appropriate authority to protect the innocent from further harm.”
He looked at me for a while. Then, nodded.
Then,
He was gone.
The joyful noise of the party in the next room still faintly echoed.
Then, the music stopped.
Then, the voices stopped.
Then, there was silence.
And I,
woke up.
