Stones in Antimony

A year and a half ago, all the hands in the air and the music and lights were electrifying. I was so fortunate to meet a group of such good, earnest people full of strength, vigor, and an athletic sort of care. But recently, I've realized how confused I've been. Nothing hits me quite the same, like I had built up a tolerance for understanding others, for understanding life. The thoughts and ideas of beauty, of truth that ordinarily moved me toward people without agenda were suddenly marked by my singular desire to change them. My love and my trust in fate, in God lost its spirit, its color. Instead, I was scintillated by everyone but wanted no one. I chased false desires, false despair and false hope-- into raising my hands and raising my voice, striving for the habit of it. This has led to a season of selfishness and waste. 

I am now compelled to rebuild, to commit to writing those good pieces of these past eighteen months that time will burn away if I don't. It is the first of this practice to remember what of this past season was beautiful and true in an effort to forgive and submit to God what is and always was His good will. Effort being the operative word. My dear Christ, help my unbelief.

. . . 

I closed my eyes and saw an image through the static— my Brixton attic, a stone’s throw away from Her Majesty’s Prison. My friend rustled in her room downstairs, ending the evening under covers with On Beauty by Zadie Smith. Zadie. I sighed. She whispered, 

"It's easy to confuse a woman for a philosophy."

I had been in my own bed, watching the lights flicker out from the prison. They turned out one by one. I saw them: a figure sat on his bed, hunched with a letter in hand; another lay limp and hot with denial, another depressed, hopeful, listless, serene, seething, praying. I turned on my back and decided to pray. I often tried to pray, though there never seemed to be a reply. And today seemed no different, at the outset anyway. There was sleet on my skylight and no heat indoors because we were poor, but I prayed facing upward with my eyes wide open, my white breath like a shadow under a bleary moon. The words fell out as they did since I was a child - as when I held my father's hands as he taught me how to pray. I fumbled the words a little less now, but they felt more desperate and tonight, obscenely emotional almost in song, a dirge-- when all at once, warmth fissured inside my chest imbuing all that was deep. It was a sacred thing. Speaking of it seems to mar its purity, its security. Love had pierced my soul and opened it to the face of all humanity. My body suddenly radiated light and held immeasurable sorrow, held infinite joy and peace. 

I rose from my bed, throwing off the white duvet that had covered my cold shoulders. Brixton and the prison were dark through my window. It was midnight. Tears of desire and astonishment, of conversation seeped through the cracks. These were tears of having waited for something for a lifetime and having come to an end of unrest and doubt of ever finding. I stood up, taking care not to bang my head on the low brick roof, and slipped into the bathroom. In the mirror, I saw my face.

I opened my eyes and saw David washed with the same sensation, his green eyes on fire from a few chairs down. He stood there in a daze, contemplating completeness, his jaw still loose, his soul satisfied. He held himself in all fragility, wondering whether he should tell another soul, and he did, albeit hesitantly— he answered when I asked. Light fell from his lips. I recognized it immediately. This is what they should've meant by exchanging the peace. He embraced me, and as I pulled away, he pulled me closer—quickly, not at all tenderly, but as a brother does to touch the realness of family, of pure kinship. I was awestruck that I understood— that he understood.

For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you. O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires... All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children. 

Since that day above, David has expressed his dreams on how he plans to love marginalized people groups in this world through farming. Compassion. Mercy. Peace. Flowing from the gaze of God.

Oh, and Wikipedia recently told me that HM Prison Brixton had been converted to a training facility for prisoners a few years after I moved out of my attic room. The programme was meant to reduce recidivism, especially since so many had tried to commit suicide there. That and the drugs. Brixton was known for its drugs. How many hours, days, weeks, months had I prayed for that place. Nothing I prayed made any difference, or could it have?