You want some recognition.  A little bit.  Something.  Some kind of validation.  Other people rock the classroom, the sports field, have interesting hobbies, have money or looks, or just have a certain je ne sais quois.  You just plod along.  When you try those things, you don’t actually humiliate yourself, not too badly–but people shrug and look elsewhere.  “Oh, I didn’t realize you were on the team also.  That’s nice.  Congratulations to you too.”

“He’s OK.”

“She’s  all right.”

Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

You stick out.  You don’t want to.   You try to fit in.  But something happened to mark you and now, no matter what you do, people notice and talk about you.  Even when things are going well, you feel them watching, judging, waiting.

You cannot feel your lungs ever, except now.  They are tight, painful, itching.   They burn.  You fight each breath.

Gone.  Missing.  Absent.  Never in this life to hear that voice.

A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

No one knows you or cares about you.  maybe they would help you if you begged–but they would help you as strangers, or with their teeth gritted.

We hid as it were our faces from him

It’s a part of your body you don’t normally notice.  Now you do.  It’s not acute but it just nags at you.  You can’t take anything for granted.

You want… friendship, love, to be one of the guys, an opportunity to prove yourself.  And you don’t get it.  No.  Not with us, they say.

Maybe its you, you don’t know.

He was despised and rejected of men.

There you are, moving along like you have so many times before… ouch!  Dang dang dang!   You’ve stubbed your toe.

Which actually tells us a lot about the mortal condition.

Kings shall see that which they have not considered

(more…)

One moment you thought everything was fine, you were among friends, then something happens and your face burns and they are all laughing at you.  It feels awful.

Even years later, you can feel your gut clench when you think of it.

If it happens enough, or you worry about it enough, it becomes a permanent injury.  You are always about to cringe.  You have a permanent psychic injury.

Perhaps, eventually, it will lead you to either Pride or  the peace of Humility.  But either way, it hurts.

He was despised and rejected of men.

You are bored, you are flat and restless and irritated and dull.

I spur to action, to mischief, or sometimes to nothing.

That acid taste of despising yourself.  Perhaps in some distant day you will look back and see it as a spur to repentance and growth.  But for now it is just a bitter fire of feeling sick at who you are.

When the bells justle in the tower
  The hollow night amid,
Then on my tongue the taste is sour
  Of all I ever did.

Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.

It’s annoying.  If it goes on, almost maddening.  Sometimes it is a warning or a precursor of worse pain to come–stop now while you can!–sometimes it is a sign of healing–sometimes its just an itch.  Part of the  mortal experience.

It is all hopeless. There is no point.  You despair.

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Today marks the birth 250th years ago in 1776 of Mary Pickersgill, who crafted with her household the gigantic Star-Spangled Banner that Major Armistead hoisted over Fort McHenry. Were you in Baltimore at mid-day you could have gone to her home for a piece of cake.

(The Baltimore Banner)
“Pickersgill’s story begins with that of her mother, Rebecca Young, who opened a flag-making shop in Philadelphia after her husband’s death. Young Mary worked alongside her.

“When Pickersgill’s own husband died, she followed in her mother’s footsteps. Pickersgill, her young daughter and her mother moved to Baltimore in 1806 to be closer to family. They started making flags in their brick three-story home at the intersection of Albemarle Street and what was then called Queen Street, but we now call Pratt.

“Pickersgill and her mother placed newspaper ads inviting ‘military gentlemen’ to purchase ‘Silk Standards & Cavalry Colors, and other Colors of every description, finished in compleat order.'”

For Lent, I conceived the quixotic notion of posting about some different kind of pain and suffering each day.

Here’s the list of what I have got.

Any suggestions or refinements would be welcome.

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