Difficulties

It is difficult when there is a problem close to home, especially in one’s own family, a horrid, dangerous problem, and yet one is not allowed to help because what one offers will not be accepted. People stray so far by gradual removals from the path of Christ, all the while not noticing the drift, until they cannot even remember who Christ is, or worse, think they have Him all the more within their grasp while at the same time they are murdering others all around them.

It is pure insanity, yet that possibility cannot be admitted, nothing can be admitted that does not glorify and bolster the imaginary self, and so where healing would be possible, even salvation, it is not allowed to approach at all, but it is demonized in the person of one hated and despised. And for what? Though helpless to help the one who needs help, a blind guide wills rather to pull others into the ditch rather than accept a sighted guide, it simply incubates a lifeless egg.

No activity, not reading or study, not even the scriptures, nothing material outside the self, can help when you are faced with such difficulties, when you are not allowed to intervene by either the victim or the perpetrator of strong delusion. You cannot hide yourself in any activity, yet you cannot be anxious, even knowing that irreversible catastrophe can steal the life of one beloved, one who refuses to admit that you exist, let alone that you have loved.
All you can do is pray.

And this seems like doing nothing, yet it is all you can do. You enclose yourself in the refuge of prayer, and others, and even yourself, mock you as weak and ineffectual. The prayer itself, the talking to the Father, the laying bare your soul’s anguish over the helplessness of the situation, you know may do nothing to prevent the catastrophe, it may still occur, your soul may still have to face the darkest moment, and yet continue to live. Still, all you can do is pray.

Not the hundreds of common cares that come and go, with which you deal successfully or not, they matter not at all compared to this problem which continues moving toward chaos, mutely and unresponsive to what might prevent it, and like physical pain, cuts you off in time and space from all other human beings who are happy. Stories no longer satisfy, tales no more encourage or inspire, when before you lies the reality of what cannot be, yet is.

Father, You alone know all, You alone know us and all our afflictions, You prepare a table for us before the face of these sightless enemies who cry war when all we want is peace, and to whom peace is only seeing us defeated and destroyed. Help us, Father, in this hour of trouble, when Your family is in such need of salvation, yet runs from it into the dark solitude where the evil one, having despoiled the flock, seeks the life of Your young ones, caught in his traps.

I can do nothing, Lord. I can do nothing. Even my prayer is only a moan, yet You know my heart, and let my afflictions drive me into the wilderness, pursued by accusers shouting out crimes I have never committed, so that You alone exist for me. All that You have given me, I wanted to give back to You, but not like this. I wanted to give You not the one talent You entrusted to me, but that and even more. But even what little I thought I had has been taken from me.

Do not let the evil one have the upper hand, Lord. Do not let him ravage the family You have planted. Visit us, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and dispel the hatred, the doubt, the accusations, the delusions, the false hopes, the sickness of heart, the unforgiving memory, every evil thing that has come to nest like rats in a forsaken ruin. Deliver us, let us call you again ‘our Father’ and deliver us, from evil, from the evil one, from each other and from ourselves.

Let us wake in the morning, filled with Your love, and sing and be happy all our days. Make our future as happy as our past was sad, those years when You were punishing us, those years when we were punishing ourselves. Let Your servants see what You can do for them, let their children see Your glory. May the sweetness of the Lord be on us! Make all we do succeed. (Psalm 90:14-17). Yahweh, do not desert me, do not stand aside, my God! Come quickly to my help, Lord, my Savior! (Psalm 38:21-22).