« Random Acts of Kindness | Main | 5min Life Videopedia »
Bad Prose Corner Episode 2: Talents and Moping
By Marc | December 11, 2007
Welcome to the second installment of Bad Prose Corner. It’s been a while since the first one, but in honor of the nice little ice storm we got and the ones that caused three states to call a state of emergency, I have picked out this little bucket of vomit which contains bits of half-digested clichés in a fine broth of random whining and bison dung (my school’s mascot was the buffalo) with just a hint of idiocy. Can you smell it? Does it smell like teen angst?
Well it should. Like the first installment, this was written sometime in my high school years, over twenty years ago. So, kids, grab your barf bags and Dramamine, ‘cause your in for another long-winded (and I mean lo-oooong) ride on the artsy-tragic ride of confusion! Here goes:
The world promises us the chance to be warm and loving, but what it delivers is a life cursed with cold, which freezes the heart that dares to share the flicker of warmth inside it that only a few are fortunate to have. We have become cold machines, metal souls, forced never to care for another. Some can remember what it was like to love. These people still love, but only those who are the same as themselves. But there are others, those that the loving ones forget. Those who cannot love. Those who have never been loved. Those who no one but their own kind can relate to. These people are us. We are the ones with the true power. We can change the world. We are the creativity, the ability, the imagination, the dreams, the rebelliousness, yet we are forever alone in this world of stone in which the magic has long since died. We can bring back this magic, yet we are vastly outnumbered by the ignorant and the blind who have chosen to bear souls of ice and metal. They know nothing of our thoughts, our feelings, our ideas, our hopes and dreams, because they don’t concern themselves with us. They live for material possessions while we yearn for emotion in this aluminum-plated techno-logical society. Our struggle for self-sacrifice has made us what we are. But because of our ability to give totally to others, they have made wrongful accusations on us, so we must be encaged once more in our cages of ice, never to care until it is safe to care again. Once we are detained, we are forced to listen to false preachers with acid tongues that corrupt and corrode our thinking, trying to destroy our beliefs. They, the uncaring, the unscarred, think that they have problems but don’t realize that we have the ability to help. Our words have healing power of magnitudes that can heal hearts that bleed, souls that are lost, minds that strive for meaning. Once in a great while, they, these beasts who make the lonely their playthings, realize our power, and seek our help. Unwittingly, we give them our help, but once they are back to the way they think they were, living off the privileged like birds of prey, they throw us away as if we never existed. They are hateful with only greed in their eyes and ice in their hearts with Hell in their grasps. We despise war, we are pacifists, but we must fight a war of souls every day of our lives. We cannot escape it. They say they know depression when they are lonely for a short while, but it is like a droplet compared to the ocean of solitude that we have flowing through our lives. These two tribes, which I have labeled “us” and “them”, are all the same, save for one bit of information that separates. This is known as the way of dealing with life. Some, they, can use it to better themselves, while the rest, we, have been used, abused, and destroyed by it. Isn’t it a wonder how every heart desperately needs and wants what it knows nothing about? Love, happiness, a sense of belonging, but it knows it will never have these because they will never let it have them. So we must be cold and uncaring, for if we don’t we can only be left hurt with wounds that will never heal.
And life goes on…
…And the Cold never ends.
Okay, are you still with me? I’ll give you a few moments to stop laughing and recover from the dry heaves……When I read it out loud to Julie in preparation for this update, I couldn’t stop shifting into a tragic poet impersonation (sort of a cross between Master Thespian and a ghost from Scooby-Doo – lots of moaning and rolling of the R’s).Also in reading it out loud, I noticed that it has a case of ADD, jumping from thought to thought for no reason. I’m sure that when I wrote it, it made perfect sense, but now it doesn’t at all. It also has many contradictions, but again, it must have made sense to me years ago.
So, let’s dig in and try to figure out how my current relationship with Christ (and just my current state of mind) could have helped that whiny me.
From what I can get out of it, I talk a lot about “fake” people who use the “creative” people. I’m pretty sure I meant this to mean the way some people are “just friends” who get emotionally dumped on, like that movie, The Last American Virgin. Then there’s some stuff about how we’re being repressed and forced not to shine.
We are all given gifts and talents, not just some of us. One person’s talents aren’t exactly the same as his neighbor’s, but they are all put there for the glorification of our Maker. Back when I wrote the icky words, I took talent to only mean artistic or creative, and I was greatly misinformed. A person can be great at sports, math, organizing, tax laws, sales, communicating, relating to people, hugging, and any number of things that make him or her special.
Someone can also be gifted with what many may consider to be curses. My little brother, age 32, due to a condition since birth has the mind of a grade schooler, but he is rarely unhappy and has an innocence about him that brings joy to many people around him. Someone confined to a wheelchair or someone with a height disadvantage may be looked upon with pity, but those people are usually fiercely independent and great problem-solvers because their conditions depend on it. A “handicap” can be a benefit indirectly as well, because sometimes it gives others an appreciation and thankfulness for how easy their own lives are.
Talents or gifts are just things you do really well or something about you that makes you different. But they are all, I believe, given to us by God in the hopes that we will use them to lift His name higher. They are also there so we can benefit our neighbor, being a daily example of Christ and a physical extension of God in our own unique ways.
Christ warns us about squandering our gifts in the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30). The talents in the story were units of money, but they apply to anything given to us to be stewards of. If you nurture and invest what has been entrusted to you, and are able to give back more than you started with, no matter how much or how little, God will be pleased. If you have done nothing but hide away what you have, you are lazy and selfish.
Give of yourself what you excel at, for the benefit of God or for the benefit of your neighbor. There are things about you that make you special and can be a light to someone else’s darkness. If you can easily talk to people, encourage someone who can’t. If you understand the income tax forms, help someone who finds them confusing. If you’ve got the gift of basic carpentry, build a ramp for someone who needs one. If you’re in a position of favor, be a voice for those who aren’t. Just be righteous to each other.
Back in high school, I saw everyone else as pretty much robots that shut themselves down when they were alone and had nothing to offer. I made accusations in this incoherent, whining, droning, rambling paragraph about people I thought I knew but had no clue about. They were confused teenagers just like me. They had fears, insecurities, ignorance, misinformation, personalities. Just because I didn’t relate to them doesn’t mean I couldn’t relate to them. I am sorry, my peers, my classmates, my fellow alumni of CHS.
Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. – 1 Peter 4:9-11
Topics: Bad Prose Corner | No Comments »
