Wednesday, July 29, 2015

The Convicting Mirror (1986)


Fair Reader, a long train of thought has for some time carried me far away from here; so I shall make a shift to obey my move and with a much shorter story than I should be telling if I had my insights about me and tell you of a happening that took place in 1986, a year after my mother became a Christian. Which her having a long-term relationship with a married man, separated from his wife 40-years, was reproved by the amazing grace with remark from heaven, and she had had enough to sense to understand it.  After becoming a Christian she had asked me after a year’s time: was her relationship tedious, annoying and irritating to heaven, and was there no way to find out if heaven approved or disapproved? It seemed quite superfluous, but she wanted to please God, and his heavenly host. I told her that I knew of a somewhat haughty way to go about this, for clarity sake, that I had heard of, from the old sacred, or perhaps they were Apocrypha scriptures. We will not dwell on her apprehension, she agreed, and I said if this displeases heaven you will get a black ring around the upper part of your forehead, all you need to do is look in the mirror for a lengthily time, and ask if heaven is distressed by her behavior with this ongoing relationship (knowing her companion, was separated and she too had a lover, and it was based on financial reasons, for this way of parting and remaining married just in name not in deed, and both living in different cities). I told her if that was too unpleasant for her, perhaps consulting a preacher on this might suit her better. She who though was without shadow on this, intended to see this through, once and for all. And she looked in the mirror like anyone else. And said she saw nothing out of the ordinary but her face, and nothing else. I told her it’s just been a few minute you must find heaven agreeable on this, pray harder, look deeper, and give heart to the horrible clarification you seek, and patience.  And thus, she bade to do as instructed.
       After several more minutes longer, perhaps in all a total of fifteen, she said is a gush of wind, “By, gosh…!” she had been somewhat frightened, awed, and amazed all at once, “Yes I do have a black ring around my forehead,” she claimed.  She did no more than a curious sheep would have done, had the sheep such abilities, and told her once lover, and still married companion, he’d not be able to visit her to include  coming over to her apartment anymore, unless they were married, or until his 40-year divorce was no longer in limbo, where Earnest and his wife purposely put it; so it was finalized, and after she told him this, she had full intentions to check the mirror again, never did she see that black ring. And so she remained unmarried, and he with his clownishness, even after his wife died would not marry the woman for whatever reasons I don’t know, although I do know she was 70 at the time and he was 80—thereabouts,  and he died shortly after that,  whose names were Elsie, and his name being Earnest. How unfortunate I thought, for both loved each other.
       Both parties lived in Donkeyland for a decade or more, until the city of St. Paul took Earnest’s land for a park, and Elsie sold her house in 1980 to move into an apartment, to a would be killer, and used her money to travel, taking her two sons with her wherever she went.

Be what may, I feel Elsie sensed: she was like a lake rid of the mud, for she had gone the distance, and she left behind all bonds that web up. She was now calm in mind, calm in speech, pacified; in essence, between her and heaven and God, worthy.


No: 1098/7-12-2015