The Beloved in Disguise


There is a weight on every heart. It is borne in many ways, most of them unhealthy. I think it is the inborn sense of guilt, something to do with biting the apple. The fig leaf is the weight we all use to conceal our unnamed guilt.

I write from that weight because it is too heavy to be hidden. It screams out within the walls of our inner asylum. It wants to be set free from the constraints of the mind. It is the mind that invented the fig leaf.

All advertising is aimed at this weight, for we all want a bit of lightness in our lives. It comes in the form of creams or cocaine, gambling or charitable giving (a fig-leaf disguised as something worthy).

The advertisers have their own fig leaves, of course. No one escapes from the weight.

What brought this essay on? A relative I have not kept contact with suddenly lost their autistic child, who was only 18. I went to the funeral home Tribute Page and there I sat mesmerized by the beauty of this boy. It was clear to me that he had been the Beloved in Disguise.

He had been the teacher seen as “different” in order for him to do his work. Now he is gone, leaving light trails everywhere.

Of course my little girl was a teacher, too. The weight on my heart has been written about in countless ways. I am a wounded warrior, but so are we all.

The weight we drag around has nothing to do with this world, although it seemingly does. It really has to do with us not revealing our damage to the world more clearly. The world is rotten to the core. The fig leaf can never solve the problem.

I write this imprisoned by the weight of love. The damage done cannot be undone, so I must sing it until the day I die. There is nothing but love here in these typing fingers, these conveyors of truth.

How do we redeem ourselves? We can’t. It must come from a much higher level that the ego. We must be saved by those that cannot save themselves. A price must be paid.

These beautiful children are way-showers and we must endure their departures from this earth. They have earned their entrance back into The Garden. Now they are seen clearly as they are. As Keats said, “Truth is beauty. Beauty is truth.” That is all we need to know.

Vicki Woodyard

One Comment

  1. I am so sorry for your loss of this precious child, Vicki. But, you are so right. I see so many children gone too soon, but leaving such an incredible gift of wisdom and love behind. They truly are our angels.

    Reply

Comments welcomed....