Rusty Knight

The squeak of armor, the clank of chain

Herald each step of my quest.

Dragging my trophy through the main gate,

Slain at the kingdom’s behest.

Sound and smell and sight assail

As I approach the kingdom’s heart.

Hawkers and wenches, workers and guards

Vendor’s stalls, horses and carts

Pay me no heed in my rusted suit,

Covered in soot and dirt.

Dented and scratched, my armor still sound,

Thought its wear is masking its worth.

The shield on my back, scarred and beaten

From the countless battles it’s seen,

My sword hidden in a worn out scabbard,

But its blade is polished and keen.

I avoid the knights that stay at court:

That proud and dignified caste

Whose armor gleams and scabbards stick

Their battles far in their past.

My eyes flit to the walls of the keep,

Within are ladies both noble and fair,

I cast down my gaze and still my heart,

To face them I’m unprepared.

I struggle my way to the top of the wall.

My trophy slows my ascent.

Old wounds cry out and muscles ache.

My body is nearly spent. 

I fight with my trophy and fix it in place,

The battlements taking its weight.

It serves as a symbol of the kingdom’s strength

Seen by all that pass through the gate.

I pause for a moment and take a deep breath,

My quest done, my burden released.

A feast shall be held in the great hall tonight,

The kingdom now safe from this beast.

Yet I turn not toward the doors of the keep

But the gate and the realm that’s beyond.

I trudge down the road, the castle behind

A home where I don’t yet belong. 

A rusty knight has no place at court

Amongst nobles in fine array.

Though I’m beaten and weary and longing for rest,

There are monsters I still need to slay.

On Despair

A lot of the time, it feels like I have a gaping hole inside of me...an emptiness with its own gravity, pulling at the rest of me, threatening to swallow the pieces of me until I am left hollow and numb.  On my darker days, I feel the pull so strongly that it is almost impossible to resist.  It is easy to turn to certain things that numb the feeling of that pull—to get outside of my head for just a little bit.  But the things that are easy are temporary, and when the effects fade, the pull is there, just as hungry as it was before.   

I don't know how to heal the hole.  I don't know if I can.  I don't know if anyone else can.  I can't isolate a single event that caused it.  I suppose it was a single thing that caused it to form, but since then, events in my life had made it bigger...worse.  So the events of my life have left me with a wound that no amount of self-medication will ever fix.  There must be another route to dealing with it.  

There is a way, I have found, that I can manage it, surviving the bad days and finding some happiness from the good days.  I would even say that I find some measure of joy from living my life in this manner.  There are some days where I find great pleasure in my life, but there are others where it seems that all I can do is weather the storm.  Sometimes, bad days or weeks come and I haven't the strength to fight against gravity.  It pulls me in and the numbness advances.  Then a small bit of hope comes along and pulls back, ransoming parts of myself that were pulled into the abyss. It's a war within my very soul and one that is very serious.  It is a war that I will not lose, because there is always enough hope to get by—enough hope to survive.  Yet, surviving isn't enough.  It is a half-life—an empty existence.  There is so much more that I have to offer and so much more that I can be.   

Let us name this abyss 'Despair'.  It is Despair that eats at my soul—and Hope that sets it free.  Every once in a while, something wonderful comes along that fills me with a great hope, and I catch a glimpse of what my life can be.  Who I really am is reawakened and I am fortified by hope.  I can fight Despair and my strength is greater than its hunger.  So long as I can keep my eyes fixed on this hope, I move forward...toward the man I fervently believe I am intended to be.  Yet, always in the past, there has been something that has made me lose sight of hope, or what I put hope in fades away.  There are even times where I become convinced that the hope I cling to isn't for me, or that I don't deserve it.  So I avert my eyes and fall back into the grip of Despair.   

This is my battle: not to cling to just enough hope to avoid giving up, but to put my hope in things that will not fail me, and to hold fast to that hope and claim it as my own.  It is too easy, when the darkness comes, to believe its lies and let go.  It is too tempting, when wonderful things come along, to put all of my hope in them, flying high so long as they last, but falling far when they fade away.  There are things that I hope for that seem distant, and the distance can cause me to give in to Despair.   

Yet, there is a difference between what is hoped for and what we place our hope in.  I hope for a family: a wife and kids.  I hope for opportunities to invest in others, and inspire them down a road toward their best self.  I hope for a life of purpose that blesses everyone around me.  These are not the things I place my hope in.  I place my hope in the family I already have: their love for me, their acceptance of me, their faith in me.  No matter what I do, they will not abandon me.  I place my hope in the belief that God has not abandoned this world—that He still has a plan for it.  This means that the love and kindness we pour into it are not wasted.  And I place hope in the belief that God still has a plan for me.  Whatever I've been through, whatever desires and passions are in my heart, there is a reason.  I choose to move forward, clinging to the belief that, in His own time, God will give me the desires that are placed in my heart, the things I hope for.  I pursue my passions, believing God has a use for them in His plan.  I cling to the promises of scripture: that God is faithful, that He loves, that His desire is to give us good things (for what loving father, when his child asks for a fish, would give him a snake instead, to paraphrase Luke 11:11).  

When put this way, it seems like my life should be some kind of victory march, surging forward, drum beating, brimming with the certainty of what is to come.  Yet, that is not the case.  Instead it feels more like a fugitive's flight behind enemy lines, trying to find my way home, driven forward by kindness freely given by unexpected hands and the hope of what awaits me when I am safely home.  I sit in wonder that I have made it this far.  As I look back, it has been God's faithfulness, and those He has used to bless me, that has gotten me here.  God's faithfulness has gotten me this far and I must cling to the hope that it will never fail.  If the Bible is to be believed, God's faithfulness is not something to hope for, but rather one of the greatest things to put our hope in.  If the Bible is to be believed, God's faithfulness is not something that will fail or fade—it is one of the few things in this world that is certain.