He Was Trusted, and He Was Loved
He was trusted with people’s deepest fears … their deepest, darkest secrets. He was trusted to bring healing to those who were considered beyond being helped. He was trusted to love – unconditionally – everyone who crossed his path.
And there was a reason for that trust.
Wherever he went, whoever he touched, remembered him – his touch … its effect on their lives.
I saw things come through this man which defied my understanding. The cripple walked, the blind saw … an old Irish lady regained a lost life … hardened spirits were healed … he fluttered on colorful butterfly wings and spread his glow to all who asked … and he was trusted, and loved.
I know, because I trusted him, and I loved him.
I was drawn into his circle of love and healing, and helped him to feed his broken and despairing followers … and as I watched him reach out his healing hands, in awe I trusted him, and I loved him along with all of the others.
His butterfly wings carried him for a while to a green country across the sea, and while he was there, he was trusted, and he was loved. He became so trusted and so loved … that he needed protection from his adoring faithful, who would certainly have taken him apart to bring pieces of him home as a talisman – a talisman that was capable of giving life where there was death, and of bringing hope where hope had long since died …
And I missed him while he was there, because he was my spiritual father, and because I trusted him, and I loved him.
When he finally fluttered back home, I drew him into my circle, and tried to cover everyone around me with his healing touch … because I trusted him, and I loved him.
Fleeting friend … heart breaking … but still, I trusted him, and I loved him.
Then came a day when bastions of trust were crumbling from one end of the world to the other. Although the absolvers of men’s deepest secrets became repositories of tales never repeated, their own secrets began to emerge … first in tiny dribbles, and then in a nauseating flood of mind-numbing reality.
My friend … my spiritual father … seemed to be caught in this deluge of filthy, muddy waters … and I cried for him.
And still, I trusted him, and I loved him.
Night time only lasts for a while, and then the sunlight crests the horizon of our awareness, and casts its long, revealing rays on what was once mercifully hidden in the darkness …
With shattered trust, I still loved him.
They tore off his wings, bound his hands, and encased him in mortar and stone. From a colorful butterfly that everyone wanted to grasp, he had become a source of derision, a thing despised … an outcast.
And still, I loved him.
But the love had changed … it was no longer a love full of wonder and awe, but the sad love a friend feels for another friend when the inevitability of past actions comes home to crush the soul.
For months, I tried to bring a bit of joy to this friend, encased in mortar and stone … because I could remember that this friend, this human being, in spite of his mistakes, had given so much of himself to so many in such an unselfish and healing way …
It hurt to think that the hands which had brought healing and life to some, had also brought pain and brokenness to others. But don’t we each, in our own way, follow that same path? Don’t we each, in our own way, bring life and love to some, and hurt and pain to others?
We are, none of us, above the human condition …
He told me: “The chorus keeps echoing in my mind, over and over. I wish I remembered all the words!”
For the first time since I’d known him, I was unable to give him the music he asked of me … but I told him the words, and watched them impact his understanding. He realized that he wasn’t alone, he wasn’t forgotten … even as his now frail body weakened, falling to the harsh conditions surrounding him.
Too soon afterward, when I went to drag just a bit of sunlight into his gray, chill world, I was told that he was no longer there. His spirit had broken the fetters, grown new wings … and no one would ever encase him in cold, hard stone and mortar again.
And I thought about him through my tears, and I wondered what he had felt just before the end … what he’d thought … if he’d realized that he was finally getting his wish – to be free again. I wondered if he knew that I understood, because I am human too, and that in the end, I still trusted him, and I still loved him.
April 12th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
[...] vaughan wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptI was drawn into his circle of love and healing, and helped him to feed his broken and despairing followers … and as I watched him reach out his healing hands, in awe I trusted him, and I loved him along with all of the others. … [...]
April 12th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Wow, Moof.
Perhaps his life is a great lesson for those that loved him, and that was one of his many gifts to those around him. Absolutely agree with your words:
But don’t we each, in our own way, follow that same path? Don’t we each, in our own way, bring life and love to some, and hurt and pain to others?
In the end, we are all human. We all make mistakes, and none of us are all good or all bad. Who are we to judge each other? All we can do is support each other, learn from each other, heal each other when we can, and try not to do too much harm. And when we see someone fall, let us try to help them regain balance, and encourage what is good in them. Because but for the grace of (insert who you please), go I. And in reality, when we have fallen, we need to learn from our mistakes, but we also need to learn to forgive ourselves.
April 12th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
It’s all true, true and true.
I could as if feel your warm tears coz mine is running down too.
Please forgive us sinners, no matter wherever He stays now.
April 13th, 2007 at 7:53 am
Wonderful tribute. Such frailings of human nature. In the end, that’s what we are: messengers of good and the bad. It was also a test of his true friends. Those who stood by him through smooth and rough times. Yes, in the end whatever he’d become, your trust and love never waned. A true friend indeed.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Wandering Visitor, you caught the gist of the post – completely. Thank you for the affirmation. {{{ hugs }}}
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Ingrid, my dear friend from so far away! I still cry when I think him, and I realize that each of us is not really a lot different … in our own way. We all need to support each other … and continue to love each other, realizing that we’re all frail human beings.
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Ipanema, yes, you’re right: In the end, that’s what we are: messengers of good and the bad.
When you say “your trust and love never waned” … there’s something to think about there. My love certainly never waned, although my trust was sorely shaken. But Ipanema, being that I’m only human – just like him – if my own humanity were to cause me to do things which have hurt other people, I would also want to not be completely forgotten by everyone and everything. There’s no valor in giving what I would also want to receive. There was still love, yes … but also fear – fear of someday finding myself as horribly alone as he was.
April 14th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
I’ve seldom read a tribute so moving, or words so true. And if, as you say in your comment above, there was no valor in what you did, there was at least more kindness and wisdom than many people ever manage to summon up.
April 15th, 2007 at 7:04 am
That was beautiful Moof.
I loved this comment, It is exactly how I feel. “All we can do is support each other, learn from each other, heal each other when we can, and try not to do too much harm. And when we see someone fall, let us try to help them regain balance, and encourage what is good in them.”
April 15th, 2007 at 9:23 am
Wandering Author, thank you … but you know, I think that sometimes our own deepest needs and fears can drive our greatest kindnesses.
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Yes, Angel … I agree. Wandering Visitor’s comment has a lot of depth and feeling. So much of her blog is like that, too … if you haven’t visited her, you should take a peek. I never come away empty handed …