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| Amends |
As a writer, most of writing is staring into the corner of a room while focusing so acutely on one idea that it explodes into infinite possibilities. Today I told my therapist I am trying to make amends. The look on her face tells me we will be talking about that in our next session. And about a couple hours ago I was staring at nothing, and yet everything, focussing on the word "amends", and I was wondering why it took me this long to tell her why I think I am here, alive. And it exploded into this post.
I often wonder if life is nothing more than making amends for yesterday. I don't know about you, but it definitely describes my life. Something I am reminded of every day. That I am broken. That I, at the heart of the beast of a thing inside of me, am a monster sometimes. If not often...
My past haunts me every day. And it's killing me. It's both wondrous and unbearable.
AMENDS
(In bits and parts. I eliminated the unecessary sub stories)
Episode 44 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Written (of course) by Joss Whedon (Thank God his brilliance is finally cool)
ANGEL
I've been seeing... I've had dreams, lately, about... the past. It's like I'm living it again, it's so vivid. I need to...
(he faces Giles)
I need to know why I'm here.
GILES
Here? Back on Earth?
ANGEL
I should be in a demon dimension suffering an eternity of torture.
GILES
I don't feel particularly inclined to argue with that.
ANGEL
But I'm not. I was freed. And I don't understand why.
Giles lets the crossbow down as he replies.
GILES
Well, I haven't any easy answers; I've looked into the matter, but so far I haven't come across any being with the power to pull someone out of Hell.
ANGEL
Where have you looked? We could compare notes --
GILES
Knowing why you're back might give you some peace of mind?
ANGEL
It might.
GILES
And is that something you think you ought to have?
______________________________________________________________________
JENNY
Trouble sleeping?
ANGEL
You're not here.
JENNY
I'm always here.
ANGEL
Leave me alone...
JENNY
I can't. You won't let me.
He collapses onto the couch. Jenny approaches him, her movements as smooth as her voice is soft.
JENNY
I'm a part of you now. You've taken me in.
ANGEL
What do you want?
JENNY
I want to die in bed, surrounded by fat grandchildren, but I guess that's off the menu.
She smiles, without rancor. Her smile disappears when he says:
ANGEL
I'm sorry...
JENNY
You're sorry? For what? For me? Don't bother. I'm dead; I'm over it. If you want to feel sorry for someone, feel sorry for yourself. Or, well, I think you've got that covered.
ANGEL
I am sorry. For what I've done --What else can I say to you?
JENNY
I don't want to make you feel bad.
She runs her hand along his face. As she does so, she MORPHS into Daniel.
DANIEL
I just want to show you who you are.
______________________________________________________________________
JENNY
You were born to hurt her. Have you learned nothing? As long as you're alive --
ANGEL
Then I'll die.
There is calm resolve in the sentence that gives the Jenny-thing pause.
JENNY
You haven't the strength to kill yourself.
ANGEL
I don't need strength. I just need the sun to rise.
He turns and walks out into the garden. Starts heading up the stairs.
JENNY
You're not supposed to die! This isn't the plan!
Jenny watches him go. After a moment, she smiles.
JENNY
But it'll do.
______________________________________________________________________
BUFFY
You won't get Angel.
JENNY
You think you can fight me. I'm not a demon, little girl. I'm something you can't conceive. The first evil. Beyond sin, beyond death... I am the thing the darkness fears. You will never see me, but I am everywhere. Every being, every thought, every drop of hate --
BUFFY
I get it. You're evil. Do we have to chat about it all day?
Jenny stops smiling.
JENNY
Angel will be dead by sunrise. Your Christmas will be his wake.
BUFFY
No.
JENNY
You have no idea what you're dealing with.
BUFFY
Let me guess... is it evil?
Jenny suddenly transforms into a giant, monstrous Angel of Death looking thing. Buffy starts back -- and it's gone. A voice rings out -- not Jenny's; hardly human.
THE FIRST (V.O.)
Dead by sunrise!
A moment, and Buffy flees the cave.
INT. MANSION/EXT. GARDEN - NIGHT
Buffy runs in, calling out:
BUFFY
Angel!
No answer. She makes for the garden, looking around. Looks at the sky and thinks.
She bolts up the stairs.
EXT. HILLSIDE - NIGHT
Buffy makes her way along, looking for Angel. She clears a couple of bushes, looks out at:
EXT. BLUFF - NIGHT
It overlooks the town. Angel stands at the edge of it, facing away from her. Waiting for the sun.
Buffy approaches him, slowly.
BUFFY
Angel?
He looks back, startled -- then slowly looks away again. Still Buffy approaches.
BUFFY
Angel, you have to come inside.
ANGEL
(looking down at the town)
I bet half the kids down there are already awake. Lying in their beds, sneaking downstairs...
(looks up at the sky)
. . . waiting for day.
BUFFY
Angel, I need you to get inside. There's only a few minutes left --
ANGEL
I know. I can smell the sunrise long before it comes.
BUFFY
I don't have time to explain this. You have to trust me; that thing that was haunting you --
ANGEL
It wasn't haunting me. It was just showing me.
BUFFY
Showing you --
ANGEL
What I am.
BUFFY
Were.
ANGEL
And ever shall be. I wanted to know why I was back. Now I do.
BUFFY
You don't know. What, some great honking evil takes credit for bringing you back and you buy it? You just give up?
ANGEL
I can't do it again, Buffy. I can't become a killer.
BUFFY
Then you fight it!
ANGEL
It's too hard.
Her frustration is mounting to panic as she looks to the sky.
BUFFY
Angel, please -- just come inside.
ANGEL
It told me to kill you. You were in the dream, you know -- it told me to take you, to lose my soul in you and become a monster again.
BUFFY
I know what it told you. Why does it matter?
ANGEL
Because I wanted to! Because I want you so badly, I want to take comfort in you and I know it'll cost me my soul and a part of me doesn't care. I'm weak. I've never been anything else. It's not the demon in me that needs killing, Buffy. It's the man.
BUFFY
You're weak. Everybody is. Everybody fails. Maybe this evil power did bring you back, but if it did it's because it needs you. And that means you can hurt it. You have the power to do real good, Angel, to make amends. But if you die now, then all you ever were was a monster.
He does not respond. Is turned from her. Her frustration is mounting.
BUFFY
Angel... the sun is coming out...
ANGEL
Just go.
BUFFY
I won't.
ANGEL
You think this is simple. You think there's an answer. You can never understand what I've done. Now go!
BUFFY
You're not staying here! I won't let you --
She grabs him. He throws her off.
ANGEL
Leave!
She punches him in the face. He throws her violently away -- she falls to the ground, the back of her head hitting a rock.
He rushes to her, dropping to his knees and pulling her up to him. Frustration sweeps over him and he grabs her arms hard enough to hurt.
ANGEL
(bitterly)
Am I a thing worth saving? Am I a righteous man? The world wants me gone.
Weakness overcomes her, tears finally spilling out as she implores:
BUFFY
What about me? What about - Angel I love you so much --
(sobbing)
-- and I've tried to make you go away, I killed you and it didn't help...
She pulls away from him and stands, anger surfacing through her tears.
BUFFY
And I hate it. I hate that it's so hard... that you can hurt me so much... I know everything you've done because you did it to me. I wish I wished you dead. But I don't. I can't.
He is also crying, wanting so badly to take comfort in her words...
ANGEL
Buffy, please... just this once...let me be strong.
BUFFY
Strong is fighting. It's hard and it's painful and it's every day. It's what we have to do and we can do it together, but if you're too much of a coward for that then burn.
ANGEL
Buffy --
BUFFY
Let the sun kill you! If I can't convince you you have a place in the world, then I don't know what will. So die. But don't expect me to watch, and don't expect me to mourn for you, 'cause, I don't have... I...
They've started about halfway through her speech. Light, just a few flakes at first, but by the time she stops they are all around. She looks about her. So does Angel. They look up at the sky, almost unable to comprehend the fact that it's snowing.
Slowly, they turn to look out on the town. The camera moves past them and arms up toward the vista. A thick and silent snow falls over the whole of Sunnydale.
INT. WILLOW'S BEDROOM - NIGHT
Camera is outside the room, amid the gentle snow. We see through the frosted french doors that Willow and Oz have fallen asleep in each other's arms. They stir, and rise, looking out at the window.
EXT. BUFFY'S FRONT PORCH - NIGHT
Joyce and Faith walk out into the snow, silently looking about them.
INT. GILES' APARTMENT - NIGHT
Giles moves slowly to his window, staring out.
EXT. XANDER'S BACK YARD - NIGHT
We move past a lawn chair and table to Xander in his sleeping bag. Beside him are a flashlight and comic books and a plate of Christmas cookies. Snow is beginning to cover everything.
Xander moves uncomfortably in his sleep, pulls the sleeping bag over his head. A beat, then he re-emerges, eyes open. Clearly confused.
EXT. CHRISTMAS TREE LOT - NIGHT
As the two men rush out and start to cover their fake-snowed trees with plastic.
TREE SELLER GUY
Oh, man! It's gonna get the snow all wet!
EXT. SUN CINEMA - NIGHT
As snow falls on the big (and presently incongruous) SUN sign.
EXT. STREET OUTSIDE APPLIANCE STORE
Snow falls around us as the camera moves in at the same TV, the same Weatherman -- with a slightly revised forecast.
WEATHERMAN
And while most of southern California is enjoying a balmy Christmas, an extreme cold front has sprung up --out of nowhere -- around Sunnydale, where they are reporting heavy snowfall for the first time in...well, ever. Sunnydale residents shouldn't expect to see the sun at all today, that cold front isn't going anywhere. Temperatures in the high thirties mean you'd better bundle up if you're planning to go outside and enjoy the change in the weather...
EXT. SUNNYDALE STREET - NIGHT
We see a huge vista -- Sunnydale under snow. Pan down as Buffy and Angel walk hand in hand together through the heavy snowfall. Looking about them, at the world, at each other.
Not saying a word. Not needing to.
BLACK OUT.
END OF SHOW
Often two thirds of me believes I should be dead. My autoimmune disease attacked my heart and lungs so severely at onset, had they not figured it out in time...for years I begged God to tell me why I was still alive. Why He didn't just let me die. Living was so hard. It still is. I just wanted to be in heaven. If you ask me, after a near death experience in which you thought you were going to heaven and then are disappointed with the fact you are alive...well, let's just say it took quite a while for living not to feel like hell.
There are a number of answers God has revealed to me as to why He didn't let me die. But one that means the most to me, is that I see this second chance as an opportunity to make amends. To show God I love Him. Regardless.
The first 19, maybe 20, years of my life I didn't do anything to show God I loved Him. Instead I did everything I could to make it look like I loved Him. Yeah, there were these moments--where I actually was, but they were nothing more than moments. The other 98% of my life was spent on me. My wants. My desires. My dreams.
The thing about Western Christianity is that we have somehow both directly and indirectly been taught how to read the Bible as a self help book to help us achieve the corrupted American Dream. That is why God created all of this?! Simply so you could get what you want?! Really?! I mean, seriously?! I can not for the life of me understand how I believed that lie, one of the devil's greatest, for 22 years? Seriously?! My word. What a waste.
That is why my mission is to seek so much Truth that has eternal value, to memorize it, to write it on my heart. It's so that I know how to make amends. And then, at the start and end of every single day, I beg God to help me actually make that amends. To actually do what I know. For that is wisdom.
Donald Miller learned from his friend that what we say is not what we believe. That what we do is what we believe. And I have challenged that with my idea that it's not just what we do, but why we do it.
For about 20 years I called myself Christian. And occasionally my actions showed that I was what I said I was. But mostly, if you look at why I was a "good" kid and teen, Christian would never describe me.
"Thy love did read by rote that could not spell."
"For doting not for loving, pupil mine."
When I was dying, God and Death himself showed me the most important thing I have ever seen: Who I was compared to who God wanted me to be....it was devastating. It was gut wrenching. It was and is unbearable. It was dense blackness next to pure white. It was dehumanizing. I felt sick to my stomach. I felt...scared.
To this day, I'm not so sure what would have happened to me had I died at 18 with a fake showy faith. And nothing scares me more than that.V for Vendetta, the movie, implied that freedom is the absence of fear. I say Christian freedom is when you, finally, only fear God. And not just in a respectful way, but in a I better get my crap together before it's too late sort of way. And once that happened to me at 18, nothing has ever been the same. And I thank God for that, and I demand He makes sure I never forget it.
And that is why I am making amends. Mind you, I fail 95% of the time, but that's 5% more than before and I will take it. For now.
I will not stand to see that same deep dense darkness the next time I'm on my deathbed. And least, God I hope not.
At the very least, my greatest dream, my greatest purpose, is to find a way to be just even the tiniest amount more grey. I like grey. Grey looks more and more beautiful every day. It is grey I am fighting for. To show God not just with what I am doing with my life, but why, how much I love Him.
I know why it took me this long to use the word amends. Because for a therapist it opens up all kinds of doors into our psyche that can become our personality theory: why we do what we do. And that fascinates them, excites them, and it gives them a sense of power with their knowledge of us. And that is how it feels when they do figure us out: like they have all the power.
It scares us having someone think they know or actually know us that well: too well. I have bigger and taller and stronger walls around me the the greatest of fortresses. To have someone walk right through all of my security precautions is scary as hell. Once they are in, they may never leave. Or worse still, they will soon know everything. Everything.
On top of that fear, I have my greatest fear: will I even make amends? As a Christian I do not necessarily need to; my everlasting life does not depend on it. Not literally anyway. But here is how I have come to see it, through the writings of my favorite authors, and through my experiences with God: you won't make amends to earn a ticket to heaven, but if you love God anywhere near as much as He loves you, you will die trying. And I'm ready. To tell my therapist. To tell everyone who actually reads this blog. That I need to make amends. Not to weasel my way into heaven, but to finally show God how much I love Him, before it's too late.
Buffy and Angel, the series', called what made it snow that morning in southern california, The Powers That Be. Sounds a lot like God saying "I am".
It snowed on me when I didn't die in that hospital at 18. I am not foolish to think it will ever again.
I am not who I was.
I will be strong.
Strong is fighting.
I will fight.
I know why I am still here.
I know why I am here.
I know who I am.
I have the power to do real good.
I will make amends.
Special Note:
When I think God couldn't get more amazing, He lets me finally realize, almost eight years later, that the first time I ever saw snow fall was while dying in the hospital.
I'm crying.
Still shaking my head.
God is too cool.
And if for whatever hardship you are going through, you can't see that right now, just give it time. Even eight years. But I promise it won't take Him that long as long as you are focused on His glory and grace and love.
Keep looking up. The snow will fall.
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