The Scales Are Tipped In My Favor

I committed murder.

I committed suicide.

What a pig, I am. A beast.

Lacking natural affection.

The great Cioran observed that what he knew at age sixty, he knew at age twenty, and it had been forty tedious years of confirmation.

Tomorrow I turn fifty, and I can say the person I am at age fifty, I was at age twenty. Thirty years of abusing God’s patience and long-suffering.

I’m no Count Muffat—I’ve been what I am for as long as I can remember.

For thirty-eight years X has never been too far from my mind. I met her in sixth grade. The golden-haired girl joined our class in February, and it was as Marlowe wrote:

Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?

In May of that year my mother informed me we’d be moving at the end of the school year. I was sick to have to leave X. It was the first and only time I’ve felt, as that worst cliché expresses it, *life was unfair.*

Of course, at that time I was outside the light of the Gospel, and lacked the proper frame of reference. I was also twelve years old, and thus even stupider than I am now.

Today, looking back on five decades of sin, with the last three-and-a-half decades in the light of the gospel, I vouch for God’s patience and long-suffering, and testify He has not dealt with me according to my sin.

I can certainly sympathize that to multitudes in our Satanic world life does, indeed, appear ‘unfair’—but I can say of myself God has surely tipped the scales in my favor.

I have committed sins that to specify would be an act of vanity, and a scandal against shame.

But it’s always the lesser offenses, the everyday sins, which reveal the failure to yield to the Holy Spirit. The stagnated soul, loitering between this world and the next.

Two weeks ago I read an article on a local internet news site that made mention of A. A had been in the same sixth grade class as X and I. Seeing A’s name, I thought of X. Over the years, I’ve tried to track down X, but X has a common name, and I’ve been unable to locate her. But I found A on Facebook, and B on A’s friend list, and C on B’s friend list. I sent messages to A, B and C—the end result of which was locating X yesterday on the internet, on her work place’s web page. There was her name, and a picture.

I groaned so loud upon seeing the photograph, seeing X’s current appearance, the woman in the office next to mine asked if I was all right.

I was going to say ‘time has worn away X’s beauty,’ but, no, time has worn away X. That’s not her in the picture. Even after confirming again with B & C, I still refuse to accept it is X. She turned into something ordinary. American ordinary. Heavy and sloppy looking.

Listen, X had been no ordinary twelve year old. You understand Traci Lords was no ordinary twelve year old. X was cut from the same cloth, but fairer of face.

I was actually angry at X for being old and dumpy. She has accomplished much in life—certainly for more than me. She’s in a respected profession, and has even had a book published.

But once I’m done typing this, I’ll never give her another moment’s thought.

Our middle school relationship was really the only entirely pleasant one of my life. The rest have been tainted by *maturity* (aged sin). Reality after X was so vulgar, I would have dreams of her into my mid-twenties. These were Edenic dreams. When I read of Eve in Genesis, I pictured X. But now she’s a dumpy old bag. . .

I actually thought, thank God now we moved after sixth grade—my current wife is in far better condition. . .

I’ve destroyed my dream. I could say by looking back, like Lot’s wife, I’ve turned X into a pillar of salt.

But I’d already killed her long ago, long ago. It’s only just now the grave is discovered.

I’ve committed awful sins—but it’s the core, the rotten core, the rotten heart which is the problem (Matthew 15:19). Every day, every day, shallow, with litter interest in or feeling for other people—the soul of a murderer who will destroy somebody for *losing their bloom*—a grotesque parody of our Lord:

Now in the morning as He returned into the city, He hungered. And when He saw a fig tree in the way, He came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away.

I murdered X. I defaced those sixth grade memories of her.

I committed suicide. I no longer walk about Eden with a daughter of Eve.

No love in me. Only scorn for a dumpy old bag. . .

That’s me at fifty, thirty-five years under the Gospel. . .

Life is surely not unfair. . .

My love of Christ grows in proportion to my self-disgust. . .

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