I drive Kenny crazy in many ways. I almost never go a day without singing a snippet of something or other. I leave hair everywhere. I insist on picking up the cats and carrying them around as if they were babies. I don’t like sandwiches, so I am classified as “hard to feed”.
The thing that most annoys him, however, is the fact that I cannot sit still while watching Television. When I’m by myself I’ll flip channels, fold laundry, feed the cats, do dishes, read what is on the guide or other fidgity type activities. I try to curb these tendencies while with Kenny, but I still do enough wiggling around to prompt him to snap “sit down” several times a night.
Recently, I found myself alone in the house and engaged in pushing buttons on the remote. Our television has an option in which the viewer can access a guide, letting them know what is coming up in the next week or so. “Brimstone” I thought to myself, noticing a show on the Thriller channel that I had never heard of. “Brimstone sounds interesting.”
I discovered that -Brimstone- was interesting. Centering on Ezekeiel Stone, a detective who began to self destruct after the rape of his wife, -Brimstone- raised several thought provoking issues. In the first episode, it is established that Detective Stone was let out of hell as Satan’s personal bounty hunter. He was tasked with recapturing 113 escaped souls in exchange for something which at the moment I can’t remember.
Bounty Hunters from Hell don’t fit into my personal theology, but -Brimstone- as a show raised some interesting questions. One of Detective Stone’s first “cases”, for example, was a woman killed while seeking revenge for terrible violence that she endured. She was brutalized and victimized, earning sympathy in -Brimstone’s- mythology, but the moment she became vengeful, she became a lost soul.
It’s been several weeks since Kenny and I watched that episode and I’m still thinking about it. In the world that I have created for myself, I too am a victim. I have been betrayed by people I trusted, hurt by people I loved, lied to by people who swore that they would tell only the truth. True, I have never been brutalized, but my heart has been broken and I have lost much of what was once precious to me.
In the world I live in, however, none of my heartbreaks and disappointments much matter. We are all victims, it seems. We have all been betrayed and let down. We have all been trampled on and lied to. The hurt is common. It’s what we do with it that matters.
This is where the title of my post comes in. See, I hear excuses every day. “If he hadn’t…” “I told you to…” “She didn’t hold up her end of the bargain…” Someone else’s fault. Somebody else’s responsiblity.Â
“You made me mad.”
“The Democrats (or the Republicans) are the reason I can’t get a job”
“My alarm didn’t go off and that is why I am late.”
“The picture caught my eye and I just wanted to take a quick look.”
“You…she…it…he…they.”
In the world of -Brimstone-, these things don’t matter. It doesn’t matter that you were mugged. It doesn’t matter that your family was decimated by genocide. It doesn’t matter that you fell prey to the worst kinds of evil that men can dream up. In that world, just because you wear the title of “victim”, it doesn’t mean that you can become an avenger.
In any world, this lesson is hard to remember. It is far easier to “get the last word” or “give him back his own” or wall up our hearts and vow to never love again than it is to take a deep breath, pull up our bootstraps and march forward.
Sobriety is a hard concept. In all worlds, -Brimstone’s- fictional United States, the kingdom that I have constructed in my imagination and in the world in which you and I live, we humans would rather be ruled by our passions. Taking responsiblilty (without making excuses) is something that we talk around but find almost impossible to actually live out. We, like the terrorized young girl calling for vengence on her tormenters, want our pound of flesh and then some.
It’s normal. It’s common. It’s HUMAN. We all do it, but it doesn’t make it right. This New Year, let’s try to change the pattern, hold the line, stem the tide. Let’s stand up. Let’s offer fewer excuses. Let’s stop our whining. Let’s not put ourselves first. Let’s make someone else’s rights a priority for a change.
It’s hard. It’s unnatural. It makes us feel uncomfortable in our own skins.
But let’s try. Let’s put on our Big Girl panties.
And let’s see if we can’t just make all of our worlds better.