You are good. I hate people, but I like you.

     These words were said to me just a short time ago, many other words were said, but those were some of the ones that hit me the hardest. The sentence was, "I hate everyone and everything, the world is a cesspool, and at one time, I was one of the most feared men on the planet, and now, I am rotting from the inside out. Yet there you are, one of the good ones, one of the only good ones, and I am rotting on the inside. You are good, that is rare, there is no one good left in this world, but you are. You are good. I hate people, but I like you." Coming from this man, it is one of the ultimate compliments I have ever received.
     He is a very large man, he stands 6'7", and weighs in at at least 375 lbs. In that, it is a very muscular structure, if you follow wrestling, he often has reminded me of the wrestler, Sid Vicious from back in the day.  He has lived a life on both sides of the fence, at times, walking on heaven's grass and also stomping through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, fearin' no evil, for he was the evilest mutha in the valley at the time. Then things started to change, the hate that has fueled him for so long has run it's course, "you never want to know what it's like to watch yourself slowly die," was said in our conversation today. My reply, "we are all slowly dying, it's just how we go that makes the difference." He replied with a few choice words, then laughed, "you always had a way of looking at the world that makes people laugh, and that ain't a bad thing." Which I found funny, since the night before I had been told, "it's always worst case doom and gloom paranoia with you." So within a 12 hour span, I had been told by saying literally the same things, two polarly opposite synopsis. Guess it's all in perspective. We continued to talk for about an hour or so and then said our goodbyes.
     As I hung up, I guess my thoughts and prayers have been answered. I have been doing street outreach for awhile now, and there are those who have said many different things about me, some happy, some sad, some good, and some bad. In that, I have watched outreaches and ministries come and go. I have seen death, pain, suffering, apathy, but also I have seen life, healing, joy, love and compassion. It has been a long strange road that has kept me on my toes even more so than my old life did. Always changing, always twisting into new forms. All too often the attacks I have suffered have been from those closest with me, but in my life that is what I have found to be the norm, it is said that people often hurt the ones they are the closest to. I make no qualms, I have been the harbinger of pain in my life also, often in my past taking a code of piracy, "take what you can, give nothing back." Yet, there was a point of reckoning, a point of 'No Plan B', a time of redemption.
      In that, I still struggle with it, there are times that I look in the mirror and see the old me, I see the demon banging on the plexi-glass cell that I constructed for him, and I find this innate fear that he is going to find a way out. The Apostle Paul often talked of 'fighting within', and the fact that he talked in present tense when he spoke of his struggles, native lore talks of a good wolf and bad wolf that lives inside of you and the one that survives is the one you feed. In that, I often wonder how long it takes for wolves or demons to starve.
      At the same point, both sides are always being fed, whether on purpose or by osmosis. That's just the way life is. We cannot hide ourselves away from the world, because even when you find a point or place where you are alone, then you are almost worse off than not. Ask anyone who has spent time in solitary confinement, it's a maddening process where a minute can turn into a day, and you own mind will drive you mad if you let it. In times where I have found myself alone I would think of the most intricate classical pieces of music, each nuance, each inflection, every note and rest to attempt to occupy my mind so that it will not turn on itself. I have also turned to prayer, less than I probably should in those instances, but I do. I have found that remembering moments in my life was often maddening, for I would consider the "woulda, coulda, shoulda"s.
     Where am I going with this? We all have moments where we can "knuckle up, and stuck'em up", or "hold'em then fold'em", yes, I said 'stuck' instead of the 'other word'.
     Both men I referred to above are at points of change, forks in the road, changes, whatever you want to call it. In that, I am too. I haven't been questioning my faith, but I have been questioning my purpose, in that, I seemed to have received answer after answer after answer. I asked, "do I make a difference?", the response, call after call on things that needed to be said, prayer after prayer, scripture after scripture. With a comment from a third man who has been dealing with a great loss. The last time we had spoken until yesterday,I had asked him a final question when our conversation was wrapping up, he had told me there was just something missing, I had replied, "Where do you stand with your higher power?" He is a highly intelligent man who is well read including the bible. He didn't answer my question until last night.
    His response, "Let's just say, I guess you're one helluva preacher, cuz I believe in God"
    Guess I got my answer to my question.