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Word Gems exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Kairissi & Elenchus:
Elenchus. All through high school, your eyes avoided mine; you wouldn’t look at me and you wouldn't talk to me; you acted like I didn’t exist. How can I trust a girl who so easily throws me away like that? Kairissi. (softly) Have you ever done something that, later, you just shake your head and say, “What was I thinking? How could I have done that?” E. I know, but… this was no momentary failing... you did this to me over five years; for five years you treated me like I was some kind of leper. K. When I came to you early on, that cold November evening when you were working, I told you some very intimate things. E. But, if you will recall, I didn’t reject you. I politely listened. I just didn’t know how to receive you. Kriss, I was a very immature 13 year-old. I mean, when it came to girls. I might have been the most undeveloped that way in the whole school. K. I understand that now. But I didn’t realize it then. E. If you had just given me a chance to grow up a little, even just another year or two, I would have been different, and we could have talked and been together during high school, and I would have wanted to marry you after graduation. K. (sighing) K. Elenchus… there’s something that hasn’t occurred to you. You say you were a very immature 13 year-old, and I know that now. But what you’re not seeing is that I had my own immaturity to deal with back then. Yes, in some ways I was ahead of you, but that’s not unusual for young girls and boys. Today as you look back at what you were at 13, you see immaturity. But that’s not what I saw then. Ellus, you were one of the smartest kids in school, and that’s the way I always saw you. And when I came to you I couldn’t envision you not being able to emotionally receive me. I imagined you being just like me. And so, when you didn’t respond in kind, when in subsequent days you acted like “it never happened,” how was I to take this? It seemed like an outright rejection of me. That’s what it felt like. E. (sighing) K. And that’s why I was angry all through high school. You say I hardly smiled during that time and always seemed preoccupied with something. Well, is it so hard to understand? E. (deeply sighing)
Elenchus. I just can’t believe what we did to ourselves. Kairissi. (silence) E. How easily we spun out of control into a death-spiral. Both of us were so angry, we just couldn’t wait to get away from the home-area and make a new life. K. We were defiant. We were certain that hard work, along with a prospect of “many new fish in the sea” at college, would wash away the disastrous high school years. We wanted a new start, and thought we could create our own little utopia. E. Not just defiant but unrepentant. That’s a bad combination. In the history of the world, no attempt to create utopia has ever worked out -- whether on a group or individual level. The problem with utopias is that we take our old checkered selves with us, and that eventually ruins everything. K. When we "stomped away" from the home-area after graduation, we thought for sure we could make a happy life on our own; but, as you say, we took our egoic selves with us, and that ensured our failure. E. When a person is very angry, there’s a darkness in one’s spirit, we take it wherever we go, and then we just get everything wrong. We didn’t have a prayer of finding happiness with our angry frames of mind.
Kairissi. Elenchus… everything is so awful in this world… we’re poked and jabbed continually by one bad thing after another – we’re not even our real selves right now with all the provocation; but… I had looked forward to having a new life with you. I just wanted us to start all over again, to put all this bad stuff behind us, and this time just be happy together. Elenchus. (silence) K. I know it’s too late for this world to do all the things that are in my heart, but… isn’t this why God created Summerland? E. (silence) K. There are so many things I wanted to do with you – for us to do together. You inspired me with all those university courses over there you want to pursue – science, math, the arts. And I wanted us to prepare for heroic service, a “missionary” tour of duty in the Dark Realms, helping those who oppose themselves. And I so wanted our country home, our pets, and restful environment; an oasis of solace and rejuvenation for ourselves, where we could always return after our far-flung duties and travels… a place for our books and art treasures and mementos of lessons learned; and most of all, a secret garden of love for us. E. (silence) K. And I was hoping so much that we could have children together. Despite what some say, we know this is possible in Summerland. And I wanted to surround us, our little family, with the warmth and love of our closest relatives. How I’ve longed to draw them near, sharing our love and joy with them. I see us hosting parties at our house where all of our dearest ones might come to be with us and share our joy. E. (silence) K. Elenchus… I know you admire the poetess Elizabeth -- but even the wise Elizabeth was very unfair to Robert early on and almost ruined everything by nearly sending him away. She finally recovered herself, apologized, and begged him to come back, acknowledging that he was her life. She asked him, if he were still willing, if they might “reshuffle the deck” and begin anew, and put behind them all the hurtful words – hers not his. Ellus, she's a very passionate woman, and sometimes hot-headed – as sometimes I am tempted to be. You well know that your own Spirit Guides, via psychic-medium, once told you that I can be “flamboyant"; another psychic, on another occasion, also described me with the same term "flamboyant." E. (silence) K. I can be mercurial at times. It is my nature to be passionate. I feel deeply about the things I like. And, yes, I let myself go too far with my anger in those old days; but you also like the positive flip-side of this trait, my intensity of feeling. E. (silence) K. But you’re the same way, Ellus. I know who you are. You don’t show it on the outside the way I do, but underneath that professorial demeanor you hide behind, you are just as passionate as I am. And those who know us well, despite all the surface differences, say that we are “just like” each other. E. (sighing) K. Oh, Elenchus, don’t you see? – it’s all come to pass what Day Star, Big Water, and Lateece warned us about! All of the danger they spoke of has now engulfed us -- Ellus, we have to be careful... We can choose to be angry and spend many years suffering in the lowest reaches of Hell, or we can access our true selves and become what we were meant to be.
K. Here’s what I believe… I believe we’re like the couple Franchezzo talked about. K. Maybe right now you won’t want to agree with me, but I believe, in our heart of hearts, we were always true to each other… we always loved each other, no matter the perdition our egos led us into. E. (silence) K. And as I read this quotation from Franchezzo’s writings, something else really jumps out at me. Notice the phrase about the two lovers, “between whom death had placed a last insurmountable barrier.” I thought about that, and then I saw something, and it took my breath away in a great despair. I mean, think about it. What does “insurmountable” mean? The root idea is “mountain.” If you have an insurmountable barrier blocking your way to the one you love, it’s like a Mount Everest in your path. You need only one of those to totally shut down any chance of being together. But, look at what Franchezzo says: there was a “last” insurmountable barrier. In other words, there were others, and probably so many! This really hit me hard, and it’s what happened to us for so long. One insurmountable barrier would have been quite enough to close down our chances of love in this lifetime – but what happened? Life just kept piling on and piling on the insurmountable barriers, one after another. (deeply sighing) Why did it have to be so hard for us, Elenchus, when our natural hearts were to love each other, right from the start? E. (silence)
there's nothing sadder than a missed opportunity
Star Trek: Voyager (1996), episode "Lifesigns"
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