The Hollywood fight...

I have never been to a fight, nor have I seen a real one televised. So, I have no true understanding of how fighters really move or what experiences they might have. All I have to go by are the few fight scenes that have invaded the kinds of movies and television shows I prefer to watch.

But...picture the guy about to go down.  You know, the bloody one.  The one beaten, though he refuses to acknowledge it.  The one stumbling about as he struggles to stay on his feet.  When showing the audience his perspective, the sound is usually muted, vision blurred.

That is how it was for me the night of the pit bull attack.  Each time I stumbled back to my feet after the pit bull pulled me down, the effort was harder, the direction I was to go less clear.  The last time, as I have written before, I knew that I would not be getting up again.  Three, maybe four times, I had lurched sideways as much as I lurched vertical.  That final effort to rise surprised even me.  I knew it was my last.  Confusion dominated every thought, every sense.  Confusion and pain.  Confusion and pain and abject terror.

Again, as I have written, I do not remember anything past that final lurch to my feet, that final thought I was going to fail Amos, that once on the ground his end would surely come if it had not already. And, if not mine, more pain than I could bear as the pit bull turned his feast to me.  I no longer heard Amos' cries or my own screams.  I knew nothing.  I fled some place in my mind that I have yet to find again.  I did not plan to do so.  I did not want to do so.  I just fled.  I was wounded, terrified, overwhelmed, could not face what was coming next...not alone...and so I disappeared.

I want to remember what came next. I want to remember how the pit bull was stopped. I want to remember how Amos and I ended up on the grass in a yard next to where we were in the middle of the intersection. And I want to know where my mind went.

Where can I go from Thy Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Thy presence?
If I ascend to heaven, Though are there.
If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there.
If I take the wings of the dawn,
If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
Even there Thy hand will lead me,
And Thy right hand will lay hold of me.
~Psalm 139:7-10


What if the fleeing is involuntary?  Or rather, what if the fleeing is a choice you are not aware you are making?  Do you think the places the psalmist penned, the places Christ prayed, include the places of our mind of which we know not?  Even there could His Spirit be?


If I say, "Surely the darkness will overwhelm me,
And the light around me will be night,"
Even the darkness is not dark to Thee,
And the night is as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are alike to Thee.
~Psalm 139:11-12


Could the darkness include the darkness of the mind, of the heart, of the soul?


I want to remember what came next. I want to remember how the pit bull was stopped. I want to remember how Amos and I ended up on the grass in a yard next to where we were in the middle of the intersection. And I want to know where my mind went...where I went when I fled.



I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!