Corners can be a good place to be, yet mostly not. Backed into slowly over the years, with elbows hitting opposite walls, tight, a self created prison, with only one way out, yet often not seen. Looking out from one’s narrow perch, with no place to turn, unless one just wants to show their back; this can be done, easily. Turning, looking into the dust filled corner eternally gathering its nothingness, swallowed, devoured. I suppose it could become a grave of sorts, slowly being buried without knowing it, the corner taken for reality, when it is just a corner, a little one after all.
Yet it can be good, though often not. For the face not turned towards the intersecting walls, can often lead slowly, or with rapidity, to an ever deepening stance of defense taken; a common plight sad to say. The tighter the corner the more desperate the offensive towards those from the larger room, perhaps seeking to communicate, or even help, yet rebuffed with ever increasing ardor. All that can be done is to press ever harder into the rapidly shrinking space for maneuvering. With desperation giving new birth in an ever increasing scenario of darkness and isolation; the potential for self destruction almost infinite in its diminution, or so it seems from those apart, seeking understanding. Feeling misunderstood, incapable of comprehending others, and endless round of mirrors shattered only to be replaced by others is the hell created, isolated, alone, yet uncomprehending.
I know my corner is there waiting for me, if I so choose; though perhaps ‘choose’ is not the right word. Little choices, made from one day to the next, not to listen, to fight back, to allow the irrational to take root, so that my world can by inches become smaller and smaller. “My way or the highway” can be the beginning of a long lonely journey that may have no end. So while being backed into a corner can be good, it is only so if a stepping out occurs, which is difficult once the road is taken, this pilgrimage of death, masquerading as life, the fruit being sterile.
Perhaps we each have a corner waiting for us, if the small choices in our everyday lives are not taken seriously. For a road taken only needs that first step, reacting, unthinking, and leading into inner depths of coldness, darkness, isolation. This is the path ‘normal people’ can take; the mentally ill are something different altogether. Though perhaps some forms of mental illness can be simply walked into, by the road chosen, by taking that first step.
Br. Mark Dohle, OCSO
Holy Spirit Monastery
