We ought always to deal justly, not only with those who are just to us, but likewise to those who endeavor to injure us; and this, for fear lest by rendering them evil for evil, we should fall into the same vice.
~Heirocles
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
~Edmund Burke
For too long I have been silent and I am guilty of allowing evil -- or at least wrong -- to triumph. This morning an email changed that.
Over the past few months I have lost my zeal for LiveJournal -- or any of my journals -- because of personal attacks on me. I allowed their lies and prejudices to stand because I believed that the people who truly knew me would know the truth from the lies and they would stand by me. I was partly right. Many people have stood by me, but people I trusted and believed in did not. They took the venomous words spewed by someone they knew longer as gospel and failed to realize there was no good news in them. In particular, one person who has always believed and stated that if you had nothing good to say about anyone you should stay silent. He silently departed without a word of warning or an explanation when I privately emailed and asked for one. And so I sank slowly into the west without a plan to rise again in the east. Instead, I threw myself into work and other pursuits in order to fill the gap in my life left by writing and LJ and my LJ friends. After all, if so many people were leaving this burning ship maybe they were right and I was wrong. It has happened before, although not in recent memory.
The email this morning told me something I already knew, that someone I openly gave the hand of friendship over numerous rocky trails and seemingly bottomless chasms has spent the past few months trashing me publicly, on list and to people who knew me and did not know me, all in an attempt to blacken my name. She was not alone. Someone for whom she has little respect, regard or liking has joined her unaware that he, too, has been trashed by her. I believed by walking away and not looking back all that would end and the evil they perpetrated would die. It has not and it will not until I stop doing nothing. That ends now.
Yes, this is a little bit of drama. So bow out if you'd rather not know. But beware.
What I learned this morning is that I have been accused of evil, theft and adultery. I have also been likened to a role model and standard for evil, and this from two people who have spent most of their time bashing and trashing people they called friends -- and not just me. So, here is the truth.
I cannot refute the charge of evil because I do not know what evils I am being accused of, other than theft and adultery. I cannot claim I have never stolen anything because that would be a lie. I have, however, when I have stolen anything, either returned it and apologized or paid for the object in question. I have had my weak moments but I have always paid for my moments of weakness honestly and openly. In that respect, maybe I am evil.
As for the charge of adultery, it is completely false. Never at any time during either of my marriages did I commit adultery. For those of you who are unaware of the definition, you have to be married to someone to commit adultery.
The accusation of adultery coming from my "friend" is laughable at best but deeply saddening, especially coming from someone who has been involved in a relationship with a married man for nine years, part of that time when she was still married. She is not guilty of adultery in fact, but definitely guilty of adultery in her heart because she was married when he first contacted her. She did wait until her husband was out of the picture to fly to Alabama to spend a weekend with him and she wasn't married when she drove down to see him earlier this year and become intimate with him. I don't say this to excuse myself, but to put my accuser's statements in context. It is a very clear case of the pot calling the kettle black.
As for her companion in blackening my name and reputation, he is not without his faults either. He has propositioned both of us and asked us to be his mistresses in a BDSM sense. Both of us unequivocally answered no, I because I am otherwise involved and she because he disgusts her. She has said many times she would never get involved with a black man -- and certainly not with him. She tells him it is because she is otherwise involved as well, but she has no problems having sex with other guys she has met and has known for years when the itch becomes unbearable.
I stood by and listened while she trashed someone she called her best friend, reading private emails sent to her by the friend and helping her rid herself of the negative influence she feels that friend magickally cast in her direction. I spent many hours weaving counter spells and shielding her from further harm. After what I have learned over the past months, and particularly this morning, I realize that any negatives in her life she has drawn to herself through her own actions.
She called me one Saturday morning screaming and yelling at me that she would have to leave Colorado Springs because I had destroyed her reputation by my accusations. Aside from relating the facts of what had happened between us here and privately to a few select friends, her name has not come up, except when she calls or emails her attacks. I have been content to let this sometimes sleeping dog lie, but it looks as though the damage continues and runs deep enough for two concerned souls to seek me out and ask me to meet with them so they can see the truth for themselves, to view the evil incarnate that resides inside of me. When we meet I will tell them what I have written here. I am not perfect. I never claimed to be perfect. I am a flawed human who has chosen true love over social conventions and religious morals to which I do not subscribe. I do not apologize for my past because if you take away even one of those moments -- good, bad or indifferent -- you change who I am at this moment. I cease to exist as I am and I become another person, maybe a worse or better person, but not who I am. I prefer to remain as I am, warts and all, because it is this ME to whom people come because they say they feel compelled to meet me. These strangers see in me what my one time friend should have known over the years we shared and walked this rocky trail of life.
Be sure your sins will find you out.
~Luke 23:32-43
~Numbers 32:23
My sins never have a chance to find me out because I face them head on and admit them openly. It's like being completely open and honest. It doesn't always go down well with people in today's world, but you never need to worry if I am who I say I am or if I am hiding something because it is all here in black and white. It's up to you to decide what to believe, but at least you know that even when I seem harsh, stern or abrasive in my views and my writing that it is the real me and not crap dressed up in sugar and spice and everything false.
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