The Contorionist from Gethsemani (Unabridged) by Joel David Weir

There are some folks who you’ll never understand - and some folks who will never understand you. Best advice I’ve been given in some time. There’s a real difference between compromise and cowardice, peacemaking and passivity. But that line is so blurred sometimes. Some of us learn that lesson the hard way. Maybe it took brushing up with death to realize I had been doing a contortionist act too long. Sometimes I figured I was doing some sort of trapeze act - or maybe a tight rope walker - the applause makes you keep doing it - add some midwestern guilt in there and you have the right mixture for one helluva drug. Self-exile - not resignation or remaining - became a place of clarity — Doesn’t mean the wounds don’t still flare up sometimes - but at least I know what they are -those contortion wounds - it affects places in the spine - the nerves - there are dislocations that occur — those things take time for healing.
For it was not an enemy that reproached me - then I could have borne it - if it was he that hated me that did magnify himself against me - then I would have hid myself from him. But it was you - my equal, my companion, my familiar friend - we used to share sweet fellowship - we walked in the house of God together

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