PARADOXICAL

Do you have moments when you are pushed to some suffocating cul-de-sac, some corner of extreme humiliation, when you are forced to own up to something blatantly false and you cannot explain your side? Moments when you are accused of something you’re certainly not guilty of and yet you’ve got no chance to prove otherwise, not even a chance to express your anger?

Those are the times when you are force-fed with a truly humble pie , which only leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. Those are the times when the only reliable witness is God and therefore somewhat mute, at least at the moment.

I can’t find a word for it. For modesty’s sake, I won’t invent anything. There has to be a better term.

Let’s just call it the _________ moment. Thing is, people in their generosity have filled in that blank for you , thanks to your main accuser who refused you the benefit of the doubt. Thanks to that ready accommodation of the mind, also known as gullibility, you are thus affirmed of your hunch that there’s no justice in this world.

Welcome, dear bro, to the __________ moment. Remember that you are alone in this, that there’s no way you can be avenged. Perish all hopes of hope for there’s none coming.

Accept that you are humbled beyond belief. Accept that you are defeated without even having begun a fight, your name blemished beyond remedy, possibly forever. There’s not a soul you can run to; sometimes, not even to a confessional where your profound anguish might be thought of as profoundly trivial and you are dismissed with a penance of one Our Father. You’re in that __________ moment, as though designed by the fates and no one can stop it, not the least you.

At this point, you may want to be consoled by the classic George Elliot work Silas Marner where the one wronged and slandered lived all her life misjudged and miserable. In the eyes of the world, she lived a lie, and she had to live with it because no one would believe her side of the story. Her only hope was death. And time.

It was only time that would prove her right, as evidence of somebody else’s crime eventually points to her innocence, and by accident at that. The revelation happens long after the falsely accused had passed away, too late, too late to avenge a lifetime of injustice.

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If you couldn’t bear being so humbled by the _________ moment, it could be that you are too haughty to bear the thought of being so humiliated. The _________ moment is a terrible moment of grace.

posted by Resty Odon  # 8:13 PM