The Violence of Self-Criticism

The Negation of the Divine

For most of my life I harmed myself, continually. I pulled and pushed, I slashed and stabbed. Over and over, I poked at myself and scraped and slapped.

But there was no blood. No bruises. No visible evidence.

And so, this was not self-harm. There was no harm at all.

On the contrary: “My body is a temple,” I would say.

Proper diet and exercise. Occasional rest. Free of drugs and alcohol. Clean and well-structured. I was a proper custodian.

Though stepping out of the temple doors, I tossed litter on the walkway. I kicked rubble onto the path.

I returned home and continued my abuse.

“I cannot… I am not… I don’t deserve… I will not… I shouldn’t… I will never be… There is no…”

All of life, in the higher altar of my mind, I denied. I was the priest of denial.

The rejections must have stung. But without proof, I was blind to the damage. Dull to the sensation.

Over the course, newly aware of these traditions, I rationalized: This is a voice I learned. I am not to blame. The thought daggers are born of the desire to be better. They will cut away at the undesirable parts.

The service was curtailed, but the liturgy was not banished.

I continued to worship absence.

Crippled, but with yearning in my heart, I crawled up new mountains of creative endeavor. In the ascent, I felt my damaged limbs. How could a rabbit leap over a fallen tree stump if her hind legs were bound or in tatters?

How could I realize the springs of divine creation if destruction was my religion?

Thrash after thrash in all my efforts, the armory came into view. The invisible thinking arsenal and its assaults were forcing their light into my eye.

In me, I could see, lived the negation of the divine. The ability to force hollowness when there was fullness. Unholiness when all things were Holy. Ungodliness when everything was God. Uncreated when all was Creation.

Blindfold withdrawn, I saw self-harm. I heard the subtle pull-back and the penetrating strike—I touched the trigger and the piercing bullet. I tasted the blood of my heart and tears of my joy. And beyond myself, I witnessed that many more worshipped at the altar of abnegation, crying out from the lashes of Self-denial.

Having drawn a bucket from the well of ignorance, I marched to the temple and poured. The path clean and cared for, less blind to the scars of my thinking.

I vowed to purge all talk of absence and to take up a new religion:

The Presence of the Divine