Looking Over Your Shoulder

 

You might dismiss it as a mere figure of speech, but it’s a fact of life…The Premonition is following us.

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There’s a shadow behind every tree, a menace under every bed at night and a pervading notion that somehow we are guilty of something.

Real or imagined, The Premonition is there. Job knew it, for he lamented, “Man is born into trouble as the sparks fly upward.” It happens. He knew he was guilty of something.

The Premonition has many disguises. It’s a master of deception. It’s raison d’etre is not the tune sung by the band Asriel from their album, Abyss. It’s more closely associated with the Hebrew name Azrael, better known as the Angel of Death.

Philip Pullman’s trilogy, Dark Materials, refers to The Premonition as existing in a parallel universe. He describes it as being a tall and powerful man, fierce in nature and having eyes that glitter with savage laughter. He’s is a mentally stable tweeting genius with a big button and a face that is eerily similar to one D. Triumph.

But this is a dark version of The Premonition. Mostly we experience its presence in nuanced ways. The little distractions of life haunt us. You find yourself walking to the bedroom from the kitchen. You stand there, befuddled, turning in circles asking, “Why am I here?” It’s The Premonition at work.

There’s more. The Premonition stalks me walking down the stairs. It whispers, “What if you fall?” That thought had not entered my mind, but the ‘what if’ starts to bug me. Life is full of ‘what if’ phantoms.

Driving at night spooks me now. The savage eyes of halogen car lights are blinding. With every passing car I envision myself mangled in a tangled wreckage and ravaged mercilessly by rappers who are tokin’, jokin’ and textin’.

Want more? Failure lurks everywhere. Maybe it’s your failed septic tank, or the Comcast devil come to visit; or your identity is stolen, or the phone rings at 2:00 AM. This is all the work of The Premonition.

Last week I lost a month’s worth of sleep because I had received two unclaimed certified letters from the IRS. Now there’s a premonition that bodes badly for anybody receiving those green-labeled envelops. The Premonition can burst all bubbles of smug innocence, believe me.

Last week I begin the purging, the cleanup of leftovers, it now being 2018. One of those hangovers is the cluttered book shelves. The Premonition lives in my home. It whispers subtle hints. Clutter or me, one has to go. Being a self-preservationist, better them than me. Still, it’s sad to sacrifice your lovers so heartlessly to the indiscriminate redistribution by Goodwill.

Last year I read 55 books by Louis Amour, a mere scratching of the surface. He wrote about 120 of these westerns. But the themes were all the same: the good guy gets the girl, the ground and the gold. But throughout he’s looking over his shoulder for the trouble that keeps coming. Sadly, the winnings are temporary. Such is the way of life.

Examples of premonitions abound. You have yours, I have mine. But more than likely they’re mostly negative. Why? Job answers again, “I was afraid of my sorrows. I know I will not be held innocent.”

A vivid imagination will create a host of enemies. And in large part that’s the power of The Premonition. Yesterday was Epiphany Sunday in Methodist Churches. It’s the Wesleyan Covenant Service, a service of Word and Table, Holy Communion.

Prominent on the program is what’s called ‘The Confession.’ Without coming to grips with the guilt that shrouds us, there’s no sense of reconciliation. We have to clean house of the accumulated clutter. Then, after fervent prayers for forgiveness coupled with a Godly portion of bread and wine, we can all head home for fried chicken, new creatures, and fully absolved. Until tomorrow.

Until tomorrow. What a thought to end a day of benediction. Our house is swept clean, garnished, and all demons and premonitions cast out. But then comes tomorrow.

Meanwhile, The Premonition sleeps like a baby, no anxiety, no concerns. Its job is safe. Why? How can it be so cavalier? Simple: Because before we even leave the house we will have been guilty of some infraction, small or large, in word, thought and deed.

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And that, my friends, is a fact of life. Something is following us. Would that for 2018 it be none other than the Shadow of the Holy Ghost.

Bud Hearn
January 7, 2018