#something better

It was before Daredevil happened, but it was mostly that. Ben saw the corruption from the other side as it was being sown. It hadn’t been publicly exposed yet, but he wasn’t so blind he couldn’t see it, and the coworkers he had that were crooked didn’t exactly try hard to hide it. He saw the shady shit some of his coworkers did, and he saw how a lot of people pretended not to see it, and he saw that there wasn’t a fucking thing he could do about it. People who made a stink ended up fired and blacklisted or tragically dead, usually from shooting themselves four times in the head, funny how people manage that, and which it was depended on how loud they were and what they had to say. He realized that the only way to stay was to turn a blind eye himself, and he just couldn’t live with himself if he did that.

Fundamentally, Ben was a good man who realized that for all the power of his position, he couldn’t use it in a way that helped people, and so he left. It haunted him.

Ben’s position in the narrative of kintsugi is meant to be a bit of a foil to Peter’s. They each had what the other lacks, and Peter is so fucking sorry for that, if anyone out there would let him try to take it back. Ben is the ghost Peter chases but can never catch up to.

Ben had no power but a great sense of responsibility. He wanted desperately to have enough power to save people, chased it, and when he realized that it wasn’t a power he could use responsibly, he ended up with nothing. He was a good cop who couldn’t be a cop anymore and didn’t know how to be anything else. He died trying to do the right thing, and he died bitter and angry, because it’s hard to be a good man in a world suffocating on injustice and not be angry about it.

And then there’s Peter, who had all the power in the world. And the first thought he had was that he didn’t want it. He didn’t want it, because it came with responsibility. There wasn’t any kind of power in the world that wasn’t hitched to responsibility, and Peter just so desperately didn’t want to be the one to have to carry it. He was so tried already. Let it be someone else.

Something Better chapter 33 - "Be Your Own Diamond" - is out NOW!

I hate waiting.

I know patience is a virtue. It’s just not my virtue.

When things aren’t happening the way I think they should, or they’re not happening when I think they should, the odds are good that I will do…something.

Because I hate waiting.

The thing is, sometimes waiting is exactly what God is calling us to do.

We all know the line about how God always answers prayers, but sometimes the answer is “no.” That’s right, as far as it goes. But there’s another answer.

Sometimes the answer is “not yet.” That’s the one that I struggle with.

I do better with a flat “no.” At least I know where I stand. 

When it comes to “not yet,” my first instinct is - I want to know when. I want to know how. I need details.

God almost always has other ideas.

Because “not yet” isn’t a pointless hurry up and wait. Or the sign of a disorganized deity who needs to get His stuff together.

Whatever other reason there may be for the delay, God’s “not yet” is a practical antidote to the pride that a lack of patience smuggles into our lives. The vanity that gives itself away when I insist on knowing when and how, when I demand details from God.

It’s why Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him.”

Which means that if God’s giving us a “not yet,” we’ve got a choice. We can go with that first instinct. Demand details from God. Maybe even do it ourselves (and end up with all kinds of things we never wanted).

And give away the truth. That whoever you and I think we’re trusting, we’re really relying on some of the least dependable people we know. Us.

After all, how many times have you and I been wrong before?

Or we can trust God. Even when the answer is “not yet.”

Resting in the knowledge that whatever we think “has to happen,” the God who has always loved us has something better in store for us than we could ever ask or imagine.

Marianne Faithfull "Something Better"

The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus

December, 1968