I received word today that I had been betrayed by someone I considered a good friend and trusted companion. This betrayal that has shaken me to the very core and has catapulted me into a whole new cycle of grief.
What makes betrayal so painful is that it requires a high level of caring, intimacy and vulnerability. When the dagger is inserted, the pain comes not just from the wound but from seeing who wields the weapon. I suspect that's why Caesar's last words were, "Et tu, Brute?" The pain of betrayal was more agonizing than the mortal blows.
As I think about the betrayal in my life--and it is a betrayal that involves more than just me and my feelings; it will end up in both civil and criminal courts on a federal level--I am struck by the passage in Scripture that says evil can appear as a angel of light.
It reminds me monkshood, a lovely flower that is so deadly that it contaminates the very soil it grows in, rendering the earth itself poisonous. It's so toxic that you dare not weed around it without wearing gloves and even then, when taking off the gloves, you can be in mortal danger. Yet, the flowers are almost incomparable in their beauty.
Betrayal is the monkshood of life.
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