I haven’t had time to breathe.
Yesterday I was driving down State Street with the sun in my face and the dry taste of traffic filling my head. The heat and the lazy carelessness that comes with it just slammed into my consciousness all at once. It is summer time again. Summer, with all the crazy beauty that comes with it; all the endless nights and insane half memories that linger on into the twisted mythology of our youth; it is here again.
For just a moment, I was crazy again. I longed for the rush of self destruction. I longed for the trembling empty feeling of doing something that I absolutely know will have awful consequences. I don’t know where this comes from. I had an urge to smash my success, to mindlessly destroy something I cherish, for no payoff but the thrill of doing it.
I don’t know what stopped me either. It is not my intellect, or my judgment. I had those things before, and they never stopped me. It wasn’t the fear of losing what I have worked so hard to gain, because in that brief moment, that thought was absolutely absent. I don’t know what stayed my hand. I just know that it is beyond me. It is above and greater than I am. I do know I am absolutely grateful for whatever force that allows me to hold on to the amazing things I have in my life. I know that I owe all my effort, and all my attention to whatever that thing is that allows me to go on living this amazing life that I live.
Sometimes I wish I could dissect these things. I wish I could understand and diagnose what makes my life work out the way it does. But at times like this, I realize that if I could understand it, it wouldn’t work. This grace is beyond my comprehension, and the fact that it is indefinable and transient is a fundamental part of what makes it work so well for a guy like me.
And another breath in, and another breath out.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
freedom
Today is an anniversary of my freedom. Today I remember just how fortunate I am for the choices and opportunities in my life. I hope never again to lose sight of how lucky I am for this life, for the people I get to surround myself with, and the grace that has been given to me. Today I remember that I once relinquished my liberty.
I will never again take for granted all the things that make life so amazing. I will never again give my life over to the control of any other human being, substance, or doctrine. There is some magic in this world beyond my understanding, some love that has carried me through the painful consequences to my own insane thinking and action. That power is the only power I will ever give myself over to again.
Today is the anniversary of my freedom. I get to make choices, and I get to feel all the experiences that come into my life. I get to relish joy, and learn from pain. Today I celebrate my emancipation from the little ideas, plans, and designs of myself and others. Today I celebrate my deliverance.
I will never again take for granted all the things that make life so amazing. I will never again give my life over to the control of any other human being, substance, or doctrine. There is some magic in this world beyond my understanding, some love that has carried me through the painful consequences to my own insane thinking and action. That power is the only power I will ever give myself over to again.
Today is the anniversary of my freedom. I get to make choices, and I get to feel all the experiences that come into my life. I get to relish joy, and learn from pain. Today I celebrate my emancipation from the little ideas, plans, and designs of myself and others. Today I celebrate my deliverance.
Monday, March 15, 2010
flight
I was on an airplane the other day. When we were about to take off, I obediently switched my portable device to the off position. After doing so, and properly stowing all carry on items, I started eavesdropping on a conversation taking place in the seats behind me. I never saw the boys, but I guess their ages to be about six and eight. They were at first arguing about why they needed to put their backpacks under the seat, but when the plane started to take off, it was very clear that this was their first plane ride.
At first, the younger one was a bit scared, and the older brother started talking about their destination in an attempt, I think, to distract him. When the plane accelerated to take off, they were both silent. I could almost feel their anxiety from where I was sitting. As soon as we were airborne, however, any trace of fear was wiped away, and I listened to a hundred shared observations from outside the window to their right. I didn’t even need to look, as they narrated everything visible outside their window in between sporadic “whoa’s” and “awesome’s.”
I am not sure if they realized that everyone else on the plane could hear every word they said before the pilot reinstated our right to turn on our computers, and headphones again, but I am sure they didn’t care. They were totally amazed both at the world outside the window and the magic that allowed them to see it from such an amazing perspective. I sat with my eyes closed and listened to them for a few more minutes.
Had I been in a more distracted state of mind, or too caught up in some imaginary drama, I may have been annoyed rather than enthralled with their dialog. Instead, I listened with gratitude, because even though I may be a bit quieter about it now, I still feel the exact same way.
At first, the younger one was a bit scared, and the older brother started talking about their destination in an attempt, I think, to distract him. When the plane accelerated to take off, they were both silent. I could almost feel their anxiety from where I was sitting. As soon as we were airborne, however, any trace of fear was wiped away, and I listened to a hundred shared observations from outside the window to their right. I didn’t even need to look, as they narrated everything visible outside their window in between sporadic “whoa’s” and “awesome’s.”
I am not sure if they realized that everyone else on the plane could hear every word they said before the pilot reinstated our right to turn on our computers, and headphones again, but I am sure they didn’t care. They were totally amazed both at the world outside the window and the magic that allowed them to see it from such an amazing perspective. I sat with my eyes closed and listened to them for a few more minutes.
Had I been in a more distracted state of mind, or too caught up in some imaginary drama, I may have been annoyed rather than enthralled with their dialog. Instead, I listened with gratitude, because even though I may be a bit quieter about it now, I still feel the exact same way.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
change
People change. Sometimes people don’t change.
Buildings get torn down. Empty spaces get filled. Sometimes they don’t.
As I see the layers of my past amid the buildings and friends who still hang around my life, I like to think I can make predictions. Somehow the idea that I can comforts me. But it is not real. I can be sure only that new things will come, old things will change, and some things will remain just the same. By the time my predictions come true, it doesn’t matter anymore that I made them.
One thing I always forget to predict is how small the places from my memory seem when I see them again. My nostalgia stretches things out so that they can wrap the whole world up in one event, one view, and one night. I go back to a courtyard entrance of a building made up of cheap studio apartments, and I seem like a giant. How did such big things happen in such a tiny, dingy place? How did the smell stick with me for all these years? How did my life get so shaken in a building that still stands?
I went back to my old Junior High school the other day. I walked up the same steps I walked up to sneak back into class almost twenty years ago. It seem so monumental, until I realize that kids who ended up dying in World War Two walked up those same steps before me. I wonder how small that playground seems to them now.
Time is amazing. A lifetime seemed so huge a few years ago. And now, like the apartment building, it seems a little smaller than I remember. But that is only when I look forward without remembering how much I have been able to do in the portion I have already explored.
Today I am nostalgic and excited. I have so much love in my heart for all the people in my life. I am so proud of my friends and my family. I am so happy that I still have so many people to meet, and things to see. As the buildings around me change, and take on new stories, I see it as a reflection of the changes in my own life. And while it is fun sometimes to remember what used to occupy the spaces, it never seems to give me any better ability to predict what will come next.
Thank God.
Buildings get torn down. Empty spaces get filled. Sometimes they don’t.
As I see the layers of my past amid the buildings and friends who still hang around my life, I like to think I can make predictions. Somehow the idea that I can comforts me. But it is not real. I can be sure only that new things will come, old things will change, and some things will remain just the same. By the time my predictions come true, it doesn’t matter anymore that I made them.
One thing I always forget to predict is how small the places from my memory seem when I see them again. My nostalgia stretches things out so that they can wrap the whole world up in one event, one view, and one night. I go back to a courtyard entrance of a building made up of cheap studio apartments, and I seem like a giant. How did such big things happen in such a tiny, dingy place? How did the smell stick with me for all these years? How did my life get so shaken in a building that still stands?
I went back to my old Junior High school the other day. I walked up the same steps I walked up to sneak back into class almost twenty years ago. It seem so monumental, until I realize that kids who ended up dying in World War Two walked up those same steps before me. I wonder how small that playground seems to them now.
Time is amazing. A lifetime seemed so huge a few years ago. And now, like the apartment building, it seems a little smaller than I remember. But that is only when I look forward without remembering how much I have been able to do in the portion I have already explored.
Today I am nostalgic and excited. I have so much love in my heart for all the people in my life. I am so proud of my friends and my family. I am so happy that I still have so many people to meet, and things to see. As the buildings around me change, and take on new stories, I see it as a reflection of the changes in my own life. And while it is fun sometimes to remember what used to occupy the spaces, it never seems to give me any better ability to predict what will come next.
Thank God.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
I don’t know how or when this happened.
Today I was at the neighborhood health food store purchasing toaster waffles and overpriced milk when I realized I belonged there. I never felt that way anywhere before. That isn’t to say it is the first time I have ever felt that way, I guess it was just the first time I realized it as it was happening.
Now the neighborhood health food store isn’t particularly a place I really want to belong, and it isn’t that I felt I belonged there anymore than anyone else. I guess all I am saying is that I didn’t feel like an outsider. I didn’t feel as though I were a fraud, or a ghost in a place where real live people live their life. I discovered that it is comfortable to belong. I felt the gift that this life really is.
I think as an adolescent I found myself constantly trying to fit some mold that I imagined would make me acceptable and lovable to the people I wanted to love me so much. Somewhere along the line I got rather hung up on the idea that I needed everyone to like me, even the people I tried so hard to pretend I hated. I got stuck in that state for a long time. As a result, I spent so much of my time trying to pretend my life was something other than what it really was; I missed out on a lot.
A friend of mine told me this summer that when he stopped trying to be cool, he became cool. So naturally I tried to be just like him for a few days. It didn’t work.
I used to think adulthood was the death of the heart. I saw these grown-ups so involved with the business of living, that I thought they had lost the capability of feeling. Of course this was because I imagined feeling was another word for experiencing pain or longing. I had all these ideas. I knew so much. I was so confident that everything I guessed at was a fact. I was wrong.
Adulthood has been the best part of my life so far. I am pretty new at it. I have learned a few things in the past decade or so however. I have learned the value of humility. I have learned that the most important things in life are the relationships with my family, and the true friends I have found in this life. I have learned that I am often wrong, and the quicker I am to accept that fact, the more I learn, and the more helpful I can be to the people I love. I have learned the value of using my mind more than my mouth, and the value of using my heart more than my brain.
My grandpa once taught me that one of the most valuable expressions he ever learned to say was “you may be right.” I believe now that is how he became probably the wisest man I have ever known. The more he learned about life, the more he was open to let other people have their beliefs and to learn what he could from them while being helpful all the time.
Today while in the neighborhood health food store, I realized that this is my life. I am not the center of the universe, nor am I absent. I get to live this life today not because of the choices I have made, but because of grace. My responsibility is to live this life to the fullest, to be present, and to experience every moment, and every situation as a part of this amazing thing we all share. I don’t know that I deserve all that I have, or all I have been given, but I am certainly going to make good use of it. I love my life, and all the people in it.
Today I was at the neighborhood health food store purchasing toaster waffles and overpriced milk when I realized I belonged there. I never felt that way anywhere before. That isn’t to say it is the first time I have ever felt that way, I guess it was just the first time I realized it as it was happening.
Now the neighborhood health food store isn’t particularly a place I really want to belong, and it isn’t that I felt I belonged there anymore than anyone else. I guess all I am saying is that I didn’t feel like an outsider. I didn’t feel as though I were a fraud, or a ghost in a place where real live people live their life. I discovered that it is comfortable to belong. I felt the gift that this life really is.
I think as an adolescent I found myself constantly trying to fit some mold that I imagined would make me acceptable and lovable to the people I wanted to love me so much. Somewhere along the line I got rather hung up on the idea that I needed everyone to like me, even the people I tried so hard to pretend I hated. I got stuck in that state for a long time. As a result, I spent so much of my time trying to pretend my life was something other than what it really was; I missed out on a lot.
A friend of mine told me this summer that when he stopped trying to be cool, he became cool. So naturally I tried to be just like him for a few days. It didn’t work.
I used to think adulthood was the death of the heart. I saw these grown-ups so involved with the business of living, that I thought they had lost the capability of feeling. Of course this was because I imagined feeling was another word for experiencing pain or longing. I had all these ideas. I knew so much. I was so confident that everything I guessed at was a fact. I was wrong.
Adulthood has been the best part of my life so far. I am pretty new at it. I have learned a few things in the past decade or so however. I have learned the value of humility. I have learned that the most important things in life are the relationships with my family, and the true friends I have found in this life. I have learned that I am often wrong, and the quicker I am to accept that fact, the more I learn, and the more helpful I can be to the people I love. I have learned the value of using my mind more than my mouth, and the value of using my heart more than my brain.
My grandpa once taught me that one of the most valuable expressions he ever learned to say was “you may be right.” I believe now that is how he became probably the wisest man I have ever known. The more he learned about life, the more he was open to let other people have their beliefs and to learn what he could from them while being helpful all the time.
Today while in the neighborhood health food store, I realized that this is my life. I am not the center of the universe, nor am I absent. I get to live this life today not because of the choices I have made, but because of grace. My responsibility is to live this life to the fullest, to be present, and to experience every moment, and every situation as a part of this amazing thing we all share. I don’t know that I deserve all that I have, or all I have been given, but I am certainly going to make good use of it. I love my life, and all the people in it.
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