...to my first love.

I'm starting to understand the day to day struggle of finding your identity in a place it isn't. I'm starting to understand the feeling of emptiness that you can't get away from, that follows you around, that makes it a necessity that you schedule everything out because if there is any slot of time not assigned, you run back to your emptiness. I'm getting a little glimpse of all that. I'm sure it doesn't help others that are going through similar feelings, but at least I'm not as ignorant now. I know in my head that time will heal my heart and I'll begin to rediscover myself eventually, but my heart still longs for comfort.

My dad used to tell me that I should be a doctor. I'm not sure what he saw that lead him to that idea, but what comes to my mind is how queazy I feel when I'm around people in pain. My Granddad has had some health issues over the last few years, mostly with his feet. He was told he would never walk again, but with a little assistance from some very supportive boots, he gets around pretty well these days. Still, whenever I see him stand up and start to move around, I feel pain, I feel the pressure on my feet, I feel an emptiness in my gut because I know all his progress could be gone with one off step. There's no way I could surround myself with so much pain every day. I feel a need to say the right thing and do everything exactly right so that healing takes place immediately. And then I find myself needing healing, and I realize--although I've realized it again and again throughout my life, I have a very fresh realization--that sometimes it's not as easy as someone saying the right thing to you. Something is broken, and talking to it and treating it right does not repair what's wrong.

Forgive me for being cliche, but it doesn't require a high degree of spirituality or an advanced knowledge of philosophy to realize we live in a fallen, broken world. We are surrounded by pain all the time, and based on experience, most people would have to conclude that covering up is about the best we can do with healing. Sure, your body will fight against a fever and your cuts will seal, but there is a brokenness about our lives that reaches beyond our bones. That is where healing finds its greatest resistance. When we have a headache, we might take a pill; when we scrape a knee, we might disinfect and bandage the wound; but what is the remedy for a broken heart? What bandage can we put on a mind that is believing the lies that it's being fed?

There is something about emotional and spiritual brokenness that makes it so much more stubborn. If it were up to us, our hearts and minds would be healed, but sometimes there is something that interferes with our natural healing processes. Something gets in the way. We speak of miracles in our family when we talk about my Granddad being able to walk. His feet were breaking down faster than his body could repair them, and although it took surgeries and therapy, something as simple as walking has become a miracle. And yet, despite many injuries to bones and joints in my feet, it seems very normal that my body healed itself and the fact that I am walking doesn't impress anyone. It is the fact that my Granddad's healing seemed to defy nature's timing that we see a miracle. We speak of miracles when a person recovers from cancer when they are told they only have weeks to live, but when surgeries remove tumors and chemotherapy destroys cancerous cells, recovery is seen as successful treatment of the disease. And so it seems to me that the only difference between a miracle and normal recuperation is that a miracle possesses one of two properties: a miracle happens without the normal restraints of time, or a miracles bypasses some variable that was making healing especially difficult or impossible.

Maybe we all need some miracles in our lives... What if we could remove the hidden variable that keeps us trapped in our emotional brokenness? What if we could overcome the filter in our mind that twists our thoughts? What if we could stop believing the lie that keeps us running back to our emptiness? It would be a miracle, and I hope, for your sake and for mine, that miracles are still possible.

Vacation Reaction

The northeastern region of the United States possesses, on one hand, a myth, created by culture and entertainment, which boasts of unparalleled energy and excitement, and on the other, a stigma of detachment and loneliness, unfortunately, also unparalleled. Having visited the area on several occasions, I have experienced and felt the accompanying emotions of these two extremes.

It becomes easy to focus on the vastness and speed of living that we pass by the very people that have been specifically and carefully chosen to clutter up our path. And like clutter, it may seem easier to sweep it all under the rug and pretend it's not there, which certainly has become the norm, but here and there I begin to think that there might be something to be found in the careful process of addressing our clutter...

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealing with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal."
C.S. Lewis
The Weight of Glory

Excuse...

It's very strange that of all the times in life not to be actively writing, these last few months have been void of it all. My usual habit of writing much and only posting minimally is not even the case. It's strange. I have so much to say. I think the barrier between what is traveling around my mind over and over and a piece of paper or a blog post is the delicacy of the topic.

On a few isolated occasions I've thrown caution to the wind and let myself go, but not in a public setting like the world wide web. So I'll dance around the topic without diving in too deep:

I'm happy about life right now. Not everybody is feeling that right now, and I just now realized that it's nice to be where I am... and it's nice to know it before it's time to start another climb. Life is not made to be bland and forgettable. It's good to live a life that's been blessed with extravagant and bold seasonings. Sometimes it's more dramatic and stressful than it is sweet, and that's a blessing. And to have your sweet-tooth satisfied is also a blessing. And that's where I am right now...

I've got this cute little lady that let's me take her out to eat when our free time happens to be at the same time. She says thank you when I pay for her meal. She likes foods that I don't even understand. Tofu. Strange vegetables. Organic hybrid plants. I try a bite and discover that my intuitions regarding foods I wont like are mostly accurate. But I like that she likes different things. I order foods that I know about. Pasta with chicken. Anything from the breakfast menu. Basics. Good food that I've heard of. I'm not very adventurous when it comes to food.

She adds flavor to my life. I am thankful for that. She is a blessing. She is beautiful. I wish I told her that more often.

...

There are times in life when I can't find purpose or a foothold or a break... and there are times when I'm constantly aware of the warmth of God's presence... and that in both I am secure in His hands.

thoughts that have nothing to do with Christmas, it just happens to be Christmas as I'm writing them down...

How often am I simply avoiding pain? How often do I stand still and adapt to the present pain in order to avoid fresh pain?

At any particular moment in time, when I very well should be involved in the present, I am either living in the past or living in the future. I find that the present offers little compared to my past, or my optimism of the future. This is a somewhat recent development for me. It certainly has never been a habit, not one with any consistency. And I never recall looking forward to this present that I am currently experiencing. And I should also add, with a good amount of confidence, that I don't expect I'll ever have any longings to return to this present. I am not here. You may see me and communicate with me, but I am not really there. I am a shadow, but a shadow with desire for a well-lived life.

I suppose this is one of those "in-between" points of life. I'm looking back and looking ahead, but not really at home in the present. I could vaguely describe what preceded this present, but I can't come up with an adequate title to do justice to the previous stage of life. However, at least I have concrete memories to reflect on. And so I'm left with a question that I can't answer... "What am I looking forward to?"

This transition phase of life... what will it lead to? In between mountain tops, I am living the valley experience, yet without any motivation to start another climb. I need something. I need site of the next peak.

I keep telling myself to simply keep moving. Don't stop, don't stall, keep moving. What is the goal?

"Will you come with me to the mountains? It will hurt at first, until your feet are hardened. Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows. But will you come?" (C.S. Lewis - The Great Divorce)

i'm not a real writer

i miss reading good books. i have amazing books waiting for me on the shelves in my room, but i'm just moving through them so slowly. when i have a demanding schedule, reading is my escape. but work is slow and i get to have too many lazy days, so i end up getting myself out of rhythm. the reading muscle is the same as the writing muscle, and it's pretty weak right now.

once upon a time i had it in my mind that i could, possible should, be a writer. like a real writer. i would have a little cottage somewhere with a back deck that looked out over a lake, and i'd sit at a desk and type on an antique typewriter. i dont know, maybe i would teach and then spend the summers writing books at the lakehouse. then again, seeing as how my last post was in february -- which doesn't completely reflect the amount of time i've spent spelling out words and sentences and paragraphs and complete thoughts, but should certainly tell you something about my ability to complete something worth publishing (although i don't tell people about my blog and therefore have 3 readers, i mean my mother doesn't even know i have one of these things, i still feel the need for my posts to have some level of quality) -- i would say i have a problem with this idea of being an actual writer.

and here's the problem. i've always hit the same wall when i sit down to write. it's not a matter of starting something, but of finishing. i went to a writer's conference a while back and jumped from workshop to workshop, and the one bit of information that i will never need to consult my notes about is the idea that a storyteller must tell his story before diving into anything else. and so every effort to express myself haults because i have no ending to my story. i could make it work in college because college guys are allowed to write music with three chords and vague lyrics. there was no need to conclude, you just go back in for one more chorus.

i digress.

perhaps someday i'll see myself as having moved through some kind of ending and into another phase of life. maybe that wont ever really be clear to me. if it is, maybe i'll have something i can finish. i'd like to have a story worth writing down, not for others, but just to unclog my mind. i get these little hints of ideas that i just can't develop because i always end up back in my own un-ending story.

i'm sick of gray. i don't think the lakehouse and the typewriter are the goals, i think i'm just ready for something more.

I might be wrong, but the smell of burning leaves on a crispy evening must be the most satisfying aroma ever consumed. I say consumed because when I encounter one of those familiar, pleasing smells, I breathe it in with a perpetual anxiousness that grows into an overwhelming sense of comfort.

I love the little things that bring comfort...

Hot chocolate when you should be sleeping.

Morning stretches in the afternoon.

Really good sweet tea... I figured out my recipe for great sweet tea today. Delicious.

I hope you'll stop and take part in some little comforts when you get a chance. You need it.

Society as the Death of Innocence

I’ve yet to come to a complete decision regarding the Bible as literal or metaphorical. I believe it includes both, but there are many specific passages that I haven’t made up my mind about. I think the fundamental plot is based in reality. So if you tell me there was a group of people called Israelites who descended from a man named Abraham, I’ll agree. If you tell me Jesus was an actual human who traveled the ancient Middle East teaching about what love is and about the realities of God, that's just fine with me. But then again, if you tell me that a man named John ascended to heaven and got a personal tour of the place, I might play the devil’s advocate and tell you it’s metaphorical. It’s one of those passages that might make more sense if we take it as symbolism. I’m not in the mood to solve the great debate, I’m just looking into some of the lessons we can learn if we view some Bible stories with new eyes.

Society as the Death of Innocence

Genesis 3: 1-7
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?"
The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’"
"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Enlightenment… Industry… The battle of man versus nature… Science… Society… Call it what you want, it’s all about discovery and fighting the battle against ignorance. In this passage, Adam and Eve have a desire to understand more, but of course, we all know their motives don't make their disobedience the right thing to do. God told them not to eat the fruit, and the command alone makes their actions wrong. But imagine for a moment that there was no rule against eating the fruit from this tree. Imagine you have the choice between eating a fruit that tastes good and satisfies your hunger and eating a fruit that does the same, but also provides some new bit of information, like some applicable fortune cookie. If the rule wasn't there, none of us would hesitate to make that same decision. We have a desire to know things... what's wrong with that?

Every child goes through the "Why?" phase at some point. It’s practically a never-ending sequence, but parents have figured out how to trump the question "Why?" Their answer… "Because I said so." Eventually, they start skipping steps and the "Because I said so" shows up after the first "Why?" I remember questioning the reasoning behind so many little things my parents wouldn’t let me do. But just because I had questions doesn’t mean I was missing out. I was looking out for myself and so I wanted to know what was going on, but it all made sense to them because they were looking out for me in a way that went above and beyond all my three-year-old questions.

If Adam and Eve had been in the "Why?" phase, would God have chosen to skip to "Because I said so," or would he have given them a reason? And if he had given a reason, what would it be?

Maybe he would say something like, "Because you’ll have a new understanding of some things, but knowledge is a double-edged sword."

Maybe God was just looking out for his children in a way that was superior to our notions of "what’s best for us." Maybe our pursuit of knowledge isn’t always the perfect product we see it as. Maybe knowing more has consequences that are both positive and negative.

The Age of Enlightenment established reason as the highest of authorities. Throughout this movement, freedom and democracy became important themes that saturated almost every culture around the globe, but this avenue of thought is also characterized by a worldwide faith deficiency and eventually led to societal unbalances like totalitarianism. The industrial revolution changed every aspect of life. The development of new technologies allowed business to drastically improve efficiency and allowed the world to be connected like never before. However, the technology for mass production resulted in a virtual mass production of humanity. No longer could individuals make a living expressing themselves through their chosen trade. On the contrary, they were plugged in to assembly lines where they tightened the same screw for the rest of their lives.

Humanity has an appetite for knowledge, and it takes only a small loss of ignorance for us to start losing our innocence. Ignorance and innocence: the two co-exist like bees and honey. Unless we put it in a jar, you won’t find honey unless there are bees close by, and visa versa.

I don't know what the point of all this is exactly. I don't know if we should just slow down and live simpler lives or make cell phones and sitcoms illegal so that people have nothing else to do but act human again. What I’m not saying is that humanity shouldn’t be working to cure diseases and figuring out ways to help people in need. We should be doing all that, but considering the innocence of Adam and Eve prior to the Fall and the humanity that we experience because of the Fall, I think there’s something to be grasped that I have found in my observations of children. My cousin has two boys. One is three and the other is six months. They are adorable, and since I get to give them back to their parents, I never get sick of them. But it doesn’t take long to see that three-year-olds get into trouble sometimes whereas six-month-olds just need to be loved and held and cared for.

As I think about a possible move, it reminds me of the last time I packed up and moved...

I’m driving down a two-lane road surrounded by cornfields. The U-Haul is packed to the door. I hate clutter, but it seems I’ve accumulated a lot of things over the last couple years. I’d furnished a small apartment with knickknacks from thrift stores and hand-me-downs, all which had seen better days. But it’s not worth throwing it all out just to start over. So I rented a truck, and my cheap little car is clinging to life on the trailer. I named the car Gus, and we’ve been through a lot, so like the rest of my clutter, I can’t leave him behind. However, I am leaving behind everything else from every category of life: family and friends and memories and geography.

Only a few days ago I was entrenched in normality. Indiana had been my home during all the conscious moments of my life. I finished up with my bachelor’s degree a few months ago, but I guess I needed a few more months to sit around the cheap little rented house with a few other guys. I would work a few days each month to pay off my rent and other miniscule bills, and the rest of the time was reserved for nothing important.

Since I was across the street from the university, I used up a large portion of my time taking advantage of every available facility. I spent a couple hours at the gym every day. I ate at the cafeteria every chance I could get so I could go to the grocery story less often. I would visit friends in dorm rooms, and even, occasionally, meet with some of my former professors. It was a little awkward being on the campus as a graduate, but worth it to get out of the house and have something to occupy my time other than watching a film. The other guys were all taking another semester or two, so by over-indulging in sleep, I would manage to chisel the rest of my time down so I only had enough free time to hang out with them. Everything was easy. I watched Football games at a buddy’s house every week. I would hang out with a girl I liked, but never enough to consider it a relationship. Everything was mediocre, but I only had to do what I wanted to do, and nobody made me to do any more.

So I’m hoping that a change of scenery will shake things up a bit, but I can’t say that there was one single reason why I decided to move to Georgia, it’ definitely a combination of factors. Sure, the job offer prompted the idea and my older brother lives there, and yes, all the songs make it sound so nice. But I think more than anything, a person gets sick of monotony. It’s nice to have a schedule, it’s nice to have comfort, but most people want some excitement in their lives. I guess that need for a thrill was the main reason, maybe a bad one, but the biggest reason among many others why I packed up on a whim and I’m headed south.

So as I drive south on State Road 37, passing through little Mid-western towns, I’m thinking of everything that has just ended. Of course there’s the familiarity of my surroundings. Due to random midnight drives for no other reason than to explore, I know a lot about Marion, Indiana. I’ve explored all the abandoned warehouses inside and out. I know the streets that are better to avoid. I know the little bar on the downtown square and all the people who play there on Thursday nights. There’s the mall with nothing good in it that’s just as fun to wander around as any other mall. There’s the church where I would take people and we’d climb onto the roof. We would keep warm next to the heating duct. There’s the drive to Indianapolis which I’ve made countless times. I can’t get past all the memories, and I think I’m paying more attention to them than the road.

I made the decision so quickly that I had no time to realize its finality. I think about all my friends from four plus years of school, the countless people from my home that had such a fantastic stake in my life, my family. It’s hard to say good bye, but it’s easy when it’s the right thing to do.