Little Roads

As a passenger on the interstate I noticed a road beside the Road.  Small, often dirt or even grass, occasionally vanishing into a low swampy place, this little road followed along the interstate highway.  I never saw a single traveler on that little parallel road.  We (I was a passenger so of course we) were whizzing by other cars and having other cars whiz by us and I was struck with an image of a little boy in overalls with a piece of straw between his teeth strolling down the slow road.  I was overcome momentarily with the urge to be that little boy.  Heck, I think I was that little boy long ago and far away.

Sailing down the highway the scenery blurred by, indistinct and then gone before it could really be seen.  I was moving fast but I never actually was anywhere.  I think that little boy was exactly where he was.  I think he could see and smell and hear everything around him from the heat of the day on his skin to the pebbles under his feet to the breeze helping to dry the sweat on his forehead to the smell of summer grass nearby to the sound of the cars blurring by on the big road.

A thing I realized is that if I’m always going to somewhere then I’m never actually where I want to be.  I think the little boy, even though he was going somewhere, was still somewhere he wanted to be.

We’re always traveling.  Even sitting still is traveling though you’re not picking the direction if you’re sitting still.  We can’t stay in the same place because every moment is a different place.

But…

However….

Perhaps….

We could remember that every step is a place to be and that if we hurry so much to the big destinations we miss being in all the little places in between.

Maybe that’s just me.

Secure hearts (prose version)

The heart of a man is not made for nine to five.  A soul is not made for boundaries, fences, borders, or coloring inside the lines.  I was not forged… Forged…in the blazing heart of creation to live ruled by fear and trembling trepidation. My pulse quickens at the sights yet unseen, the view beyond the hill and across the water.  My true self is engineered, designed, planned meticulously, for fearless, selfless freedom. (True freedom is selfless, always selfless. Fear is the heart of selfishness. We only build walls to guard the things we fear might be destroyed.)  I’m crafted for leaping, running,  bounding, sailing, soaring and for helping others to do the same.  The original lie, the very first one, is the tempting promise of unassailable security. “you will be like God”

I can tell you how to find absolute security.  Dig a hole, sixty by sixty.  Build a box of concrete and steel with walls ten feet thick, airtight and light-tight.  Climb inside and close the door and have the dirt piled high on top.  Wait until the air runs out. Voila,  Security.

Here is my hope and desire, for me and for you, that should I find myself on the crest of a cliff, and looking down, see the snarling faces and bristling spears of enemies bent on my destruction,  that I (and you in the same position) would leap without thought and with a laugh,  and watch them try to scatter, too late to escape me.

True security rests in a heart that has broken the chains of fear and been broken at the hands of the Smith to be forged anew.  I know who guards my heart and under that guard it is unassailable.

Tomorrow’s Sunrise

The sun rose this morning.  It was a lovely thing.  I’m surrounded by trees and the early light is gold tinted faintly with green as it settles down past the leaves.  The sun rose and the day began and I moved on through it.  I laughed and I ate and I sang (a little) and I enjoyed the company of others that I care about.  I played and I strained and I worked and I was neglectful and I had bursts of temper.  I was lazy and I was diligent and I was helpful and I was callous. The sun rose and the day began and it was a day like most other days.  It’s the end of the day and I’ve made plans for tomorrow, things I want to get done and things I don’t want to do but have to anyway and things that will happen around me that I’ll have to enjoy or deal with one way or the other, because I think the sun will rise again tomorrow and it will be a day like most other days.

What if it doesn’t, though?  What if, despite my plans, the sun doesn’t rise tomorrow, green tinted through the leaves of my woods and swamp?  What if it’s all done?  As scientists, logicians, and stock brokers will always carefully say, past performance is no guarantee of future results.  Just because the sun has always risen doesn’t mean it always will.  So, if it doesn’t, what should I have done differently today?  Where could I have been kinder or more patient?  Where could I have been less hesitant or less fearful?  When should I have said “I love you” one more time?  What things did I brush past waiting for the always impending tomorrow?

It’s a little sad and sobering to think like this and that’s why I don’t think like this all the time.  I need my tomorrow to make up for my today.  Tomorrow I’ll be looking for the next tomorrow to do better than tomorrow’s day.  Since I have had the time tonight to think like this, though, maybe tomorrow I can do a little better than I did today.  Maybe I can be a little kinder and a little bolder and a little better all the way around.  And maybe, the day after, I can do a little better yet. That’s the gift, promise and threat of tomorrow.  Every tomorrow brings a new chance to do better with each sunrise.

Personal thoughts

These are mostly just thoughts I needed to write to get them out.  A little trite and sappy.  You have been warned.

Some days I wonder if I’m crazy.  Can it be normal to have such unexpected mood swings; high to low, peaceful to tumultuous, excited and optimistic to resigned and depressive? It seems that my whole day can shift from one to the other without rhyme or reason.  Upon reflection, I think maybe it is normal.  I think, maybe, that I haven’t been normal, that up to now I’ve been blessed or cursed to have long periods of consistency in how I feel about the world.  I guess I’ve been generally happy or generally unhappy and always for obvious, uncomplicated reasons.  Am I growing up?  Or is it that, now, I have greater aspirations, greater hopes and causes for hope, greater ambitions and therefore, greater fears related to all of them?  Maybe both.  I don’t think of myself as immature but I’m sure that, with some effort, you might find a person or two to make the case for a certain lack of development on my part.  I’m certain that I’m ready to fly much higher than I have in the past.  The cliff is behind me and beneath me is only air and a long fall.  That’s a scary thing.  My wings, to stretch the metaphor, are built of faith, hope and love (these three remain) but a voice always whispers “foolish”, “reckless”, and “unreasonable”.  Whispers are insidious, particularly when they cater to the insecurities that tell me that I’m not up to the challenge and the arrogance that tells me that I need to be in control.  To the insidious whisperer I say this, “Too late.” I’m off the cliff now.  It’s fly or fall.  These past few years I’ve been hit harder than I’ve ever been hit before.  My preconceptions of life have been shattered and reconstructed.  Staying safely on the cliff became a bigger risk than leaping off. I had nothing to left to lose.  Now that I’m in the air I do have things to lose.  The things I could lose, though, are the things that are holding me up, faith, hope, and love. 

 

Truthfully, I mostly only hear the whispers when I’m tired these days.  I’m stronger than I used to be so I get tired less than before.  I’ll keep getting stronger, I’ll keep flying higher, and I’ll hear the whispers less than before. 

 

Here’s a caveat for those who don’t know.  I’ve been told I’m a pushover.  I’ve been told that I let people take advantage of me.  I’ve been told that I’m too easygoing and that I need to learn to stand up for myself.  Those people have either never known or have forgotten what I’m like when my mind is set on a thing.  It’s true that if something is unimportant to me I will give way.  If I have no particular position on an issue I will give way.  If the choice is between a minor sacrifice on my part and a sacrifice on another’s part I will usually choose to make the sacrifice myself (you can’t really volunteer a sacrifice for someone else).  If, however, it is important; if I truly believe that I’m doing what’s right; if I’m standing for someone or something that needs standing for, I will never, ever, ever give way.  I will never quit.  I will never even slow down.

Measure of a man

The average man lives two lives. One life is lived on the outside and is measured by worldly successes.  The second life is lived on the inside and is measured by personal failures.

A strong man lives a single life measured by success and failure inside and out.

A weak man also lives but one life, a life weighed by failures on every side.

The villain lives measured by triumph inside the skull and whether he is found out on the outside.

Each one is only one step away from the others.