Archive for June, 2008

Storms

{ June 9, 2008 @ 2:18 pm } · { Life }
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I love days like today. When you sleep in too late because the sun isn’t there to wake you up.

It’s not raining, but the blue of the sky is completely blotted out by clouds. All the colors seem to be more vibrant, although you’d think they would be somewhat dull because of a lack of sunlight. The grass and flowers, even the bark of the trees, look more dynamic. Like when you repaint something the same color, and it doesn’t change it just looks different.

Today looks fresh.

I walked outside and smelled the air, and was immediately filled with memories of my childhood when I was a kid stuck inside, anxious to get my hands on the newly formed mud. I anticipated going outside back then, and considered the storm beautiful and frightening, but only an obstacle keeping me from doing what I really loved, which was to play outside. I spent so many days like this outside on grand adventures with the bugs and trees as my only companions, the drainage way in our back yard as a mighty river that we had to cross to get away from the bad guys chasing us. No matter what story I had made up in my head there was always a “bad guy” a great obstacle to overcome and I would always step in as the heroine.

I like days like today.

Days where you wake up and suddenly the “storm” you’d feared so much and seemed so permanent, has passed. During it you were scared. You doubted that you’d make it out ok, but now it is gone and yes it changed many things, but the more you look at it, it’s like the storm soaked everything in a new coat of awe and wonder, a freshness that is enticing.

I don’t necessarily know that I could pinpoint why exactly things go wrong, but there is something about making it through something you didn’t think you would, that changes your perspective. Those storms that keep us from doing what we love are so hard on our hearts, and I’m beginning to think that maybe the best way of looking at it is the same as when you were a kid.

The storm is not permanent, and at some point it will pass and I will be able to go outside and play again.

I don’t necessarily feel like I’m going through anything difficult right now that’s obstructing me from living fully, but in those times when I was, when It just wasn’t safe, i was to frail my heart was to weak to fully participate and engage, I wish I would have seen the storm as temporary. That the times we’re simply stuck inside, will pass and they will become just another chapter in the story of our life, that make us into who we are, but do not define us.

Many of us want great stories, where we are part of the group of hero’s, and we overcome great obstacles cross mighty rivers of fear, conquer the beasts of injustice, reach the peak of discover, end the disease of greed, restore balance ending poverty, cross the valley of racism, bridge the gap formed by religions, and repair whats been so broken.

Sometimes life throws storms at us.

I can’t forget about the story I’m part of when the storm comes, it will pass, and there’s so much still to do.

And then it hits you.

{ June 2, 2008 @ 11:30 pm } · { Moving Forward }
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I have come to realize that somehow life happens and there are times when certain things in life occur and at the time you can’t really comprehend what is going on and then it hits you.
Sometimes it feels like actual pain, your throat swells shut and you’re trying to breathe through a tube you swear has shrunk to the size of a straw, your chest tightens and a knot forms in your throat, you’re face gets hot and you feel the tears working so hard to escape your eyes. You fight it of course, and start swallowing incessantly, breathing deeper, opening your eyes to maximum capacity in an attempt to keep whatever emotion you’re feeling from escaping your body. But eventually you get tired of fighting it and the dam breaks down and rushing out comes you’re reaction. you realize that prior to this you’ve shut down and can’t really feel, anything. You’ve distracted yourself from reality in whatever way you can, all in an attempt to escape. You’ve filled you’re life up with things, work, partying, cleaning…whatever it is there are always things to do…but it always seems to hit you.

What hits you? well it could be anything, you realize you’re not the person you want to be, you don’t know what you believe, your grandmother is dieing, your friend was killed in a car wreck, you’ve been forgotten, you have no plans for the future, you really screwed things up in that relationship….how is it that we make it through these times and don’t really feel much, but then one day when we least expect it something triggers, and all the pain we’ve felt, the guilt, the fear, the hurt comes rushing out of us,leaving us feeling drained and  measuring up far shorter then we’d planned.

I had one of those days today, I was reading a book and in the end a girl dies in a car wreck she has major head trauma and her brain no longer responds to anything and she dies. This reminded me so much of an experience I had last year, when my friend was killed in a car wreck, I felt like i was experiencing the pain and shock for the first time again. I sat in my room wondering if it was because I didn’t live in the moment, if i’m being over emotional, or if its just natural. But how could it just be natural to fall apart? It made me wonder if maybe this happens because all those things I talked about, as humans we were never meant to experience, so when pain comes into our lives stealing from us goodness, we are at a loss for how to react. Maybe humans and pain were never meant to coexist.  Which I guess could leave us feeling hopeless since we obviously do experience pain.
I’ve come to realize in my limited experience that life is a series of actions and reactions. So in that we always have a choice, I guess I take comfort in the fact that no matter what happens I have a choice as to the way i’m going to react, the way i’m going to live, and ultimately the person i’m becoming. There is so much power and life in the fact that no matter what pain we endure we have the choice to forgive, we have the choice to turn around and instead of reacting with bitterness and hate, to react with love and compassion. In this we find the very foundation of hope.  there is something we can do
The stories that change, and inspire us are the ones where the mother forgives the man who killed her son, where the father welcomes home the son thats abandoned him, the man gives his life to save the person he didn’t even know, the child that respects his parents even though they are abusive.
This is the choice we face, the choice that manifests itself in small ways, but ultimately determines the outcome of humanity. That in the midst of the chaos, and carelessness, we have the ability to reverse the cycle of hurt. We possess somewhere in us the power to take all thats happened, all the pain, hurt guilt, hate, bitterness, and fear gather it up and with all the emotion and the reaction it provokes making the decision to use it in the reversal of the damage that has been done. To actually begin to cure the disease that we are a part of. This is the message of Jesus, that his kingdom is opposite of what we find ourselves in, its irrational, don’t repay evil with evil , its a concept so simple, but world changing.

So when it hits me, I want to be a person who takes all the energy and emotion it creates in me, and with that create something beautiful, instead of something equally as damaging as what caused the pain i experienced. This is moving creation forward to me, and bringing God’s kingdom here…thats all, getting late sorry if it’s scattered