Man on a Wire or Balance

The man on the wire took another step and with it, a shallow tentative breath. He held the pole out in front of him gripping it tightly, his knuckles were white and sweat between his palm and the rod made his hold a little less sure. A breath of wind sways the thick steel cable beneath the soles of his ready feet. In this moment he swallows, lowers his eyelids, and reminds himself once again how to place one foot in front of the other. He practiced for this so many times in his back yard between to oak trees. This is different, very different. The cold morning fog hugs his skin and plasters his thin shirt to his tense muscles. He remembers. The sun of a summer day one year ago melts away the mist of the morning and fills his eyelids with the flickering picture of memory. Birds sing in the treetops and bees drone over the flowers on the ground. The ground is only three feet below the suspension line. A drop that couldn't hurt an infant. He totters, falls, gets back on the wire. Repeat. Over and over, repeat. Practice makes perfect. If at first you don't succeed, he tries and tries again. If he were to make one such mistake now – to fall off of his wire – its best not to think of things like that. Again the line quivers and his eyes open, not quickly, every movement matters. His eyes take in the scene before him without his head conveying their direction. In front of him the narrow pathway stretches into infinity through the clouds before him he knows that behind him are over fifteen feet of cable, another thirty stretch forward. There is no turning back now. Another careful step brings him that much closer to his incredible goal. One at a time. One at a time. Slow. Steady. He does not dare look below him. To look down could mean the end of everything. He cannot even think about not averting his eyes to see what lies beneath his feet. His mind is steeled to the danger contained in the distance between himself and the hard unrelenting earth. Out of sight out of mind. The farther he is from the crust of the revolving earth, the nearer he encroaches on his certain demise. None of these thoughts cross his focused mind. The wail of sirens somewhere in the ocean of water-heavy air and the bite of what feels like shards of ice are not lost on his sharpened senses, but are quickly packaged and stored away, cleared from the mind's palate which must be relied on to keep his body steady on this line; better suited to carry a cable car than a human being. He felt the weight of his body tensing the wire and imagined each of his muscles doing the same. His chest rose and fell slowly, and his arms ached with the effort of keeping the pole steady before him. If he were to waver now – if he took one step an inch too far or too short. He steadied himself and drew his foot forward again. Again. He felt firm metal beneath his feet. The building. He dropped the pole and turned around. From there he gazed out at the city and then he looked down. Down, down, down. The world lay at his feet. One thousand three hundred and sixty eight feet below.

More on Balance later...

"How are you?"

Being a student at a Christian school I find myself consistently affronted with this question. It is to me a deceptively simple question which is in reality very difficult to answer. Lately when I am presented with this query I am speechless for a few moments, I don't want to be shallow, lie or give more information than people want to hear. So what should I say? How is this question best answered?

More often than not the simple answer is "good, how are you?" of course this answer is met with dissatisfaction. On the one hand if the person asking doesn't really want to know how you are doing then that succinct answer is great and they feel like they fulfilled their social duty in asking you, but you might be left feeling the dearth of their care and maybe a bit unresolved. You are unwilling to dump your emotional load on them until they ask and if they don't you have certainly been the victim of a terrible crime. On the other hand if the inquirer really wants to know how you are doing then you have not met their expectations with a simple, "good" or "fine" or "okay". They may have been expecting you to delve deeply into the emotional and complex parts of your soul. A simple answer, when given to that caring person, is usually countered by something like, "yeah, but how are you really doing?" to which they expect the essential truth behind your painted mask to reveal itself in all its burdened, unholy, glory. If you're in a hurry this is just annoying. If you've heard it thirty times that day it's also annoying. Who new that fine, meant Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional? I was under the impression it meant "fine". Now this doesn't mean that everyone who wants to know how their friends are doing shouldn't ask because its annoying. May it never be so. however, maybe there should simply be a little less reading into simple answers, or maybe there should be more thoughtful answers. Trying to come up with a different greeting than "how are you?" may be an appropriate solution.

Community -

The other day I had a moment where there was a lull in an otherwise busy day and happened to wander into a very pleasant conversation. Some women were reminiscing about the days when we had laundry hanging outside on a line. Well that was the apparent subject matter anyways. The underlying idea was a sort of nostalgia about the community which they enjoyed as children. Laundry is one of those simple things that reveals and represents a sense of community which seems to have been more easy to come by in past years. They observed the openness of putting your delicates out on a rope for all the neighbors to see and in return seeing their linens, blowing in the breeze. You could watch the neighborhood's children growing up as you saw first diapers, then tiny dresses and little overalls. Now we carefully stow our laundry in washers and dryers, efficient and low profile. In a similar fashion, families carefully sequester themselves in their homes and leave quickly in their traveling box, tinted windows make them a little less visible. Things now are fast, they work so perfectly, life is a well-oiled machine! That means relationships are a bit farther off on the radar. When you can drive by the old neighbor mowing his lawn instead of having to walk by there's no danger of being stopped for a conversation, that might make you late to work. Things fit so well in boxes and the more private the better.

Wait -- that doesn't seem quite right.

Community is beautiful.

People laughing, talking, working together to create a better more nurturing living environment, thats more like it. I'm afraid that that form of community has flown away on the wings of time. And yet, hope is not altogether gone, communities still exist and people still speak to one another. O God let us not forget the blessing and yes the necessity of the comfort and company of our brothers.

We're Back

I only put in one earring this morning before leaving my room, I'm having trouble typing, I have no appetite, my eyes are red and burning. Every muscle in my body aches so I can barely lift my arms or legs. I am having trouble focusing and when people ask me questions I have to ask them to repeat themselves, sometime more than once. I keep tripping while I walk across perfectly smooth surfaces and my vision goes fuzzy from time to time. My brain feels as though is shutting down one compartment at a time. No I'm not old, no I'm not dying of any terminal disease. I am a sophomore, nursing major in the Torrey program with an alter ego who is in ROTC three times a week. 'Welcome back troops' reads the banner announcing our dorm mixer, intending to get the students excited about being back at school. Don't get me wrong I am happy to be back, 'a life without learning is like being blind and can't see' but I could do without the symptoms of a mentally ill patient. On the plus side I have already read 1/3 of the Psalms, Machiavelli's 'The Prince" and the first book of Edmund Spenser's "Faerie Queene" and just beginning 'A midsummer Night's Dream'. Welcome back troops! Fight for an education, for self-actualization, for meaning, for friends, for food, for rapidly diminishing parking spaces, for sleep. Good luck all.

Santa Monica

Walking through Santa Monica is a trip. Although its a beach city you get an LA vibe because of all the different people who live there, work there, and tour there. Stopping in the promenade to watch a group of self-proclaimed acrobats and break dancers I began to experience this new place. One of the performers was from Brazil, another form Argentina and a third from San luis Obispo, the host introduced them so his port of origin remained a mystery. They shamelessly panhandled for money and made racial jokes which produced some nervous laughter and lowered eyes from the surrounding crowd. They urged us to come closer and advised us not to leave. Promising to give a good show in return for rich white people's money. They started their work doing some pretty amazing stunts. Someone in the crowd shouted something about the American dream. After the street show the crowd dispersed leaving the odd dollar or two behind them.

A man plugged into a speaker strummed loudly on a guitar, his black vest embroidered with celestial bodies glinting in the sun. Not far from him a rather forlorn looking girl snag "My Heart Will Go On" pleading with the passersby for an audience with her look.

We passed numerous homeless people sleeping on the grass with piles of blankets and cardboard boxes, or working their daily job. Begging. They held up their bits of cardboard declaring their homelessness in bold black marker letters. One man sat in a wheelchair cradling a sign in his lap that told each passerby that he was in need of hand surgery. He rested his withered hands on either arm of the chair. As I walked down the pier I ran into another crowd watching a man who claimed he would be the first "black African American to fly" and that he was happy to be out of prison, but "DON'T RUN"! he yelled as his face shifted rapidly from an impish smile to a serious, hard mask. "The police are right there"

He played music through a speaker from a gold iPod nano and danced to an "animation" mix he said he made while in prison rather than fighting. He would occasionally reach down into his bag and pull out a Michael Jackson, or Obama mask and continue his dance. At one point a little black girl gave him two dollars and he yelled "Thank ya sister! Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King!" The little girl looked confused and looked back at her dad asking what he was talkin' about.

A little farther on a woman with a painted face, in a faded purple belly dancer costume clanking together a pair of zils in either hand and balancing two swords horizontally atop her head. I continued on past the caricature stalls and cotton candy vendors to the edge of the pier. Several people had set up fishing lines, some possibly hoping to catch dinner. As the faces lined up on the railing stared out at the vast ocean I turned to look at them. Some stared longingly at the sea, others gazed at their lover standing by. A man who clearly carried his house on the purple mountain bike next to him jerked up his fishing pole and I watched him start to reel something in. I looked at the people several of whom had turned with interest to this small commotion. He seemed accustomed to people stare at him like another attraction on the pier as he tried to catch fish beneath the pier. He hauled up a small fish and a man above him asked if it was a catfish, he replied through several missing teeth that it were a drag'n fish. Another voice said nice cat and he said even louder that it were a drag'n fish if you would look its cuz it has a face just like a drag'n. No one seemed to hear him.

Walking back along the pier I noticed a poster board sign hoisted above my head by a wooden stake assuring me that God (& Jesus) were the energy in the universe, and more that I didn't catch. On the backside I was given the opportunity to see David the preacher man's youtube video all about it. I looked at the man who I assumed to be David, holding up the sign, walking down the pier with his eyes straight ahead. I passed the flying man, who had restarted his act, promising to fly again for a new group of people and the acrobats were still dancing and "passing the collection plate a second time like church". A black man wearing nothing but a neon green thong hanging some scraps of leopard print cloth was talking about just standin' there bein' blessed and nek'ed.

Most of these people were asking for money, but they had another common thread. They had no time for shame. People bared their bodies, danced, sang, exhibited their lagging, or lack of hygiene, and need for clothes, slept, caught fish, ate, and spoke to crowds of people, without missing an opportunity to ask for more money. Most of these things are considered private by the middle class. Desperation and pleading did not seem to be a part of the mentality of these people. Rather they acted as if this was their daily job and they were just doing what they needed to do to get by. For the majority that means exploiting themselves and accepting that they have been stripped of their privacy because they have been stripped of their homes.

I get to these points in my life where I am simply, and thoroughly overwhelmed by the amount of information in the world. It begins when I become truly interested in some train of thought or genre of discovery. One such example is recurrent in books. As they say, one thing leads to another, and this is no less true in a library. As I'm sure that I am not the first person to realize this I will simply restate an idea here. Every book is somehow connected to the others. Whether it be an obscure reference, an obvious allusion, a connecting quote, or the need for support, authors continually refer to their predecessors and contemporaries throughout their work. As I read I begin to make dent in whatever reading list I currently have going. Then to my great delight I discover those connections which will lead me to other great authors and engrossing books. I add the manageable handful of book titles, lets say three, to my list. I move on to those books and find a few more, then to my dismay my 'to read' list has suddenly become ten times as long as the list of those I have finished. The realization of how much there is to discover and, along with that, that my life is limited, often result in a cessation of my trail. This not suddenly but gradually. My fear of the ever growing mountain of literature before me causes my noble quest to ebb, and I simply leave off at the tail end of the book I'm just finishing. I would assimilate this feeling to a soap-box car's journey down a hill, It begins rolling, not propelled by any motor and gradually, due to the incline of the hill, it picks up speed. The only problem is as I realize I'm going too fast and move to implement the brakes, I realize I have none and shut my eyes anticipating a crash. at the bottom of the hill, rather than impact, I feel a gradual decrease in in speed and eventually roll to a stop thanks to gravity. There are certainly more books in this world than I could ever read. It is only after I forget about that that I can actually read again. Then of course the cycle begins all over again. However, it does not end in hopelessness, rather it causes me to stare at the world which contains so many books in wide eyed wonder. Leaving me in utter awe and dazzled amazement at the sheer magnitude that the written word covers both spatially and conceptually.

Ella Minnow Pea. Good book, easy read I think it at a Jr. high reading level but the idea was really interesting. Its about the importance of language and introduces the reader to a fictional island which has been founded by the creator of the palindrome (sentence which contains all the letters of the alphabet) "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog". The society begins to lose letters of the alphabet as they are banned by the council, the only government the small island has. It is interesting to see how even the loss of a seemingly less frequented 'Z' can affect the language of a group of people.

Read always.

I have been recently recommended to the books 'Tuesdays With Morrie' and 'Ella Minnow Pea'. I was directed to the first by a blogger whom I have only just discovered and have been reading avidly since then, A drifter at chaseandre.com. He wrote that he hasn't met a person he doesn't like who has read this book. So I figure theres no harm in reading it, right? So I did. I started on a Tuesday and finished by Thursday it was an incredible journey and now I'm sorry I ate it up so fast even though I had other things to do and needed the time for. Anyways I enjoyed the read and would recommend it to anyone. It is heartbreaking to watch a man degraded by a disease that he cannot overcome but the book is more than that. It includes that man's conquering in a different way, through passing on his wisdom to the next generation, a wisdom that he could not pass on if it weren't for his imminent death. He says that one learns how to live when they are dying. These lessons that he learns from death are vastly important and could mean so much to someone who would slow down to realize that life is about living. Some people get to the end of their life and suddenly see that they have tried so hard to prepare for their life that they never actually lived it! what a tragedy. So read always its a part of life. I'm going to read 'Ella Minnow Pea' recommended to me by a good friend, over thanksgiving break and tell you how it is.

We want to walk where amazing thinkers have walked; to experience the sights , sounds smells, people that inspired the minds of the men and women who shaped our very existence. But what about where they are now. The so-called final resting places of these giants of society. Kings, queens, scientists, musicians, artists, great leaders and saints of the church. They lie entombed in a vast array of places, beneath the ground, in mausoleums, some even scattered to the wind in grey dust, the work of hungry flames. Many have been laid to rest in cemeteries across the world. So what is a cemetery, the place where we lay our heroes, leaders, and family. Some sort of morbid fancy, some bit of macabre mystery has shrouded these dwellings of the dead in deep darkness. Yet Luther writes that a cemetery ought to be “a fine quiet place, removed from all other localities, to which one can go and reverently meditate on death, the Last Judgement, the resurrection, and say one's prayers” (490). So Nancy and I decided to visit the site of this mystery ourselves to see whether fear or contemplation awaited us there.

Nancy and I walk among the cold, silent, peaceful stones. We are the only living flames, smoldering in a bed of ashes. Using the meager lights that our cell phones offer, we manage to read several of the brass inscriptions. Some read “beloved daughter” or “loving mother and wife” and again, “CPL Aco 5^th Plt WWII” then again some are reduced to simply name and 8 numbers punctuated by a simple hyphen. It seems that the ground – the hallowed land where we inter our “beloved” dead , is indeed a sacred place. The stones placed so carefully and neatly in commemoration must, to some degree, be for the sake of the contemplation of the living. In the darkness of the warm summer night our backs to the cold stone wall of a small columbarium, Nancy spoke, “I tried to make some connection with that space – that hyphen. We live in that space.” Indeed we do live in that space, we have so little time in which to live, summed up in a short inscription on a stone. Those lying in the graves before us have been through so much collectively. The history, the glory, shame, mistakes and achievements are overwhelming. Some lived to the age of ninety some left the world behind after only a month of life. The realization that you are not alone but rather in some sort of town of the dead, inspires a feeling of smallness. The bodies that lay here beneath their names have heard so much. If ever I wished something could speak – if only these graves could open and allow the dead to speak and disseminate the vast amount of knowledge they must contain. How many stories would they tell of the epic battles that they fought in sustaining wounds from which they maybe never fully recovered; of love secret or emblazoned in their hearts; of tragedy, of joy, of families, children, traditions, travels; of peaceful evenings in a cafe in havana gazing at the moon over the sea towards Florida, or working finger to the bone to feed fatherless children in a mediocre American home, trying to capture a phantom dream for the next generation. There would be stories so many stories of joy and of sadness – just think of all the stories –

This is not a place of fear it is a place filled with memory a place for contemplation.

Peter Panning

Don't they say that some people never grow up? I think I'm more afraid of never growing up, or rather never changing than of growing up. I am no Peter Pan. That doesn't mean I don't love the spirit that is contained in children, the wonder and the innocence; but thats just it. It's in Children. It is not becoming for an adult to pretend to be a child! We have to leave space to grow up and to change, its not as much fun as you would think to maintain one attitude towards life forever. It reminds me of the chronicles of Narnia. Yes I know i've quoted it before but you have to admit C.S. Lewis is a pretty prolific author. Peter is talking about his sister Susan who doesn't return to Narnia at the end of all things and he says, somewhat wistfully, “Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can” Like I wrote in my last post, I want to grow old, I don't want to be stagnated and settle in one mindset forever no matter how good it was for that season. You can't pick a flower and preserve it alive forever, it will die eventually! There is a time for everything, laughing, crying, dancing and working. In the same way our lives involve seasons, what a shame it would be if the world always remained in one season and we never ran on the beach in the hot sun drinking coca cola diving in the cool water and soaking in the vitamin D through our warm skin, or watch a sunset over the the golden glow of multicolored leaves on the tall trees in a brisk Autumn breeze thats my favorite one (maybe with a pumpkin spice latte in hand). What if we never met the new year with flowers just creeping out of their icy beds and climbing up to meet the sun. A time filled with new life, bright colors, births and renewal going on everywhere. And finally what if we never got to see blankets of snow in the quiet woods and frozen lakes snuggling next to a warm fire cuddled with loved ones under a blanket maybe with a Christmas tree sparkling in the corner. (I know these are my americanized twenty-first century ideas of seasons but God does make beautiful things out of a combination of time and nature.) Seasons in nature are beautiful and I think that the ones in our lives should be no less appreciated. Don't try to stay young forever its no good, let yourself grow, change, and experience the proper seasons of life that God sets up.

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"

--Robert Browning

Having have lived

I used to be afraid of aging, getting old, weak, slow, losing memories. Body deteriorating. natural functions shutting down. The work of sin on a corruptible body. Although this still seems daunting I think that having have lived will be a new and fantastic experience, just as living now is. In the face of danger Reepicheep the mouse says, "this is a very great adventure, and no danger seems to me so great as knowing when I get back to Narnia that I left a mystery behind me through fear" (the voyage of the dawn treader).

At times mankind wishes that they each could sped their lives along to "get to the good parts" but as the moral of the story goes with those who get their wish, every moment is part of life. Someday it is God's will that I reach old age, I will have wisdom and memory to give away to others. I will be full of adventure and of time. my maw crammed with tales of yesteryear ready to fill an open ear. Another step, another stage in the journey that is life. And not only will it be a time to sit back on my rucksack full of days gone by but it will bring with it new adventures. Old people adventures. Each time in life comes with its own kind of adventures and finally comes death. which as our dear little friend Peter Pan says, "To die will be an awfully big adventure."

An Entire Train stopped. Just for me. They gave me juice. They said "God bless you" they left.

I was sitting by the train tracks today reading. As I sat mind wandering from the Paradiso, Bob Dylan playing deep inside my ears about a tambourine man, two AmTrak passenger trains whizzed by me and I watched with pleasure as their massive bodies blurred by and shook the earth beneath them. I put a penny on the track, read for an hour to see it get crushed and was about to leave, giving up hope of the next train. Just then a leviathan BNSF train came lumbering down the tracks, slowly laboriously. Its great face neared my watching post beneath a shrubby palm tree and rather than passing me by, it stopped. The whole train stopped, right next to me. I wondered if I was about to get told that the train tracks were no place for me and to pack up my bags and leave. As a suntanned, dirty, engineer placed a heavy boot out the front entrance of the train I stood and looked anxiously at him. But his face was kind and rather than shooing me away he asked me if I was okay, warned me of the dangers of the train tracks, and asked if I needed water. I quickly assured him that I was fine and in need of nothing. He nodded and jumped back up on the train and disappeared into the hulk of the engine. I stood there a little awkwardly expecting the train to begin to chug away but before it did, the man reappeared holding a juice pack. I couldn't help but smile as he tossed it to me and said "God bless you, have a good day!" I called after him in reciprocation but I think the train swallowed it in the roar of dynamos and motors. He vanished into the massive face once more and finally the train pulled away. Slowly but surely. I watched in awe as the huge body rumbled past me, slowly, so much slower than the passenger trains. The loads of pipes, oil, and coal rolled smoothly over the tracks which bent under the incredible weight of the cars. I had wondered moments before how the train nails were loosened from their tight fastenings on the steel rails but now, as I saw the rails bending as if they would break and the nails being lifted ever so slightly out of their sockets, my wondering was satiated. Instead I could not now conceive how the tracks which had seemed so heavy and thick before did not now snap like toothpicks under their incredible burden. As the final car of the monster passed me, I stood dazed for a moment in sheer awe of the size of that industrial creature. I lived next to a train my whole life, but they will always continue to amaze me.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

--Robert Frost

I want you to know the poem.

Alone

I sit alone at the table and survey the room, taking in my surroundings in this barely familiar house. A small family occupies the room making preparations for the anticipated soirée. A cool breeze blows through the screen and empties my mind. A forgotten book lies beside my arm. I wonder at my coming here at all, but after all it is by invitation. Should I have come? The guests begin to arrive one by one in a gradual trickle, casually meeting and mingling, they are each and all well acquainted. I still sit alone although I am surrounded by a growing number of people. A woman, maybe two attempt a friendly conversation, my mind wanders and soon they do as well. Why am I here? They know me only as my fathers child. Its not enough. I know each face that enters the room and the voices that chime in are not an unknown cadence. I realize I could engage some of these people but I'm not sure I remember how, so I remain alone. The minutes pass and feel like hours. I feign interest in the conversation over dinner abstaining from the food myself. As I watch the people, longing to remember and strike up simple easy conversation, I cover my eyes with my hand. Unbidden tears spring into my tired eyes but upon noticing them I quickly shake them away and gaze out the window trying casually to regain my composure. My mind is stabbed with desire, but to act upon it is not within my power. Were I in a glass box cut off from food within sight of a feast my mind could not long for something more. My head throbs gently perhaps it the voices, there are so many people. As the evening progresses I continue to watch my surroundings. I wish I had never come. They don't want you here. Was that true? A thousand thoughts barrage my mind weakening its shield. The voices of the crowd are dulled by the ones in my head, though they are only those of my own imagining. The pressure, the throbbing is growing stronger. Suddenly the body next to me laughs and I realize I missed the joke, in fact I have missed most of what has been said. I press my forefingers against my temples as the pressure builds. I want nothing more than to leave but I can't tear away, I'm stranded. Again the tears well up to my eyes and I swallow the lump in my throat. How can they not notice the pressure, and the voices? They are growing and building upon each other. It must be loud enough now. They walk around me smiling, their now silent mouths chattering endlessly, maddeningly. I try desperately to recall the reason I came but its is shrouded as in a dense fog. I must endure this self inflicted torture but a short while longer. My head no longer endures the gentle throbbing, no, but it has changed to a deafening, roaring, pounding. Hammers on anvils make the armor of a thousand armies within my skull. The blood rushes forward pulsing, pounding against my forehead, looking for an escape. There is no longer any pretense I hold my head in my hands and make for the open door trying desperately to hold myself together and yet remain unseen. A foggy muddled voice whispers “goodbye” I force my mouth to open and respond although it is dry and I can't hear what comes out. I don't wait to see if I have been heard only knowing that I must make my escape. Tears now pour uninhibited down my face but I neither feel them nor care if they are seen, they are hidden by the hospitable darkness. The pounding has turned into screaming. I feel and hear nothing but the jumbled mass of voices in my head combining together to break the last nerve that keeps my mind from breaking. I cry out desperate for it to end before it is too late. Suddenly my world fades into blackness although I can hardly discern this night from the one I knew before, but this is different here I am alone. It is silent. There is no pounding only dark and silence. There are no voices only me. Alone.

This is one of the first pictures that came up in Google when I searched "memories".

I am starting a memory project.
just writing down one or two memories a day from my life up until now.

The day I started I also started "Dandelion Wine" by Bradbury, it turns out he did something similar. that's where he got most of his material for his story.

I want to always be able to remember how our house always felt warm and how momma would make dinner before daddy came home so that the house would be filled with the smell of baking bread or enchiladas. and how daddy's coat smelled when he picked me up in my excitement to see him.

I never want to forget how it felt to try to break into the big boy's forts in the field or wear so many socks that you couldn't feel the pokers and then getting in a load of trouble for ruining them all; or "fishing" in the "pond" which was really just the low place on our road at the end of the driveway where rain water collected, but my big brothers said minnows came down in the rain so we had to try and catch them!

Or being scared that mom wasn't coming home and eating hot wings and reading "the Wind In the Willows" to Joel until she did. Or eating the green strawberries form the garden in the back yard, selling tomatoes on the street corner, climbing the huge cottonwood trees, even getting caught in a naked one durring a lightning storm and being retrieved by my brothers. lately my memory has felt like a strainer whose holes are getting bigger and letting more and more fall through so hopefully I can bring them back by just sitting down to do it intentionaly...

Today I got called a hippie and an environmentalist.
Is it wrong to love the world?
When I say world I do not mean it in the sense of fleshly temporal things but the physical world.
The world is God's creation.
Man is sentient and has reason, being made in the image of God and thus he is better than than the world.
However, as such it is our duty to care for the world.
Christ followers above all seem to be the ones to reject the care of the world.
One of my friends just today said that he could care less about the world.
It has become such a symbol of a view of the world which elevates it above man that we have become hostile to it.
I used to be right along with him, my friend, hating environmentalists and the earth right along with them.
But are we not commanded, primarily, to subdue the earth? To be its rulers?
shouldn't we be just then and careful rulers, caring wisely for the things which we have control over?
I am not an environmentalist but I will continue to care for the earth which God made and called good!

I was walking through fields of flowers.

On rolling hills.

Birds in the air.

I almost forgot who I was.

Then I looked down.

I saw the heavy brown boots encasing my feet.

Suffocating their desire for freedom.

Erasing all hopes of feeling the world beneath them.

All around me duplicate, thick shoes crush the life that greets them from the dirt.

Most don't take notice.

Some take pleasure in destruction, making their mark.

Now I remember.

We are the few. The proud. the undiversified.

I can't tell the brown faces apart beneath the greasy masks and the uniform doesn't help.

We all look the same, to ourselves, to each other.

The dull red light illuminates the path before me, taking the place of the moon.

The brilliant orb slips out of the sky feeling unnecessary, unwanted.

The brim of my hat blocks my only view of the starry night sky.

So I trudge on.

I just have to finish.

then I can can feel the world again.

Sleep 'neath the stars and toil in the sun
El cielo es azul, just don't go tellin' everyone
--Conor Oberst

Fo so many men life seems hopeless, event after event without change It has been described as a rat race, a futile quest for earthly goods, money, love, things.

Those who go from day to day without object find themselves wondering...why?

For them it is hopeless.

Pointless.

Foolishness.

But for me it cannot be so.
Can it?

I have a living hope and a future in my God do I not?

Plato makes me wonder and Aristotle shakes my foundations.

Wiser minds than mine have taken on and wrestled these problems like their own personal Goliaths.

I am crushed beneath their weight.

To wonder and to never know seems to be the lot of fallen man.

But has God not given us salvation?

And the knowledge of "things into which angels long to look" (1 Pet 1:12)?

But questions assail me from every side which I cannot answer and with Job I feel as though, "He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone; and he has uprooted my hope like a tree" (Job 19:10) that tree which once flourished beside living waters.
I am afraid and I have doubts, but I know that my God is mighty to save and knoweth all things.
If God is for us who can be against us?
whom shall I fear.

The barren desert,
a bitter return,
not wrought by unexpected change
but rather by a lack of change,
nothing new reaches the senses,
for the traveler comfort should be found
In home and memories of the past
but in the season conceived for change,
any turn to what is past
appears to be regression,
Should the soul embrace
what once for him held peace?
It cannot be for'er forgot
but no longer does it harbor joy.

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we've hid out faery vats,
Full of berries
And the reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances,
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters of the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
From a world more full of weeping than he can understand.

W. B. Yeates

1886