Breath of Life
I can't quite explain it, but lately I've been overwhelmed by the weight of life. Not the weight on my shoulders. Moreso the weightiness of it. The gravity. The significance. What is it? I don't mean "Why are we here?". I mean "What IS life?", be it in man or insect. Where does it go? Not us, but life. Even writing this, my heart is racing and my mind is winning. I wonder how people take lives, and I wonder what they do with them. I wonder how much of "me" is a certain balance of neural chemicals, corporeal elements, and social/historical/cultural conditioning. How many of these tiny but significant details would need to change before my wife would stop recognizing me? Would I still be me if I no longer looked, sounded, acted, or thought like me? Where would I be?
Maybe my soul is the real me.
I'm ashamed to say that these thoughts frighten me. As someone who claims to follow Jesus, I'm supposed to believe that what happens after this life is to be looked forward to, not feared. The 12th chapter of John says that "The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." I'm afraid that I love my life. How am I supposed to hate something that is so full of blessing? I'm afraid that I'm confused. I'm afraid that I'm afraid.
God breathed into us, and we've been struggling to catch our breath ever since.
A Life Undocumented
A life undocumented is a life wasted. We should all be scribbling furiously into notebooks with each passing moment. If we don't, how will future generations know we were here? Rather, how will they know what we did and how we felt every single moment of every single day?
The benefits would be manifold. We all know that it's difficult to believe our parents were ever teenagers, but it might be slightly easier to swallow if we could read detailed accounts of what they thought, wore, and ate during a typical day in their 15th year. Also, it's not at all uncommon to have world-changing thoughts while performing menial tasks and to be perfectly unable to recall them later on. These thoughts would no longer be lost thanks to our running commentary.
Perhaps not everyone's life warrants such scrutiny, but surely mine does... doesn't it?
It was said of Jesus that He accomplished so much during his earthly life that were it all written down the whole world couldn't contain the written words. Thanks to the digital age, this would more than likely no longer be a problem. Of course, The Gospels would still need to be edited for reasons beyond space. Even Jesus committed the mundane.
Who would ever read my life story? I could use it as a refresher. Maybe my kids would pick it up. My grandchildren would at least marvel that it exists. But then? In the bid for immortality, the text won't help. Augustine is dead, and one day I will be too.
Currently, many of us use technology to document and declare much of what we do. I "Tweet". When I stop to think why I do it, I sometimes arrive at the thought that I'm screaming "I exist!" into the void that surrounds. Other times, I think it's just something to do. But mostly, I'm screaming. We're all screaming.
A life undocumented is a mysterious life. Perhaps someday mystery will be all that's left.
We Do It To Ourselves
Where two or more are gathered
We're more or less alone
The blinds are drawn, we're on our knees
Pretending no one's home
Direction
They walked hand in hand in circles in love.
He wore a leather jacket, but not a cool one. He had a shaved head and he had a tattoo (but, again, not a cool one). She looked hard... hardened... she hardly seemed lovely. They smelled like cigarettes and low-rent housing.
And they were in love; why should that be surprising?
I watched them walk hand in hand in circles in love in the afternoon, and I gauged their smiles.
Twentynine
I am 29
I am in my prime
I am out of time
And space; though some say
He's numbered our days
Mine seem out of place
But Hope is alive
Despite all the cries
That come from behind
I am 29
I am in my prime
I am just in time