Searching
People move through our lives in often very small and simple ways. Sometimes we meet for a moment, an hour, a week, a year, a decade. We make friends, lose friends, remain friends though distance pulls us apart. We affect others. That means act upon, cause, change. The effect is what comes after. It's the ripples and waves that follow the storm. Or the warmth that follows the sun rising. The chill that follows its setting.
Here I am at the end of another semester. Closing things up, putting things aside that never got done. This time, I have an unsettled feeling, everything in limbo. I'm not sure what's next and it's very hard to sit back and wait for the future to come. Every hour, every moment rolling closer like a train on it's track during a midnight ride. I cannot see the horizon, only these tracks right in front of me as I push on forward.
And it's scary.
I'm supposed to wait upon the Lord. I'm sorry for not warning you I might wax religious. It's difficult for me to separate my every day from the un-explainable right now because right now, I'm in the dark. I've gotten used to being in the light, to planning every next step carefully - or at least, having some sort of idea of what lies ahead. I like order, I like predictability, I like routine (to a certain extent). And everything is in chaos. All around me, pieces of everyday things are littered like so much confetti - only I'm not celebrating. Not yet.
I know this doesn't make much sense, and I'm not really sorry for that. Sometimes life doesn't make much sense. Death certainly seems to make less.
My husband and I were talking last night about mortality.
"This better all be worth it," he said, meaning life, this thing we're doing.
And I realized, first, that I think it is all worth it. And second, that mortality has a very high price. We pay for this thing called life in ways that seem impossible. In joy, in sorrow, in pain and fear, in passion and principles, in suffering, in confusion, in prayer. We drop these things like pennies into the bucket of experience, tallying them up until we've created an experience, until we've lived. And sometimes, that living doesn't seem like enough. Like maybe it was cut too short. Like maybe it was just too hard.
But, that's only because we can't see past the now. There IS more than this, more than these moments, more than these prices we've paid. We don't stop here, we keep going. We follow that sun past it's setting and we see it rise again, illuminating that tracks that lead on and on until we are filled with true life, with glorious expectation, with peace.
--
For Jake.
A story unfinished
A book half-filled with white pages
Clean sheets
A sentence part written
left incomplete
A story unfinished
Characters in mid-motion
Sounds left unsaid
Music still playing
Answers un-spoken
silence instead
A story unfinished
The mighty warrior still armed
Hope burning bright
His weapon held high
Battle cry in his throat
victory nigh
And yet, it's not over
There are words to be written
Pages to fill
The warrior fights still.
A story unfinished
playing on
Here I am at the end of another semester. Closing things up, putting things aside that never got done. This time, I have an unsettled feeling, everything in limbo. I'm not sure what's next and it's very hard to sit back and wait for the future to come. Every hour, every moment rolling closer like a train on it's track during a midnight ride. I cannot see the horizon, only these tracks right in front of me as I push on forward.
And it's scary.
I'm supposed to wait upon the Lord. I'm sorry for not warning you I might wax religious. It's difficult for me to separate my every day from the un-explainable right now because right now, I'm in the dark. I've gotten used to being in the light, to planning every next step carefully - or at least, having some sort of idea of what lies ahead. I like order, I like predictability, I like routine (to a certain extent). And everything is in chaos. All around me, pieces of everyday things are littered like so much confetti - only I'm not celebrating. Not yet.
I know this doesn't make much sense, and I'm not really sorry for that. Sometimes life doesn't make much sense. Death certainly seems to make less.
My husband and I were talking last night about mortality.
"This better all be worth it," he said, meaning life, this thing we're doing.
And I realized, first, that I think it is all worth it. And second, that mortality has a very high price. We pay for this thing called life in ways that seem impossible. In joy, in sorrow, in pain and fear, in passion and principles, in suffering, in confusion, in prayer. We drop these things like pennies into the bucket of experience, tallying them up until we've created an experience, until we've lived. And sometimes, that living doesn't seem like enough. Like maybe it was cut too short. Like maybe it was just too hard.
But, that's only because we can't see past the now. There IS more than this, more than these moments, more than these prices we've paid. We don't stop here, we keep going. We follow that sun past it's setting and we see it rise again, illuminating that tracks that lead on and on until we are filled with true life, with glorious expectation, with peace.
--
For Jake.
A story unfinished
A book half-filled with white pages
Clean sheets
A sentence part written
left incomplete
A story unfinished
Characters in mid-motion
Sounds left unsaid
Music still playing
Answers un-spoken
silence instead
A story unfinished
The mighty warrior still armed
Hope burning bright
His weapon held high
Battle cry in his throat
victory nigh
And yet, it's not over
There are words to be written
Pages to fill
The warrior fights still.
A story unfinished
playing on
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