It's Christmas, 2014.
I'm technically middle aged, and while my body agrees my mind disputes this reality … for I'm still so ignorant about life. In this month when Christians celebrate that which established the timeless reference of life, so I'm finding my friends are dealing with relational breakdowns, wayward children, dying parents, financial crises, physical body failure, delusions of conspiracy, and all wrapped by worries of the future. And for me? Tomorrow I might die. Next week I may be injured. Yet the following month I may realize an opportunity that's now invisible. Oh, I know the bigger picture. I was born (so they tell me), I'm alive (so my senses say), and I will die (by all evidence that’s available). I live acutely aware of my disabilities that leave me far from anything even close to being the intended creature. My capacity to work toward a future is pathetic; the grand plans I once tried to make have failed. The major events of my life have been unexpected, opportunistic, and a surprise. In a world of 7 billion free-willed and choice-making individuals, could it be otherwise? We are all constrained by the fundamentals of position in time and space while this almost infinite mix of events conspires to create our daily experience. Only the big picture elements can be truly depended on, those seemingly fragile yet inevitable patterns that fall over us to shape time itself, if we would only remember to look. We each travel along spattering droplets of colour and mud across a canvas filled with broad and bold brush strokes that none of us can alter – we each make messy moments for others to deal with as best they can. I couldn't imagine it any other way. For amazingly this unfolding collective image is somehow made beautiful; as the image unfolds its clear that, despite the pain and sticky mess, it has a haunting beauty where wrong is ultimately made right for those willing to look. So along the way I'll do my best to help paint a backdrop where even the spilled messes of literal and figurative blood, guts and gore will ultimately get blended to build the expanse of completeness. I can already see and sense the shape of the canvas on which we all paint, and it's going to be one fantastic tapestry when we one day step back and see it by the right light. It's Christmas, 2014, and I'm joyfully clueless about tomorrow. (If you're lacking one more Christmas present … go buy Melanie Penn's “Hope Tonight” CD, turn off the lights, sink into the armchair, close your eyes, listen to the words, and let your imagination do the rest).
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Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
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