Home. A place of familiarity. A place of belonging. A comfortable place. A place where everything is just the way you left it. A place of no surprises. A place where you can relax and lower your defenses. A place of expectations. A place of consistency.
This world is not my home.
The salt of your own sweat burns your eyes, and you watch the people pass by. People with money. People who have everything they need and more of what they want. People who think nothing of tossing out half a sandwich or buying a pop on the way home. Sometimes you wonder how people can live that way knowing the many needs around them. Where has the money gotten them? They just find more and more that they want, and they’re never happy with what they get. Has a peanut butter and jelly sandwich ever caused your eyes to light up and satisfy your hunger? Have you ever seen the people handing out free samples and thanked the heavens for the refreshing drink? As everyone walks by ignoring you and your need, all you can think to yourself is God will provide. God will provide. Though the storm clouds come and the pain of hunger strikes, God will provide.
An arrangement made in heaven, blessed by God above. A celestial union that words cannot express. An intertwining of the souls that sparks the magic life. An eternal pairing, a life long dance, an ongoing act of self sacrifice. Why would you want it any other way?
The door swings open, and you step outside with a heaping laundry basket in your arms. As you struggle down the steps, your eyes happen to glance up to the sky–and for a moment, a single solitary moment you forget the headaches and hassles and see the beauty. An airy blanket of wispy clouds covers a small section of the bright blue sky. Sometimes we’re just too busy too notice.
My head still spins around, reeling, in a daze. The alarm blared early this morning, and I just smacked it off again and again and again. It wouldn’t make this twisted dream disappear, and I didn’t want to arise and face the day. A 5 o’clock shadow graces my face at 7 a.m., but I don’t care. Looking into the mirror is like peering into my soul. Unshaven, disheveled, and still in shock. Splash some water on your face and it doesn’t go away. I can only pray and hope that sanity will return.
This world is not my home.
Gravity’s pulling me, but Heaven is calling me and
My head’s spinning, the world’s twisted
My head’s twisted, the world’s spinning
Around, around (“Gravity” by Delirious?)
Your breath stops short and the panic sets in. You grasp for air but it just isn’t there. Pawing for words, and finding silence. Is this a dream? Somebody wake me up. When did my reality slip from that fairy tale dream to this twisted nightmare? Your world is shattered, your bubble pops, and you’re left with nothing between you and the ground, floating in this isolated, infiltrated, coagulated nothing. Appearances are deceiving–well you had me fooled. The questions spin around and around and the void of answers creates a hollow ringing in my head as I sit back with my jaw dropped to the floor and try and figure out what just happened. Are you ready for this? You can never be ready for this. What? That’s what I said. I know the situation wasn’t ideal, it wasn’t everyone’s paradise. I know it’s for the best, happiness for you and me. I know you’re trying to escape your misery, hoping for a fresh start and a new life. I know it’s probably been too long. I know it’s friendly and it could be worse–but it could always be worse. The lightest corner of a dark room is still dark. I know all the happy reasons and feel better solutions that are some how supposed to make me swallow this, but I don’t want your placebo. What happens will happen and I still have to get up and go to work tomorrow. I still have to find a place called home. The tears will come and the questions will build, and life will run on. There’s no easy way to do this, and I know my blind fumbling doesn’t make it any smoother. I know my dreaded silence didn’t make the call any easier. I know my lost look and hushed voice don’t give you any comfort. But I won’t hide from it. I won’t mask this pain in a hollow shell that leaves me empty inside. Are you okay? What do you think? How am I supposed to answer that? I’m just fine. Like hell I am. And so I write and I write and I write and I write and just maybe the cloudiness will disappear and I’ll be able to sleep tonight. Others will scratch their heads and wonder what flaming hallucinogen triggered this tirade, but I really don’t care. Others will angrily wish I kept it inside, but I can’t do that. I step outside asking the night air why, and I hear the silent reply, nodding my head in acknowledgment that the answers never come that easily. Yet somehow the warm night air and gentle breeze provides the comfort that the four man made walls and stifling air conditioned air just can’t deliver. You’ve dropped a package at my door, and I noticed the hint of apprehension in the messenger’s voice. But I didn’t expect this. You never expect this. Will anything ever be the same again? There go a million memories shattered and tossed to the wind. But you can’t ever go back again. You know that. That’s the way it’s always been. Nothing lasts forever, and there is hope in all things. But that’s a little hard to swallow right now. Just wrap your arms around me and tell me that you love me. Your gentle voice sustains me, and it’s the one thing I need most right now. You don’t have any answers, and I don’t want any answers anyway. I just need to know that your shoulder is there. This place called home so many miles away, suddenly uprooted and tossed so many more away. It brings a whole new meaning to the word and reminds me once again that I am a world traveler, and this world is not my home. So many questions echo in my head like a broken record and a whiny child. How long has this been brewing and stewing? Why did the pot boil over now? When the scalding water spills somebody’s gonna get burned. So many other unanswered questions from days of old come rushing back, yearning to be answered, and now possibly answered in their utter nonexistence. What could I have done? Nothing, I know, but you can’t help but wonder. Wonder at the thunder that echoes across my soul. A million questions and a million empty answers. A million would’ve’s and could’ve’s and should’ve’s echo back, and I still can’t help but ask some more. What do you see in this life, and why did it get you to where you are? It hurts to toss the scalding water back in your face, but when you pour it over me like a cleansing, burning baptism I feel no remorse. I can question all I want and you have your answers. Who am I to judge? You chose your road and ran the best you could–gimp leg and all. Now the same empty promises circle back in my head, left unsaid, but there haunting me till I am wed and dead and perhaps a little light is shed. I guess I am no different than all the rest, now I can truly be called an American. Bitter cynicism, I know, but what do you want at ground zero? The echoes, the questions, the dim lit ideals, it all circles around, it all flies through the air. The mirror is cracked, perhaps not totally broken, perhaps it can one day be mended, but the scars will always show. You can sew up this cut, you can patch up this wound, but no matter what the mysteries of science unfold, they can never hide the damage that’s been done. I can ask and ask and ask and question until the sun comes up again. Perhaps someday the sun will shine again. Old wounds will be healed and washed in cleansing water and that tenderness that brought life into the world will someday return. But how can I ask, how can I know? That was your life. This is your life. You have your own set of unknown pain and mystery, but as you can tell it’s hardly water under the bridge. I bite my tongue and wonder just what I can say and what you will think. But it’s too late for that, I’m sure dreaded curiosity brought you to these words of mine, wondering just what state of mind, you’d find me in, what spirit would occupy this heart of mine. But somehow the broken winged dove will fly again. I know as the cosmos tilt out of control that there is a hand behind this chaos of my soul. I know there is a hope, buried deep beneath my doubt. And I know there is grace, and a new life for you. And I know in all things, this too shall pass.
This is the passage I was reading when you tried to call the first time:
I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:10-13 NIV)
I have found comfort in those words before, and now they come to me even before I need them so very much.
And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 4:19 NIV)
And the God of peace will be with you. (Phil. 4:9b NIV)
Boring can life be when spontaneous change isn’t.
A crying child–the one thing any normal person can’t stand listening to.
“Pick her up,” she commanded. Excuse me? You want me to pick her up? Me, the pathetic, twenty-year-old male who’s never handled a child under two in his life? Her, the crying child under two? You must be joking, right? But the fact that she already had one child in her arms, this child wasn’t about to finish crying, and that stern look told me she wasn’t joking. Okay, here goes nothing.
And so I picked up the crying child. Not knowing at all what to do, I just picked her up, and her little body found a comfortable spot next to mine. Her head rested softly against my chest, and her tiny fingers clutched my shirt sleeves. Her crying ceased. In my arms was a ball of life. A miniature person who probably knows and understands more than she lets on. A person with golden blond hair who shares her plastic carrots and likes to eat Cheerios. A person who can’t do much of anything for herself, and relies on you for comfort, strength, warmth, sustenance–just about everything.
She clung to my shirt like it was the side of a cliff, probably because I wasn’t holding her right. She sat there drooling, content as could be, completely unaware of the barrage of thoughts charging through my head. Who would have thought that picking up a child could make you think so much?
I can’t get you out of my mind
I close my eyes and there you are
I can’t get a moment’s peace
I open my eyes and wish you were there
I can’t get a good night’s sleep
I toss and turn because of you
And in my dreams, there you are
It just goes to show
Fairy tales aren’t meant to be told apart.
You sit at the computer and sculpt. You shape, you arrange, you mold. The words dance across the page, and somehow you keep them moving to the proper rhythm. It takes time and it takes concentration. You have to perfect every phrase and every word. If it sounds a little awkward, it’s not right. Go back and do it again. Cross it out, rip it up, and start over. Just when you think it’s perfect and you’ve gone over it enough, and you’d rather not change a thing–you have to gut it down the middle and make it even better. Sometimes you have to take a step back. Way back. Sometimes you have to go outside. The air conditioning can get to you. But however you do it, you have to work. You have to push. You have to drive yourself to the edge, and then keep going.
George Lucas nearly went crazy writing the original script for Star Wars. It gave him stomach pains and headaches. He wrote it with sharp number 2 pencils and would often clip off pieces of hair in frustration. His assistant remembers that his waste basket was full of hair. Sometimes you even have to be a little nuts.