Experience Informs True Living

Let us pry open this vacuum-sealed airplane door; we want to walk on the clouds, frolicking our way into experience. Surely we will not fall, for we are invincible- and if we do, then we will have lived through another exposure to truth. Let us stand, bare legged, naked arms, and embrace the sub zero winter winds. We won't freeze, for passion drives this interaction with feeling. Don't stop the music- the energy is still rising, and gives no sign of abating. Let us swing our hips and flail our arms to a rhythmic beat in celebration of life, of beginnings.

We just want to know that we are alive.

We don't have to worry about tomorrow. It will come on its own as we continue in this process of living. There is no need to degrade ourselves, for when we live life, beauty is illuminated..... and right now we are absolutely, breathtakingly STUNNING.

So just let us live. We have listened to your stories and have heard your advice, but now we want to make these lives our own. Together we may fall, freeze, dance until our body parts fall off... but we will laugh.... because in it all, we will find beauty and meaning and a place in the universe.

In the experience, we will find LIFE.

Hope is welcome at Thanksgiving Dinner, but no one really wants to invite Worry

I'm pretty sure it is twisted up within me, tangled in tiny knots, becoming a part of my being....It is Hope.

Hope.....Hope has a fine line before it becomes Worry..... which, I am beginning to see... is the destructive relative of Hope. I have spent much of my life with Worry, for myself especially, but also for others, almost to a point of irrationality. For so long, I have chastised the Worry I was with, praying against it, running away from it, trying to ignore the pit it places in my stomach.

Yet, as I reflect on the tangible feeling of hope within me at this moment, I begin to see that to ignore Worry is, in essence, to ignore Hope. Hope is the root of all Worry.

Worry is simply abused Hope.

Hope that we try to control

Hope that we try to force into our own expectations.

Pure Hope is a treasure that is to be given to God, surrendered, but also a precious life-source within us. It should not dictate (as Worry would)- it should only give continually renewing life.

The End of the Cigarette

At the end of the cigarette, the smoke curls into a twisted tail that follows the invisible patterns in the air. It seems like chaos, but, secretly, I believe there is some sort of organization, like a fractal: apparently random but hiding perfect order. Breathing in the smoke, I feel like I am breathing in memories of a long time ago, of yesterday. I remember the first time I smoked, looking at him with naïve eyes, pretending I was so much older and cooler than I really was. His earthy smell, maybe a little petroli oil mixed with dirt and sweat, mixed with the smoke of American Spirits. His dreads, his charm, his music taste, his age, his experience- all these things made him both desirable and repulsive. He was wrong, but he was my good-girl form of rebellion. I had done everything right up till this point. My life was order, perfection, holiness, and I was tired of it. Chaos called to me, and his unpredictability became the satiating drink of choice.

All around me, people were drinking their own forms of chaos, and somehow, they lived. Their tough skins grew around them, and they openly ran into the arms of disorder. Certainly, I too could embrace this, feeling the excitement and pleasure without the pain. And so I entered into the disarray. New passions arose: jealousy, sexuality, and pride. I kept this part of my life hidden but from a few…. Sneaking off to his apartment, to the smoking curb, to concerts that I really didn’t care for (except he would be there). I fought for his attention in order to keep the high that this chaos gave me….. and as I lost it to the next girl, I crawled back into myself.

It turns out that my ordered heart was not strong enough to handle this sort of chaos. I admired the tough skinned individuals that ran around embracing this sort of life, but after him, I began to wonder if they ever really felt what they were doing. I wondered if they were numb to the high I myself had chased… and if they ever felt the withdrawal I experienced. Like the fading smoke of the cigarettes we smoked together, we faded apart- him to the next girl and me to self loathing and confusion.

In those days, I regretted the chaos I let into my life; I sought the order I had lived in before. But as I reflect, surrounded by today’s smoke, I realize that his pandemonium was not as disordered as I once thought. It had purpose and order that I was too close to in order to see clearly. And now, farther away, I remember him, and I see the passion he modeled. In bringing seeming disorder in to my life, he taught me to feel, he taught me to live. Perhaps living requires that we not be safe and perfect one hundred percent of the time. The risk is that we will be hurt, but we will feel pleasure at the same time. Perhaps there is more order to confusion than I previously thought, and in seeking a life balance, I will not deny its existence in my life.