i fought and fought, but i should have just gone outside

i've been trying very hard to formulate into words all the scattered, yet substantial (to me, at least) ideas and conflicts that both my mind and heart are tossing around. i'm trying so hard, they just won't come. so i am just going to write. who knows what may come.



i'm starting with this picture. here's why. it's me. it's me doing what i enjoy. me with no pretense or sense of my need to be beautiful or to fit in, or to be successful or mature. it's me. as a child. nature has a way of breaking me of my false sense of coolness or success. outside, i am a mere fragment of creation that is far more beautiful than i could ever imagine a human to be. i am as a small child, full of wonder and appropriately humbled. may i never forsake what my heart delights in to do what the world acknowledges as productive or successful. this idea, it's implications are huge, but i have only begun to understand.

but i do know this. i am sitting on my back porch, with the breeze and the warm sun. my favorite song by clem snide drifts outside and delights my ears. i hear birds, and i hear cars. there are two large bees in the corner of the porch buzzing feverishly. here i am free to write, free to commune, free to think. this is what i love. my job allows me such conveniences, and for that i am thankful. i know it won't always be this way.

but wait, that's exactly what i'm talking about. i desire to work and serve people with whatever i choose as my "career," but never ever do i want to lose sight of our timelessness. i will not have my life be about waking up, going to work, coming home to a family (ah, perhaps), and going to bed, just to do it all again the next day. in no way is anything in the previous statement intrinsically bad, but Lord have mercy on me if my life ever becomes centered around a particular job, a particular goal, a particular person. as my kindred says, nothing is urgent except Christ. what i'm saying is that if i get to a point where i have lost sight of the Kingdom first, loving God and loving people, and have replaced such things with shadows and concrete, i have failed.

i'd like to write more, but i feel as if what i've written is all i need to say for now. i will write more when i can, when i'm not trying to force it.

p.s. go to a park or something. seriously. do it.