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| I have found in this life that you have to just take the cards you are
dealt. It is night, when the hours begin to stretch out in front of you
instead of just passing you by. I have a lot of free time once the sun
goes down, and lately I havent spent enough it thinking things through.
We young people have the luxury of being fatalistic. The usual methods
are still popular: cigarettes, alcohol, and so on. Maybe letting things
rattle around in your head for too long could be added to that list, I
don’t know. This life is a bum deal for the most part, but that’s
acceptable enough on its own terms. You still have to play those cards
for what they are worth.
The funny thing is, I am at peace with
all of this. The line was wavering there for the longest time, but it
feels solid as a rock right now. I am just taking the bad and the good
all together right now, and trying to laugh about it as much as
possible. I have some good friends that understand the way the game is
played, and I am glad for their company. I am tired of being strong or
weak or anything really. I am just sitting here in the ruins, glad that
I am alive and able to feel the pain in my heart, glad that I can still
smile, glad that I am free to love everything and everyone even if they
don’t deserve it. Maybe those two shots of sad are worth it most of
all. Maybe we couldn’t really appreciate the happy if we didn’t first
drink deep from the other. Maybe we just need to read the cards right
and lay it all down for once.
put your money where your love is, baby
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| I have been on xanga for four years now. I am pretty sure I am going to
shut this thing down. I dont think that will be terribly disappointing
to anyone or anything, but I felt like I should announce it.
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The moment is good; it is a good place to be. We stand where
the streams finally run together and we enjoy their music for a time. Somewhere
there is something that leads us to this confluence of being and doing, and we
are glad to be there. Just as quickly, however, the sun falls to the west and
the moment has passed. We are broken again, emptied of everything we thought we
might be able to hold onto this time around.
We must live in the midst of our death. Instead of trying so
desperately to fill the cup, I must learn to keep it dry so that others might
come and fill it for me. There is no time to ponder the nature of our idiopathic
convergences; there is only time to be. We must be fully present in our
emptiness in order to pass into the world as we should, in order to be the
bread for the hungry and the bindings for the wounded.
Christ have mercy on me, a sinner.
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Time is like water and we are just trying to keep our boat
from sinking. We are all usually running from something; but some seasons we
allow ourselves to stop and smell the flowers. Sometimes the sun is shining and
sometimes it rains. Sometimes the wind speaks to us, but most of the time it
just blows. Such is life.
Tomorrow, smile at someone for no reason. We have just a few
rocks to throw in the pond and we might as well make sure they are good ones.
Be the friend you know you should be; take people as they are and let them become
what they will. Love as freely as you can. Turn the other cheek and forgive
those who have wronged you. If they ever get around to the blindfolds and last
cigarettes, I want to bite the bullet knowing I lived my life grinning like an
idiot. I want to go out the door trusting like a kid and loving everyone just
like a mangy little dog that gets kicked around but always comes back for more.
Because at the end of the day, the only thing worth anything is the love you
have for the person worth the least to everyone else.
I am ok with just chasing after the wind, as long as we are
doing it together.
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| Spring is coming and with it the dank, dark smell of dirt and plant
decay cooking in the sun, tempered by the sweeter odors of flowers and
trees newly coming to life. My friends and I will do as we have done
for years and plunge into the cool green waters of the Nolichucky,
drink our fill next to campfires and forget for a moment the pressures
of being human in this day and age. The spring, the summer; these are
times of forgetfulness for the southern boy, times to turn lean and
brown in the fullness of the long, hot days.
My friend Skip
told me when I was a child that the world is written in hues of grey; I
discarded those words like most children would. When you grow older you
find that living in the balance between the black and the white will be
the all-consuming struggle of your days. I knew violence as a child; I
knew early in my life that men were cruel and that the same people who
smiled at you one moment might turn on you like a rabid dog the next.
You learn that the armies of darkness march just as easily to drumbeats
supplied by well-intentioned men. You learn that the black river runs
as deep in your own soul as it does in those known to be evil men. I
hate that I have to write these things time and time again, but I am
always just on the edge of something terrible. I feel despair running
underneath me, cold and purposeful in its fury.
I can only
find peace in bread and wine. I am fully aware of how ridiculous such a
claim is in this modern age. Nevertheless, it is as true now to me as
it has been for two thousand years to many others. A few months back,
Will and I sat on the beach watching the nearly-full moon, a bottle of
wine between us. I told him that faith was a mystery I had unwittingly
found myself fully invested in. Only when I spoke the words did I know
them to be true. Perhaps even in my seasons of forgetfulness I will
remember the blood and the body, perhaps my sharing in them will help
to keep my darkness away.
God grant us peace | | |
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