The Joy of Losing

You’re devastated because your Olympic dream didn’t pan out, as you would have liked. Canada lost 2-0 to the Russians, and now your country won’t even get a chance to metal. Sounds harsh. You look like a mess though, as if your heart got torn in two. It hurts, I can tell by the expression on your face, and the tears that are soaked in your pillow. It will be all right though, time will pass and you will enter into another risk, where the joy of winning is euphoric, and the agony of defeat is almost unbearable. But think about it; if that agony weren’t always ready to overtake you, ready to pounce on you at every moment, then you would always win. You would always feel that joy, that elation that so many of us crave, and that my friend makes it entirely fake. It is essentially the risk of winning and losing that makes games and sports and other events fun to partake in. If there were no fear of losing, then the excitement would soon wither. I saw you on the table in the cafeteria where you were doomed in front of the President. Remember what he said? He said, “It’s true about these risks of winning and losing, and how what your going through now makes the joy you will experience latter all that more real and genuine, and the same thing applies to marriage.” You were baffled and I’m sure you still are, but I’ll let you chew on it for a bit. Could this risk so common in sports, be paralleled to the world of life and love. You think so. In fact, you know it.

Running on Empty

You feel drained hey? You feel like your being called upon over and over again with no room for anything else. Welcome to life I suppose. You need to learn to balance. You need to begin to manage your time with the utmost importance. Imagine for a moment the value of that moment of time. Next to the gift of life, I would see it as the single most valued piece of existence available. I remember when you were thinking of trying to add just two hours to your day. Just imagine having a day that contained 26 hours? What would you do with those precious additional moments? Would you take your time eating your dinner, to spend more quality time with your family? Would you write all those letters you promised to write so long ago? Perhaps you will finally clean your room that your roommate has been complaining so long about. Would you spend those two hours face down before the Lord, trying with all that is within you to meet Him, and grow your relationship? Perhaps you’ll spend your time snuggled in the warmth of your loved ones sweater, staying near that familiar sent just a little bit longer. Maybe you’ll spend those hours away at the mall, spending more time browsing the bargain department. Would you spend your hours in Never Never Land, choosing to dream for two hours longer having epic fantasies rolled out in your mind? It’s only two hours, but it would change your life. Here is the rub. You do not have those two extra hours. You never will. You are born with the equality that we humans all share. 24 hours. Do not worry though it is the same 24 hours as everyone else; Stephen Hawking’s, George Bush, Mother Theresa, Wayne Gretzky, your parents, your friends, and everyone else who is changing their world and yours. You have the same amount of time as they do. What will you do with your time? Make an impact.

Late But Not Too, Valentines

Hey, thanks for the Valentine. I can read it all over your face, your happy its Valentines day. Your looking around at all the reds pinks and white colors pasted all over this town you call home. You are watching the happy couples who seem even more lost in that blissful maze they call love. Is it not exciting to see the anticipation in the air? Imagine the thought life of a person who woke up expecting nothing. They saunter to their mailbox to see that little square piece of cardboard, screaming love in all its wonders. That small, seemingly insignificant, two dollar sheet with some obscure cartoon character on it, has the potential to bring a man to his knees in tears. Do not look at this day as a depressing moment on your journey of single hood. You need to see this day, and everyday, as a day that allows the opportunity to affect someone’s life for the better. Imagine the elation felt by someone that was not expecting a valentine, and you just happened to drop one of in their mailbox. It is just one day out of the year. But do not forget that you do not need just this day, but let it serve as a reminder for your whole year. Imagine the lives you will touch.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

I heard you felt like a spider. Funny thought, but don't worry, you should be excited about it. Although remember the life of a spider is a hard one. Especially the place your in. Your hanging while you propel slowly down your webbing onto who knows what, maybe nothing. Thing is there is going to be a drop. A drop of some significance is sure to ensue. You’re going to have to risk this drop, its inevitable. It’s because you have wandered too far on your own strength. And now you’re at a point in your life with all your eggs in one basket. That basket will break, and with that the string your life is hanging on. Don’t worry though, you’ll hit something, perhaps it will be the new freedom you’ve been looking for. Just remember it’s going to hurt. Immeasurable amounts, but He’ll be there through it all, even if it doesn’t feel that way. It’s worth it, because for new life you need to go through some sort of pain. Just ask those mothers birthing children you know that has to hurt. You’re going to new wonderful places. When the drop comes close your eyes, and relish the experience, because you’ve wasted a lot of time worrying about it. Leap. It will be great if you allow it to be. Jump little spider, jump.

Shifting

You can feel it can't you? You sit in your couch looking around for what's going on but you can't seem to locate it. You close your eyes, and try and hone in on what you now realize can't be seen. Nothing, except for a brief imagined blast of sound that you know yourself you made up. You can't see it or hear it, but you can feel it. Look around, what are all these people waiting for? The nighttime, the morning, mid-week? The next concert, birthday, assignment deadline, job interview, family vacation? Their waiting to live out their lives they way they were created to. You can feel it. The time is coming where your generation will be a witness to the speech they have begged for long to hear. Their own "I have a dream" or "we will fight on the beaches," motivating moment. Why when you heard these words in Coach Carter did you squirm because you thought that might be true..?

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Those words that pierce a being to the inmost place where we don't like to admit we have. It's coming. Look out the window, you said it yourself the trees seem a bit...shifted. Maybe ask around what others feel. Or don't, and let this pressure build until this bottle explodes, either way it's inevitable. It's coming, feel it...

Unsolved Mysteries

I was reminded today of a story that you were told last summer and never got the answer to. It was a speak where you were caught off guard so much in fact that you were left to digest the comments on your own. I take it you are still doing just that, but lets relive the story so we can dive into all that it provoked once again...

It was last summer you were sitting somewhere in the mountains listening to a speak where you were told the story of a husband questioning her wife. She asked him, "If you could go to heaven right now, this very instant would you?" Almost without hesitation the husband replied, "No, because I have a calling to fulfill that I've have been asked to fulfill." Satisfied the wife went back to what she was doing and rethought the question. Moved again she prompted her husband one more time asking, "Alright then, if there was no calling to fulfill, nothing that was required of you, and you could go to heaven right now, would you, because there is no expectation or obligation stopping you now?" The husband leaned back and pondered, seemingly lost in thought. In fact the wife was almost feeling uncomfortable with the long silence. Then the husband moved, leaned up and said the words she never expected, because as you know anyone asking that question usually have an idea as to the response they are about to receive in return. "No," he replied, causing he face to drop unexpectedly, and then she followed the question with her own quickly asking, "Why!" Calmly and seemingly very sure of himself, he responded, "This is the only time in my life, even stretching for all of eternity, that I can worship God in my brokenness."

You remember right? Because you were unsure at the time if this type of thinking was correct. And you still don't know for sure, but something inside you tingles when you hear that story again. The hope of living each day out like you'll never get it again, living each moment of your life, knowing full well that this stage of your life will be completely finished and you'll never return to this type of brokenness again. Is it wrong to think this way? Perhaps, but your the one who is moved to run after your Lord with all that you were created to be after hearing it are you not? Brokenness, here for only a brief time, and all though we strive to relieve ourselves of all it is and has created for us, can we not revel in that struggle, in that fight, that journey towards righteousness that we will only have in this portion of our seemingly fractured lives? You want to say yes, but its a mystery for now, and you don't seem to care if it stays that way either.

Marching Penguins

After going to rent the movie "millions" I returned not empty handed, but with the disc "March of the Penguins". After understanding that movie was not about penguins and the wild adventures they had in the spring, or a female penguin named March, we played the title, and here's what you thought...

At one point in the movie you saw how the penguins moved in a line together, walking slowly for 70 miles and you were baffled at how these winged creatures could walk for a week straight and not eat for over 120 days. What kind of animal is this, and you laughed and cried during the film, but there was one point that really caught your eye. Besides the freezing embryos or the sacrificed little baby birds, there was this one point if you recall correctly with this one penguin walking the frozen desert all by himself, with no one to lead him other than instinct, or perhaps the stars. He walked, inch by inch clinging only to hope and then after hearing Him speak you made the connection, how many of you humans are walking that same lonely path? How many of you humans wake up each morning and the only goal is to put one foot ahead of the other? But there's the hope that keep the bird or you going. There's that one thing, that idealistic thought that lets you continue to strive for the unknown relying only on the faith that you've birthed yourself. Kinda crazy hey?

Who would have thought that you be able to have a moment in the middle of a documentary with fowl words in the title? Baby steps, remember the penguin whose hope could not be stolen. You need to protect your hope the same way, or become a penguin.

Alpha

So against my better judgment I have once again added one more thing to my pallet - a blog - Going against all I fought for in this past year and some time I have caved, and decided to release the only thing that I had sacred, my one safety, the last barrier I had to the outside world: 'your thoughts'. Oddly enough as long as I can remember this writing jazz has been like therapy, almost as if for something so much as pride I was causing myself to suffer for so long keeping them chained up within me. Well onto the next era of my life, with 'your thoughts' laid bare before you I would ask that you tip-toe around them until I get this place cleaned up, and bare with me, as this journey you are reading is as much yours as it is mine. Now, lets get to discussing what your thinking...