The Lost Beattitude

He swayed left and right while he walked. It made him move like I used to when I would get on the hanging bridge part of a jungle gym and shake the mess out of it to scare everyone who was on it with me. I was playing. He wasn't.

I don't know if it was a congenital issue, but the crippled soul walking by fixed his eyes directly in front of him. I bet he was tired of the pity. I bet he was over the people who couldn't get over him. He couldn't bear to watch people who couldn't bear to watch him. People like me.

I don't know why I get so uncomfortable around the handicapped. I just get this "I-gotta-dodge-'em" feeling and look the other way trying to find the nearest object that looks interesting enough to seem like I was actually looking at it. I did that very thing today, but I don't think he saw me.

"Oh, what a shame," I think. "How awful it would be to have to live that way."

The problem is -- I'm the problem. It's horrible to live that way because I think thoughts like that and back them into corners or stuff them into stereotypes. The pity of that life has nothing to do with him and everything to do with the one doing the pitying. Society even goes so far as to call them "invalids." In-valid? That's ridiculous! Since when did validity find foundation in a gait or the ability to park closest to Barnes & Noble?

The Russian girls in this picture taught me a valuable lesson about John 9:

"As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?'
'Neither this man nor his parents sinned,' said Jesus, 'but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.'" (1-3)

These girls, like the man I saw today, have a gift from God. Never once did they feel the pity or shame of human examination. I know that because I could see the Lord in their eyes and on the faces of the kids there in Tallinn. They didn't treat them like outcasts or invalids, but with respect and reverence. It was as if they knew that those girls had been divinely blessed with their differences.

When I read that God will not give us more than we can bear, I used to think that I would have it made. All of my future woes had been promised to be tolerable. All of my future woes. It's only been recently that I began to apply that verse to the places I've been or what I have become.

God won't give me more than I can bear: I live in America -- I wouldn't have made it otherwise. I was born and raised to and in faith-trusting family -- I wouldn't have made it otherwise. I am a white male -- I wouldn't have made it otherwise. I am not ugly -- I wouldn't have made it otherwise. I am not poor -- I wouldn't have made it otherwise. I am a heterosexual -- I wouldn't have made it otherwise. And, here, in this instance, I am not handicapped -- I wouldn't have made it otherwise.

Blessed are the blessed, for they can handle it.

Wonderland

Lewis Carroll

...

"One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree.

'Which road do I take?' she asked.

'Where do you want to go?' was his response.

'I don't know,' Alice answered.

'Then,' said the cat, 'it doesn't matter.'"

The Pan

J. M. Barrie

...

"As soon as you can say what you think, and not what some other person has thought for you, you are on your way to being a remarkable man."

Negatives

Everything that exists must have its polar opposite. So, if all we know comes from what we've seen, what might we find if we studied what we have not seen?

How can you study what you have not seen? Simply. Think.

The archives of our lives are built by units upon units of photographs. In order to see again what you once saw, the image had to become everything it was not. A negative. Go look at yours and try to see if there are things you hadn't seen. You will.

To recreate what was true in order to learn from it, everything must invert in order to see what would be if the counter were true. There's more than meets the eye. You may find out things you didn't know, you may see what's being avoided, you may see what you wish were true but isn't. In any case, it's all invisible until you invert.

Negatives -- every thing its opposite.

Changes, Water and Layers

Sometimes, I really feel like this blog is a slice of me, I mean a real peice, as opposed to just something onto which I throw a few thoughts, ideas and experiences. I guess that could be considered a fault. It's like I can't just be a little of me, or put simple representations of myself out there for anyone because I would be wasting a tremendous amount of time thinking, writing and revising if it was just a mask, or a glimpse. It would waste your time, too.

I do that with just about everything though. If I can't personalize my endeavors, then they are left in the dust to soon be buried beneath the weight of a thousand other missed opportunities.

I say all that to say this: I feel like I've changed. I'm not talking about politically or physically or something like that. I'm still a Demo-lican and my pants still measure 34 to 36 (depending on the brand and my last couple days' consumption). I just mean that I can sense something is different.

. . .

I used to drink about 2 gallons of water per day -- literally. I did it partially for health, but also for attention. I would carry around these large, 64 ounce mugs from Wal-Mart that resembled pony kegs and I would drink like four per day by 5 p.m.! I peed. A lot. But, I gave it up for a while. I guess I got tired of it, or maybe people just stopped noticing, I don't know. Either way I stopped.

But, when we returned from Estonia, I started drinking it again. I'm not doing it anything like I used to, but at least I'm doing it. I'm not doing it to be noticed, and I'm not doing it for the sake of knowing that I drank an ungodly amount by the time I eat supper (I barely hit 100 ounces by the end of the day). I'm doing it because I saw my desires through the people in Estonia.

Before we went I could name for you a long list of wants. I wanted a truck, a boat, a newer house, a wave-runner, more money, et cetera. It was a load of material crap that mean nothing and spent every day descending to worthlessness. But, when all that I was used to was stripped, when the layers that were disposable fell to the ground like patches off a disowned Boy Scout, when my bed was 8,000+ miles away, when my house was but a pining, when my ability to go to the refrigerator and open a cold Diet Sun Drop left, or when my ability to snack on something all day long vanished, all I could think about was water. I looked at the kids around me. They wanted water -- nothing else. Sure, they drank a Coke every now and then, but not like me.

When you finally realize that everything you think you know turns out to be circumstancially fueled, only then can you truly find what it is that you want. I wanted water. Do I drink Cokes now (and, by the way, in the South, a Coke means simply "a soft drink of some kind" -- it can represent virtually any brand), do I drink Kool-Ade? Yes. But now I drink water, too. I got closer to the core of me than I had been in quite a while and saw that that's what I really wanted. I have to feed the inner-me, the me that takes a pilgrimage to northeastern Europe to exhume, not just the me that functions using the layers to bear the brunt of the blows dealt to me by this materialistic world.

So, what does that mean? Tons. But, for today it means that since this blog is a part of me, and since I feel like I'm changing, I think I need to change the look of this blog.

So, it's changed.

Well, there you go.

Just a quick shot of my beautiful wife and me. She and I drew closer to God and each other in ways that can not be described by "drew closer." As I said in the last post, I will be opening a few windows to the trip so that you may enjoy an insufficent glimpse of what has happened. I pray that you too may enjoy a similar journey to your wife and your God. 

On the shores of this sea water we rediscovered ourselves. Our purpose in this world baptized in capitalism and disease is not to continue to shelter ourselves from it, but instead to become aware of it and become available to God and to people as a channel of what He has crafted for us. We were made for this.

In this I take pleasure: that I have been spared long enough to see the value of people. They breathe. They bleed. They're needy. I am, in every way, just like everyone I meet every day. I breathe, bleed, and need, and I always will.

In Genesis, God said that he made both man and woman in His image which means that He is inherently infused into the inner working of each individual human from the beginning of time. We, as followers of God, have found water. Truthfully, the water found us. It is our duty to inform our fellow humans, who all bear the image of God, where to find it so they too may drink. It is a simple task and it goes no further. The thirsty need no instruction on how to drink.

In the coming days I will continue to post pictures and lessons Karen and I have learned from our recent trip to Tallinn, Estonia. The picture here is of the water in the Bay of Finland, which is fed by the Baltic Sea.

It has been indescribable.

God is bigger than we thought.