the end.

This year is about to end. 2009 will kick it, and 2010 will be here before we can even say goodbye.

It's been a good year, I'd say. It's had its ups and downs for sure...they all do. I think I grew up this year, though. Maybe. I'm starting to wonder if we grow up more every year. There must be a lot of room for growth then because we are never grown up if we are always growing up. I'll try not to get discouraged. I guess grown ups are no fun anyways.

I thought about doing a year in review and going through some old things I'd written, picking and choosing my favorites. I've already shared those things, though. I realized that a more accurate reflection of my year would be to share something that I wrote but never posted...because I was too scared that people wouldn't understand it or wouldn't see what I was saying, or they would think it was too abstract.

Well here goes. I wrote this at the beginning of summer '09.

"When it happens what do you say? Do you look around you for the words, or find them hiding behind you, creeping like the past? Or do you glance ahead into the darkness of uncertainty and fumble around for a sentence that makes sense? It's a haze that wasn't self-induced, and it clouds the vessels surrounding your heart as you try to beat out a rhythm that rhymes. And as the blood puddles, leaving your severed arteries, you cry, and you search the recesses of your mind for one glimmer of light to give meaning to the sound coming out of your mouth. Who do you love? Who fills your mind as your body empties out onto the ground? Breathe your last few breaths and feel the oxygen burn your lungs, and as you gasp, find the strength to say that name. But what if your speech doesn't echo back, and your wayward voice is lost in the canyons that give no return for what they took from you. What if the wind forgets the author when it carries the message? The message falls on deaf ears, and no answer comes. The darkness taunts, "Pick a new name." But what if there is none. What if that was the only one. Please, God, no. Help me find a new name."

This image came to me when I was thinking about people being on their death beds (morbid? just bear with me). You always see in the movies where someone is dying and they ask for one person. They may be in the room. They may have to be found. Sometimes they haven't spoken to this person in years. But for some reason, this one person comes to their heart as they lie there dying. Love. They love this person. Their love is so strong that no matter what grievances they share, in their desperation, they cry out for that one person to comfort them as they die.

I would say that everyone has that person, that name, that they would ask for. And of course, in the movies, that person who was called comes running to the bedside, restitution is made, kisses are shared, and the person dies in peace. What struck me, though, were the times that I know someone has called out for their love, but that love was not returned. What if you were dying and the only name their heart wanted didn't want them back? Who else could they call for? Maybe no one.

This idea scares me more than anything else, I think. I don't want to leave this feeling depressed, though, because I am not. And I haven't been. It just makes me think. It has made me trust God more and more. We may not have tomorrow. We may not have tonight. But we're never really alone, even if we think we are. He is with us more than we'll ever know. But also, it has made me cherish the people around me - the people who I don't know if I'll see again tomorrow, because we never know. It's the simple things in life we need to learn to be thankful for. The little things.

Dave Matthews says, "Take these chances, place them in a box until quieter times, lights down you up and die."
I'm gonna take these chances and cherish this life and the people I love. I am so so blessed.

Disenchanted

I haven't written in so long. I feel like I have a million disconnected thoughts running around in my brain, trying to form some pattern or semblance of a logical thought process. It's not that I haven't tried to write, because I have. I've sat in front of a blank computer screen with all of these ideas screaming at me, yet so incapable of creating the message that I'm feeling.

My writing progress seems to match my life right now. I can't really describe it, except that I feel like God has picked me up from one place in my life, and instead of being set down in a new place, I'm dangling in the air like one of those stuffed animals caught in the arm of a broken arcade. Don't get me wrong, it's exhilerating not knowing when I'm going to drop and be hurtled down to the collection slot; I can't wait to drop out and be taken by the next good thing that comes my way. At the same time it's hard to just sit up here, legs dangling.

The strange thing is, I'm not even holding on. My grip is loosened, and I'm at the whim and pleasure of a God that won't let me go until He's ready. Psalm 115:3 says, "Our God is in His heaven, He does whatever pleases Him." I've recited that verse a lot lately.

Another strange phenomenon is that I don't feel purposeless. In fact, I feel more purposed and satisfied now than ever before in my life. I feel disenchanted, in a way, to life and the things of this world, and my greatest awareness is Him, holding me up until He's ready to set me down in the place He wants for me.

That's one thing I've learned while dangling - that everything is nothing, and nothing is everything. He is all I need. The stuffed animals in the arcade machine have their friends while they're still in the machine, and they have a great kid to play with once their out, but while they're in the arm, they have nothing but the cold, plastic or metal arm. Okay, now I'm just being way too dramatic.

The difference here, is that I still technically have the things and people around me, I just don't see them as much. Or maybe I'm beginning to see them for what and who they really are - representations of another life, pictures of something bigger, and a taste of what's to come. Their purpose is to point us to Him, however, and never to replace Him.

To begin another metaphor, I feel as though I've left the dead of Winter, Spring has arrived and the seed in the ground is sprouting. But it hasn't broken through, yet. I do not know what will grow. All I have is hope.

On another level, we are all dangling in the arms of Jesus. We have been picked up out of the pit of sin and despair, and He is holding us until He can set us before His throne in Heaven. We can kick and scream and fight it, and maybe even fall back into the pit for a while, but He's going to pick us up again, and we'll be limp in His arms once again.

Maybe if we see this, we'll stop living like this life is the end, and we'll start living like it's only the beginning - full of hope. I long for my eyes to only see Jesus.

"Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." 1 Corinthians 13:12

NY. Hollow.

NY. It's one of those cities that is glorified in people's minds as "the place to be." Most people visit at least once in their lifetime just to get the experience - the hustle and bustle of Manhattan, the night life of Times Square, Broadway, etc. There is no place quite like New York.

Well, now I too can check it off of my list of places to see. I spent the past 5 days in Midtown Manhattan. At 42nd St. and 3rd Avenue, I was only a few blocks from the well-known 5th Avenue and Madison Avenue, and Grand Central Station, the hub of Manhattan. However, my New York experience did not correspond with my elegant and ritzy location. I stayed at the YMCA; at $84 per night, my bare 6'x12' room was all I could expect.

At first, when I arrived, the thrill of being in New York outweighed the starkness of the room. My attitude changed, however, when I realized the actual state of the room. Amy and I didn't have our own bathroom, the beds were falling apart, and the sheets were not only dirty, but they smelled. I walked down the hall to take a shower and was even more disgusted. I started praying that God would make me grateful. For what? I didn't know.

So this was my experience of New York. During the day, Amy and I would walk the streets of Manhattan. The weather was beautiful and we walked for miles...literally. We walked 5th Avenue and Broadway and shopped. We headed Downtown to Chelsea and Greenwich Village and had tea, looked in an art gallery and an old bookstore. We braved Canal Street to bargain for cheap merchandise. We hit up Little Italy and ate the best lasagna at "Lunella." We ate in Soho at one of the trendiest little bar&grills that I've ever seen. We walked Central Park, ate hotdogs from the stands, and stopped at just about every Starbucks we found (mostly to use the restrooms :). And then at night we would return to our little hole of a hotel and climb into the sheets, choosing not to think about the state of our living conditions. Friday to Tuesday, this is how we lived.

Sunday morning, God was gracious to give me a grateful attitude. I didn't know why, then, but I felt truly thankful. Now I see why; my experience of New York was truly unique, and the Lord showed me something through it.

Let me explain. In all of my description of our activities above, most of the time we walked. There were many times, however, that we used the Subway system. The subways are the complete antithesis of the streets of New York. Manhattan is, in a way, sterilized - you only see sidewalks, streets, sides of buildings, shop windows, and advertisements. You see what the businesses and their owners want you to see - only the pretty things are visible. It's tantalizing and it catches your eye - all that glitters and shines. In a sense, it's all a facade. It's all fake; people are hiding what they don't want you to see, and creating an image that is better and more appealing in order to compete for your business and your affection.

The subway is dark and dirty. People urinate and defecate in the elevators. Rats crawl in the beams that support the tracks. Graffiti covers the cars and the walls. Homeless and vagrant people are everywhere. The crowds of people are no longer only wearing their crisp business suits. Here we have the poor, the dirty, the hungry. I don't know where they were on the streets, maybe the glitter of the streets blinded me to seeing them, but here in the subways, the impoverished of New York are found.

Everyone on the subways avoid eye contact and sit expressionless. It's almost as if no one wants to acknowledge the filth. No one wants to see it as it really is; they just want to rush back up to the streets where everything is pretty, and where they can forget about the filth beneath them. It's like me, going back to my hole, and not wanting to realize that the sheets I'm sleeping in are disgusting.

I realized that New York is hollow. Literally, because the subways are tunneled underneath. Figuratively, because the people are covering up their filth with all the glamour of the city. No one wants to realize that they are dirty, so they live in denial, behind fake walls with lights and signs flashing, saying, "I'm beautiful," and yet not believing it. Every time they ride the subway, every time they go home at night, they are faced with the truth that the streets are not real. And yet they wake up wanting to believe it, because down in the filth of the subway, there seems to be no hope. This is the state of the lost.

And yet, there is hope. This hope is seen in the unknown musicians and singers and songwriters who play for the audience found in the subways of New York. These artists prove that beauty does rise from the filth when you recognize that it's there and you choose to live despite it. I heard the most beautiful voice as I was waiting for the subway. It had hope. It chose not to ignore the dirty surroundings. It didn't embrace the filth either, but it rose above it, because in recognizing the true state of things, one can then have somewhere to proceed from.

When we recognize our filth as sinners, then we can make progress by turning to the Lord. But only then. When we live as a hollow image of what we would like to be, or think we are, then we have nowhere to go - all of our work is based on a facade of perfection that is not real.

Pray for New York. Pray that the people will open their eyes to the subways of their lives. Pray that they will listen to the voices of hope, echoing through the subway tunnels, calling out for the audience to open their eyes to see the truth, to see the state of the city, and more importantly, to see the state of their hearts. Pray that Jesus will fill the hollow void.