What do you want from me?

Jun 1

I said this to someone significant today. I ment it. I didn’t actually mean it.

That was the point.

I’ve had very deep discussions on this topic before. To be honest, they were a bit one sided, but the point remained, what is the point?

Why live anyway?

I’ve been blessed with knowledge of my death. I have a lifetime to think about it. Yet, I cry out. I wake up, again and again. This cry and repetition of process must be directed toward something. There must be a reason.

Why do I feel compelled to write gibberish the moment I wake? What is the compelling need to have one’s voice heard?

On any given Sunday. Come as you are.

More to think about. Time for pizza.

Time to think about the character of things.

I’ve heard a simple mandate for living many times before.

“Love your God, Love others.”

So simple, so complex.

What is God anyway? Is it still a thing? Do we even need it anymore? Is God cultural again?

It’s a confusing time to ask that. I’ve struggled with the idea for my whole life. What is direction anyway? What is the mandate for the pathway set before us? Do we run? Do we crawl? Do we jump gleefully to the left and discover principles?

Or is there no point.

No, there’s certainly a point. It’s instinctual for all of us to survive. The first thing that everyone of us did was cry out in desperation for help.

We need to eat. We need to be. We need to rest. We need to matter to something.

I’ve mattered a great deal to many people. I know this because they’ve mattered a great deal to me.

Many of those people however don’t matter a great deal to me anymore, nor I to them. That’s the other side of the coin. That’s life. Single serving friends, temporary lives and buffet lineups. Collisions at intersections, family breakups, failed marriages. Lost friendships.

New people to love, and new lessons on how to do that. learning to love, me. Then you. That’s humanity.

Learning how to be a photographer is great, but I still need to be sure that I know how to use the camera before being asked to shoot a wedding.

Steve learned that lesson. He told me about the experience. He was sure to tell me about the mistake he’d made in the first place.

Good intentions fail miserably all the time. I have a close friend who’s life was forever changed by a drunk driver, He can attest to this.

Life goes on. Life is in the living. Even if it’s in a wheelchair. We laughed about this very subject just last month. We sat together on a sunny patio and talked about life. I hadn’t seen him in 12 yrs. It was time to catch up.

When casually mentioning the means by which we experience pain, My friend looked at me with the expression that can only mean one thing. He was about to give me comical insight.

He said, “So I went to the doctor the other day and I said, Doctor, It hurts when I do this…The doctor looked at it, then at me and said, ...Then stop doing that!”

We laughed together. I need more of his friendship in my life.

My friend has character. I won’t tell his story, that’s for him to tell. I’ll ask him if he has more insights to share, he has certainly lived a life.

So did my brother. I realized the other day while looking over my writing this last 2 weeks. He’s on my mind a lot lately. For good reason. I ran into Steve’s Father in law today in church. It was good to see family.

Come as you are needs careful consideration.

We never know which tables in our lives need flipping.