Tuesdays are for thinking. Reflecting.
I pick things up, and I put things down. I considered it.
Also known as a debate. I debated myself.
I love the repetition of quiet. It’s consistent.
Sometimes I’m quiet. This is by choice. I’m choosing to turn the volume down on the noise. I need space to think. The interesting part is that the voices in my life become clearer.
I deleted the fb, instagram feels like a marketing tool, this is it, nothing more, yet. Honesty is the best policy. This is my voice at the moment. Silent, but the loudest in the room.
What I speak here becomes the purest form of one sided communication.
I can’t speak for anyone but myself, and the void returns the favour.
So where do I start ?
(First with recognizing that I have to be careful with what I say, because it means that it will be entirely beyond my control who reads it or try’s to understand it.)
So, let’s start with why I had the debate.
Be quiet Nathan, focus. What’s important?
Posture before position, attraction before presentation.
It all centre’s around visibility. One the one hand, the wisdom of silence is grounded in the stoicism of our forefathers. Silence is golden, but these are the truths about truth.
Truth has an unbelievable way of rising to the surface. It doesn’t need to force, coerce, or manipulate. It simply is.
When a truth starts to become undeniably visible, it becomes impossible to ignore. You can’t unsee it anymore. It’s there.
It’s why I laughed at the news reel the other Monday.
Truth being truth, is still true on a Tuesday.
So, after the debate within my mind over the balance of sharing my thoughts, and acting with discernment, I arrive here. Who made me?
Why? Why live and relentlessly desire to do so freely and with expressive joy? Why doesn’t that feel natural when it should?
What does Christ have to do with it? This isn’t a sermon or a debate. I’m just in a constant state of walking myself out of a corner. My corner.
God is revealing Himself to me, I in turn am revealing myself to Him. It’s not revelation of something new that needs to be discovered. It’s the abandonment of the fear that contained it. It’s the abandoning that God wants to see. It’s in the letting go.
You can use the Universe as a more comfortable wording choice, but it’s the same thing.
Let the wrong voices be. Listen to the One who spoke first.
If my identity in Christ is first, then my alignment with that identity comes before the creating part.
The beauty of this is that it’s a process.
The most exquisite samurai swords are not pulled directly out of the ground, yet they are.
They are mined, broken, refined, purified, destroyed again, reduced, shaped. The material was always present. The refinement and alignment of that tool only exist in the hands of the artist aligning and sanctifying for a purpose. The identity of the sword remains regardless of the sheath. Sheaths protect the sword, not the other way round.
The hands that posses it with purpose must go through the same refinement process.
Neither becomes the other without it.
We are in a constant state of refinement for that purpose.
Who am I then?
This is perhaps the root question and deepest recognition that simultaneously happened the first time that I opened my mouth to the pain of need.
I think the first truth that I need to fully understand and know deeply is this,
Life is a gift, thought is a gift. The gifts were never mine to begin with.
It means that ultimately I don’t deserve anything.
This means the posture of relentless reverence must take over the posture of pride. One is humble, the other is defiant. The rebellion part is mine. So is the surrender.
I’ve walked my own path to get here.
I’m talking about all of the steps that happened after the gift of the first cry for it. All of the attention to those steps had already been planned before I learned to walk them. Even the wrong ones.
I want, but it’s not always what I need. Born to resist is the same as born to live.
Reflecting correctly and purposefully only works if you are looking at the right mirror.
For far too long in my life, I was looking at the wrong one.
Once the corrected reflection is found, purpose and the occupation is understood. Dedication to the refinement must follow.
There is a great quote at the beginning of the documentary, Jiro dreams of Sushi.
“Once you decide on your occupation…you must immerse yourself in your work. You must fall in love with your work. Never complain about your job. You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That is the secret of success…and is the key to be regarded honorably” -Jiro
This is coming from a master sushi chef who considers 15 yrs to be the adequate training time to understand rice preparation. I’m pretty sure that any samurai with a sword would understand the concept.
The refinement is the realignment. It brings the gifts back to the surface. It’s the delicate hands of the creator slowly molding us into the proper vessel to hold the thing. It might be rice, it might be a samurai sword.
Sharing the gifts and the corrected voice is the most natural byproduct of becoming whole. I am who Christ says I am. The truth in that voice and the obedience to those gifts is where purpose becomes clear.
I share because I must. The passion within me becomes rooted in expressions of the creator.
The development of my life is not my own. The stewardship of that life absolutely is.
It’s hard work. I’ve fallen down enough to know that I haven’t fully stood up yet.
It’s not just the learning, it’s the dedication and the willingness to correct course when you feel the drift pull you off it. Photography has endless opportunity to start and stop, drumming has endless opportunity to correct course along the way.
Same thing applies to my Christianity, it’s not religious. It’s a practice.
It’s slight improvements overtime while we delicate our understanding of what was given to us to reflect in the first place.
Sometimes it’s time to put down the lie and sing a different melody.
Somewhere along the way, voices spoke into my life. Some spoke truths, others did not. The reflection of those voices is my song to the world. Sometimes it’s on the wrong playlist and I need to correct it. I need to realign the melody. It needs a different rhythm. I want my reflection to adequately express the right song.
As I wrote this, a small bird stopped outside my window. It stayed for a while. It sang to the void. Composition had everything to do with it.
Something heard it.
Maybe today is just the recognition of that song. Small rhythmic gifts given for the indescribable compulsion to create.
This is a just blog post. It’s a process.
This is the mirror that I am holding up to my life and seeing the cracks that need melting.
When the inner waters are still, clarity reflects like a mirror.
-Nate
