“Promises.”

 

M,

It changes over the years, but the promise remains the same. We become different, we fight, we roll over for each other, we have children and then we try to forge life out of the steel embrace of reality. We still make these promises to stay. To work at everything and to face anything together. Will we ever live up to it?

 

There is no perfection in the fray. Being human is full of failure, of failing down, of being made whole in one sense and then losing hold of the other senses. It takes us a lifetime to learn what will work and what will not. It will take all our lives to rework our preconceptions and the profundity of our fall. We make the promise still, to do it together.

 

For each it is different. The struggles are twain. The meeting of minds comes not in having the same experiences or quirks but in reaching for that very same thing: an everlasting love that redefines life into meaning. The eternal call and shadow of the other country. Love, as it is supposed to be. Always.

“Dancing.”

 

D,

 

The days are always full of something. You will get used to it. Every day has a different vibe and different challenge. Regardless, you need to dance. Sometimes to music, often to life and always in your natural state. There is no need to fake or force the moves. Dancing is always about being who you are.

 

This is never any reason to not be who you are. I don’t even mean this in the moral sense of right and wrong. I mean the quirks; the walk or talk or inflections or stutter or tastes or love for weird sports. It is all part of how you dance. It does not mean you will always be happy, but you will always be you. And therein lies the joy.

 

And this does not mean you are perfect. You are and will never be perfect. That is a mirage. You might aspire to perfect acts or live for the perfect act, but you will only ever be yourself. And that, my friend, will always be enough.

“Coping.”

 

H,

  

We are just coping with what is in front of us. There is nothing here to really exhilarate, really set the soul on fire forever. The world has nothing for the soul wrapped up in God. Its pleasures are mostly a distraction from the divine. We might reach the heights of its acclaim or the depths of its derision. In both places, we face the same absurdity, the same ennui, the same “it is not nearly enough” and the same feeling of deep loss.

 

The great Van Morrison sang: “When will I ever learn to live in God? /When will I ever learn? /He gives me everything I need and more/ When will I ever learn?”  It is a psalm for our modern times but the story of all time. If we buy the big premise of God, then life arranges itself in one way. We know there is nothing else out there, no elation and no defeat, no permanence and no rising, no pride, and no hustle higher than the purpose of living in God’s heart.

 

Everything else is just coping. We are merely trying to live in spaces not meant for us and to be in the form and shape that makes no sense for us. This wine but not a little, this indulgence and not for good, this unnecessary fading into the night to find the thing we already have in lower product and with the expiry numbers up. We are coping but we really should not. The sea inside should be thriving, bellowing, shouting in joy and learning to live in God.