Repeat

Walks are thinking time (I'm pretty sure I've said that before).

A few nights ago I went walking through Riverside just because. Nothing was bugging me or needed to be thought through, it was just a walk for the sake of walking.

I found a neat little spot, one that looks over the golf course.

The sun was just going down and from my west-facing seat I watched the clouds play in the light of the setting sun, listened to the noises (summer bugs make super odd noises), and took a deep breath – then was sprayed by the sprinkler.

We can be too busy. 

Miss the small nuances of life, the veins of a leaf; forget to look at the sun setting by watching the sun but not seeing it. We don’t keep our eyes open.

In fact this has been a semester long theme for me. When I was India I kept repeating to myself, “Keep your eyes open.” When all I wanted to do at some points was close them (for sleep or because the site was too much. No. No keep ‘em open).

No. Don’t miss this. Don’t miss the God-ordained picture that’s painted right in front of your face. Don’t look through it to something else, see it for all it’s worth and let it inspire awe in the moment and the God who planned the moment and sustains it.

I don’t think this is self-help information, I think it’s just a practice to be used. Something that’ll point us to worship while at the same time helping us to see our business isn’t all we are.

Windage

Last night I had Earth Science at WSU. You know that one science credit you don’t get done until senior year? Yea, that one. We had a test (surprise!)

After I finished I decided to walk around, I’d never seen campus at night (and since a guy had just been held up at gun point it seemed like a good idea). Walking through the RSC where no one was; over in front of the library (which, is it still open at 8pm?); and down back to the biology building.

But only one thing was nice about the walk, the wind.

It felt like it was forcing me to live. To see reality with eyes wide open and not forget the circumstances and all the happenings of life. (It also slapped me in the face with a leaf.)

(I saw a tweet by a friend, which read, “Just had a horrible nightmare and had to go outside to let that wind wake me up.” Which is exactly what I was feeling.)

I don’t want to over-spiritualize it, the wind. I won’t make a reference to Job and say that’s what I thought about, ‘cause it’s not. Nor will I reference John, ‘cause I didn’t think about that either.

Simply, I want to point to the beauty of it all. This place we inhabit, this creation we see, feel, and know. When under our feet hot hell rages, and above our heads a vast void extends, but on our faces the wind blows past. Trees grown under its pressure and seem to talk to one another (Ents!).

(Ironically enough my science class is all about how the world changes all the time, but climate change is bad… thatisall)

So feel the wind and see the clouds blow by, hear the birds sing their songs and the binding of the trees and know two things, we are not home yet and we are here, now for a reason.

Be not too easily pleased.

20-somethings

I went on my first walk in a long time last night (I also candied pecans and cooked myself a steak dinner. Bam, domestic!). Walks are therapy.

Quite honestly when I walked out the door I didn’t know which way I’d go, where I’d walk to, or how long I’d go for; I just meandered about until I ended up back on my front porch.

But mostly I walked along the river while the trees cast eerie shadows in the light of the moon. The voices of people far away carrying in the still air, the high thin clouds making the dark darker here and there all of it bursting through the seams of my mind to whisper, “Christ is King.”

Now-a-days weeks feel like years and days feel like months. Hours aren’t enough to measure things by (‘cept college algebra) and minutes might as well not exist. Is this growing up? Continually loosing track of time until so much of it has slipped through your fingers there’s no more left to hold.

I’m still just a kid.

But that’s a lie too. Kids are intrepid little devils who are fascinated by fireflies, clouds, and summer nights (or snow fights). The life of a twenty-something is the life of a wondering dreamer, wanting more to life but facing the constant reality of loosing track.

Yet this too is pointing us back to the whisper of the eerie shadow of the trees, “Christ is King.” We, we bunch of almost-kids who dream big and act small, we bunch of semi-adults who fight hard and believe little, we are part of a story much bigger than ourselves.

The beauty of reality is equal to the wonder of our imaginations. With complications, adventures, and the boring all of it is the story of our lives. And this story is intertwined with the story of Christ is King that we, we rag-tag individuals, ought never to look for more than the wonder of Jesus, because in him is enough to see the world changed and our lives made both whole and worth while.

At least that's the hope. Yet the mind of the cynic will always see the flaws, the failures. Indeed, I rarely get far from Lewis, "We are far too easily pleased."