Essential and Trivial

There is a Rabinic law that states if there are two men in the desert; one carrying a jug of water, the other, a jug of honey; if the man with the jug of water gets a crack in his jar, the man with the jug of honey is required to pour out his honey to seal the cracks of the other man's jar. When the two men reach the nearest settlement, the man with the jug of water would reimburse the man with the jug of honey. The premise being, water is essential in the desert/wilderness (Midbar).

It's interesting to observe how our emphasis/values differ under certain conditions. You take a look at a place like Sierra Leone whose people have been made poor and homeless by civil war and greed of natural resources. Food is hard to come by. The only place to sleep is on dirt roads, in demolished vehicle or remnants of houses and huts. What do you think is essential to these people? What do you think is valuable and precious? It is life. The sacredness of life is brought into such precious focus. None of these people care about how they look, whether or not they are shopping at the right stores, driving the right car, impressing the right people. They are thankful for the next breath they take, for making it through the day without being killed, or having their children taken away by rebel forces and forced to fight in militias. They cherish the friends and family that they have. They are thankful to be human, to be living.

But you look at a country that is not a war zone, whose people live in spacious houses, where food is not a commodity, shelter is taken care of, and you see that the values are quite different from those who live in impoverished conditions. The importance is now placed on trivial things. It's not enough to have clothes, it's about what brand you are wearing and how it looks on you. It's not about your abilities and talents, it's about whether or not you can represent the image of a company, brand, etc. Friendship is reduced to quantity over quality, and relationships take a toll as well. It's been said that what God longs for is a broken and contrite heart. It sounds like a very dark thing to ask for, but when you think about it, aren't the times where life falls apart, where you lose your luxuries and reliances, aren't those the times that you come to truly appreciate things, people........life?

Bon Iver

I'm in this moment, a moment that draws me in, sucking the moisture out of the air, of every distraction. I'm thinking of the future, of the current years to come. I'm wanting to change again. I'm wanting to put away childish things and be more responsible. I'm wanting quality over quantity. I'm wanting true love, not solitude. I'm wanting things that I thought could never be possible, and seeing that it is possible. I'm awake, not just physically. My heart, my spirit, is awake. I'm silent. I am humbled. I suppose I could elaborate and turn this blog into multi-paragraphs of me trying to come close to expressing the truest sense of what I am feeling and realizing now, but save redundancy of running around in circles with a deluge of words I can at best conclude myself by saying................I want more

Aware

I've come to find the moments of peril and despair, are the moments that bring back everything into perspective. The more good we experience, we tend to drift further away from the meaning of life and find ourselves investing so much importance on trivial pursuits. I remember attending a funeral for a friend's mother who passed away. Thoughts ran around inside my head as I drove to the funeral service, but as soon as I stepped through the double doors into the chapel, all those thoughts disappeared, and the only thing I had was an awareness of the moment I was in, a moment that I was finding myself in communion with friends and strangers, yet somehow feeling a sense of connection, as if death made a way for us to understand one another, to not look at each other so differently, but finding a common denominator that we rested upon.
The first person that spoke was her husband. I watched as he walked up to the pulpit, bracing his right and left hands against the white painted wood. He closed his eyes tight, praying and waiting for strength. His words were calm and soft. They were a wall, held up against a rush of tears. You could feel the mourning through his tone, occasionally breaking his voice to let out pockets of crying that ripped through the seems of his composure. Restraining cries broke out among the gathered, like chimes colliding with the abrupt winds of loss and change. I prayed for each family member as they came up to say loving words of their beloved mother. I listened undividedly to every word, every pause, every silent sound of each tear that fell from their eyes into their hands and tissues, my heart was mourning in their unsung requiems that filled every pew and living soul. Everyone spoke of her like she was an angel. Every word just brought pieces that fit to make a beautiful portrait of a divine being as that, only without wings.
I proceeded along to the burial site. Standing in that gray stillness that traveled in the caravan of the mourning. I watched as my friend along with her family carried the white and silver laced casket to the welcoming abyss carved out, revealing earthly soil in some sobering painful resolution. My friend broke down in a loud mournful cry as she extended her hand, releasing her mother back to the dust from whence she came from, it was finally hitting her, she was letting go, she too was dying, laying down her hopes and waiting for God to raise the dead in her, as He raised her mother to the place many of us dream of and imagine, a place that we are reminded of each time we are captivated by beauty.
It made me think of life and how in this moment, it gets stripped of anything superficial and laying on the surface. The reputation we work tirelessly to uphold and expand, the clothes we brandish, the car we drive, the people we labor to impress, the money we flaunt, the job titles we broadcast, the lovers we showcase, lose their comfortless significance, and you are forced to realize what really matters. That a life is made by what is given, by what is sacrificed. It rings deep within me, the word legacy rolling around in the barrel of my stomach. I don't want to live for finite things; being worried about whether or not people like who I really am, if I'm wearing the right brand of clothing, driving the nicest car, and so forth. I want to live knowing I gave myself for other people, for love, for something worth dying for.

i think

I think that good and bad is always a decision away. The momentum of our integrity or the demise of our character is something close to a slow burn. It either ebbs away or builds bit by bit. When we say that a person is a good person, are we making an absolute statement, that this is the end result/analysis of what we have come about regarding this person? Or are we simply stating the accumulation of good deeds, experiences, and acts that we have either witnessed or heard this person accomplish and do? I have seen heroes of our time praised for their heroism, through much trial, tribulation, perseverance and alas victory....and in an instant lose all of that in one moment. Strange, it seems. Then again I recall the story of Jesus when He rode into Bethlehem being praised and adored, five days later those very people that laid palm branches before the Saviour, held their fists in contempt screaming "crucify him!" (we sure have a habit of changing our minds fast). It seems that our experiences are what we use to define the people we know. It also seems that no matter how many good experiences we may have, it only takes one bad experience to change our minds and our hearts.
I think we have a problem with being alone. I think that is what keeps us awake at night; whether we are single and in a studio apartment in a twin size bed that is too small for us, tossing in our thin covered sheets that barely keep us warm, or married and looking at our lover who lays right next to us, the one that we feel so distant from, so alienated, confused by the way their arms still wrap around us though they are deep in their sleep. And we, we are awake in some alarming revelation, that something just isn't right, and somehow stripping our attire and connecting ourselves with them in passion won't make us feel any closer than we do right now.
I think we crash into people because we long for touch. And when we can't feel touch in a soft way, even if we ask for it kindly and it does not come to unto us, we grow desperate of feeling someone to the point that we make contact so abruptly. Give us a hand on the shoulder, blow that eyelash that fell onto our face, put a hand on our lonesome shoulder, brush us aside if we are in the way, if we could please be in the way. So we'll grab a drink and become friendly, and maybe we won't be so conscious of those flaws about ourselves. Those things we find in the mirror that we wish could be tucked away while we are in the view of another person, particularly someone we hope to win over and find some loyalty and affection with. I think we lash out with our tongues because we are longing to be heard. And if we can offend someone, well then, we finally have an ear that will listen, and maybe that will stir up a conversation over coffee and lead to something further, a friendship perhaps, love maybe, by a very long, long shot.
I see ads all time when I'm online. "Find True Love" with a woman stripped of her clothing, holding up a bed sheet to cover those parts that stimulate a man's world like a strip of ecstasy rushing through our bloodstream. They give me a number to call. What the heck am I supposed do with that? Have a phone call with some random person whom I believe is the woman I am staring at that is clawing at the screen and she's telling me she'll fulfill my most sensual fantasies by merely describing what she'll do to me if she had the opportunity? All the while never speaking above a whisper, like Stephen Segal, but way sexier and giggling in a sinister manner that tries to tell me that naughty is nice at times. You can also punch in your specific qualities, what you're seeking and you'll get "accurate" matches of your desires. And if one of them doesn't work, you can always adjust your expectations by a click of a button. It's a cheap way of getting a touch, even if it's with our eyes closed and groping ourselves as the other hand is holding the receiver. But we, we are not there. We are lying in bed with that voice on the phone. We are tied up, soaked in some warm oil, and doing God knows what kinds of nasty. But the point is we would be in company, good or bad, it's company. We, we would not be.. Alone.

Building Memories

I look back on my life this morning, and realize that it has been quite a trail that I have made thus far. It's strange to see the person I was as a child, as a teenager, and even a few years back. Strange, to see the things that I valued, the things I occupied my time with, the things I deemed important and essential to life, are no longer what is important to me now. At my tender age of 24, not too old, not so young, I sense a change in me; a change that tells me I am growing up. My mind used to race like a pro, never able to be still, now it seems that stillness is what I find myself in more than ever. I used to not look ahead at life, just be in the moment, I thought to myself, live free and and live fast. But I find it so uncanny that I no longer want the fast. I still want to live free, but with respect for the years to come, think about the time I have and where to spend and invest it. There are things I thought I'd never be able to grow out of, or grow old of, and I laugh as I see the stubborness of my youth being proven wrong by the maturity I have acquired.
Everything has an end. I finally realize that truth in my life. Knowing it doesn't scare me, it just makes me realize that each moment that I have is precious, and has always been. Aware now of the limited time I have, it makes me value things more; family, friends, things that I do. Such a strange thing now, but I realize that while I am still somewhat young, when I am an old man, I want to look back and smile more, and so I finally realize just exactly what I am doing.........I am building memories for the years to come, and making them good ones.