First of all band pictures, my son was rather hard to catch as he marched down the street playing Clarinet for the Timpview High School band...
Anyway, I stayed late at work today, basically because I got here late, like always... I'm glad that I have the freedom to stay late. I REALLY needed something to ease myself into working again.
So I'm here, the kids are at my parents (my oldest and youngest that is...). My daughter Angie is at Girls Camp, Sione is with his Dad.
Sooo, some thoughts. I'm 32, no seriously self... that's the number. I remember the time passing, yet it passed like a dream. Every waking day it seems as though I'm trying to get past it... trying to get over it... well almost every day... there are a few days and hours... minutes... seconds... that I wished would never end. Yet they treacherously did, and now on to the next minute of this day as simple and complex demands take my attention.
I hear the sound of the cleaners, emptying the trash. Soon they will discover me here...
They are down the hallway though... so I will write some more.
I remember getting my diploma, it's sitting on a shelf here in my cubicle, a weighty piece of paper... it took many, many moments of my life to get it. The hours I spent reading, rereading, and listening to lectures... taking tests. It's ironic that they dare to feel authorized to "confer" upon me some title, a degree, an award for all of that effort, "The degree of Bachelor of Science - Accounting." Honors, Cum Laude... irony. I felt so little when I graduated, a walking stone... In reality it was the equivalent of the paperwork you fill out after the labor of bringing life into this world, anticlimactic...
Especially since I had been through so much during this time, death, pain, sorrow, helplessness, lost love...
The death I starred at, late at night, it drained out of me, it lived in me... I struggled to know why it was there. The death I ritually wrapped in a cloth and carried to a tiny grave hoping to bury a piece of the sorrow. I faced it in the day time as well, with hard cramps and familial responsibilities. You never know how strong you are until you hide the pain from those who are too young to carry it...
Death I heard as a call in the night, a call to my heart... eminent relinquishment of a bond. I heard a voice tell me my Grandmother was about to die and so I went to see her in the hospital, stroked her hair back, marveling that my strong and gracious Grandmother could lie there helpless and oblivious. I talked to her, told her how much I loved her and she struggled against the tube down her throat to say something to me, anything! I told her that it was alright, that I understood and that I loved her. She lay back down and in the morning she died... my father was there to see her go.
How hard it is to grasp the divine. How hard it is to live with your hands to the glass, peering into the unknown.
I lay close to death, many times, and those who could have helped me were oblivious. After eating far to much gluten I found myself lying in bed, painfully caring for my baby daughter, struggling to lift her to my breast. Struggling to hang on. I told my mother that I was dying as I sat at her kitchen table, she didn't believe me. But I felt my soul rise, I felt disconnected from the world. It happened many times during the months, nay years after I had damaged my intestines so thoroughly. I remember lying in the tall grasses outside, staring at the kitchen window, weeping at the frailty I felt. The silent walk back inside, the utter helplessness as I watched the kids play, unable to direct them to stop doing this or that... to weak to speak to them. That is my own touch with death, I hope to not have to visit that world between worlds any time soon.
God, to me always this silent understanding that I've held of the universe. I've known that he was there ever since I walked silently through the dark gym behind the chapel partition, looking up at the dark green "Exit" sign, walking slowly as my shoes tapped on the gym floor. I think that God knows how to work with man better than men know how to work with man. Because I've often had to separate the actions that people take, the choices they make, from the actual manifestation of Gods will because very often people get it wrong. The closest that I've come to God is when I don't even know he is going to help me.
The blessing of a broken heart. The blessing of separation... the blessing of guilt, and the harm that unfounded guilt can do...
The important thing to remember is that when your heart is broken you are humble... it is quite different from deep grief. A broken heart is a sorrow for the state of separation that you feel from God. It is quite keen, poignant... and ultimately quite healing.
The separation that you feel creates the yearning, the sorrow that cannot be healed until you feel the healing balm of Gilead sooth your soul.
Guilt, by far the best indication that something is wrong with what you are doing... yet misinterpreted it can be harmful if all you do is live in a state of guilt. Becoming immune to guilt completely is to be completely unable to be persuaded by what is right, good and moral. But wallowing in guilt, feeling guilty for something that is not your fault... is destructive in and of itself. It is a fine line to walk to honor your conscience and yet to spurn the message of inadequacy or of failure. I suppose the best guide is to feel bad for those things that you intentionally do that you know are wrong. To question and evaluate those things that other people have influenced you to do and/or have done to you... and to not allow yourself to feel guilty for not having the time to do everything that you want to do.
Prayer, useless if you're not even trying, but a vital connection to the divine if used properly. The trouble is knowing in your mind and in your heart what you should do, because often your mind doesn't agree with your heart... and sometimes you wish that you had another choice... and sometimes the impossible seems to be within your grasp, it is marvelous.
I'm going to sign off, wishing that I knew more about this puzzling world... and yet ironically wishing that all I knew were those people whom I loved, and wishing that I could stay with each one of them forever...
Koli is the fourth one in... hard to see...
So I'm here, the kids are at my parents (my oldest and youngest that is...). My daughter Angie is at Girls Camp, Sione is with his Dad.
Sooo, some thoughts. I'm 32, no seriously self... that's the number. I remember the time passing, yet it passed like a dream. Every waking day it seems as though I'm trying to get past it... trying to get over it... well almost every day... there are a few days and hours... minutes... seconds... that I wished would never end. Yet they treacherously did, and now on to the next minute of this day as simple and complex demands take my attention.
I hear the sound of the cleaners, emptying the trash. Soon they will discover me here...
They are down the hallway though... so I will write some more.
I remember getting my diploma, it's sitting on a shelf here in my cubicle, a weighty piece of paper... it took many, many moments of my life to get it. The hours I spent reading, rereading, and listening to lectures... taking tests. It's ironic that they dare to feel authorized to "confer" upon me some title, a degree, an award for all of that effort, "The degree of Bachelor of Science - Accounting." Honors, Cum Laude... irony. I felt so little when I graduated, a walking stone... In reality it was the equivalent of the paperwork you fill out after the labor of bringing life into this world, anticlimactic...
Especially since I had been through so much during this time, death, pain, sorrow, helplessness, lost love...
The death I starred at, late at night, it drained out of me, it lived in me... I struggled to know why it was there. The death I ritually wrapped in a cloth and carried to a tiny grave hoping to bury a piece of the sorrow. I faced it in the day time as well, with hard cramps and familial responsibilities. You never know how strong you are until you hide the pain from those who are too young to carry it...
Death I heard as a call in the night, a call to my heart... eminent relinquishment of a bond. I heard a voice tell me my Grandmother was about to die and so I went to see her in the hospital, stroked her hair back, marveling that my strong and gracious Grandmother could lie there helpless and oblivious. I talked to her, told her how much I loved her and she struggled against the tube down her throat to say something to me, anything! I told her that it was alright, that I understood and that I loved her. She lay back down and in the morning she died... my father was there to see her go.
How hard it is to grasp the divine. How hard it is to live with your hands to the glass, peering into the unknown.
I lay close to death, many times, and those who could have helped me were oblivious. After eating far to much gluten I found myself lying in bed, painfully caring for my baby daughter, struggling to lift her to my breast. Struggling to hang on. I told my mother that I was dying as I sat at her kitchen table, she didn't believe me. But I felt my soul rise, I felt disconnected from the world. It happened many times during the months, nay years after I had damaged my intestines so thoroughly. I remember lying in the tall grasses outside, staring at the kitchen window, weeping at the frailty I felt. The silent walk back inside, the utter helplessness as I watched the kids play, unable to direct them to stop doing this or that... to weak to speak to them. That is my own touch with death, I hope to not have to visit that world between worlds any time soon.
God, to me always this silent understanding that I've held of the universe. I've known that he was there ever since I walked silently through the dark gym behind the chapel partition, looking up at the dark green "Exit" sign, walking slowly as my shoes tapped on the gym floor. I think that God knows how to work with man better than men know how to work with man. Because I've often had to separate the actions that people take, the choices they make, from the actual manifestation of Gods will because very often people get it wrong. The closest that I've come to God is when I don't even know he is going to help me.
The blessing of a broken heart. The blessing of separation... the blessing of guilt, and the harm that unfounded guilt can do...
The important thing to remember is that when your heart is broken you are humble... it is quite different from deep grief. A broken heart is a sorrow for the state of separation that you feel from God. It is quite keen, poignant... and ultimately quite healing.
The separation that you feel creates the yearning, the sorrow that cannot be healed until you feel the healing balm of Gilead sooth your soul.
Guilt, by far the best indication that something is wrong with what you are doing... yet misinterpreted it can be harmful if all you do is live in a state of guilt. Becoming immune to guilt completely is to be completely unable to be persuaded by what is right, good and moral. But wallowing in guilt, feeling guilty for something that is not your fault... is destructive in and of itself. It is a fine line to walk to honor your conscience and yet to spurn the message of inadequacy or of failure. I suppose the best guide is to feel bad for those things that you intentionally do that you know are wrong. To question and evaluate those things that other people have influenced you to do and/or have done to you... and to not allow yourself to feel guilty for not having the time to do everything that you want to do.
Prayer, useless if you're not even trying, but a vital connection to the divine if used properly. The trouble is knowing in your mind and in your heart what you should do, because often your mind doesn't agree with your heart... and sometimes you wish that you had another choice... and sometimes the impossible seems to be within your grasp, it is marvelous.
I'm going to sign off, wishing that I knew more about this puzzling world... and yet ironically wishing that all I knew were those people whom I loved, and wishing that I could stay with each one of them forever...
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