Saturday, September 20, 2008

Fore. Because mitosis was waning.

The neat thing about keeping a diary is going back and looking at where you were before. Last year, I really didn't have any reference points, so I couldn't look back in comparison. This year, I have last year, and it's really interesting to compare last year to previous years.

Here's something that was on my mind a little over two years ago:

"Then, on the flipside, things that don't seem like the things that we like, just happen to show us that life really isn't about us. You are fundamentally not the most important person in your life. Let's repeat that, in case you missed it, because this is the main point that I want to make today. You are fundamentally not the most important person in your life. I forget that, we forget that often, to generalize it out to most of humanity."

I'm not the most important person in the life that I inhabit. I was talking to a friend here the other day, and he said something that's been rattling around my head (rattling because my head is really pretty empty) for the last few days. He said that the relationship is the most important thing in our life, then come our actions. It's the dichotomy with whom we know, and how we are to be children and servants. I too often forget to be the first, and only focus on being the second. Here's another snippet from something I said a little over a year ago:

"Just because we are hurting, just because we are weak, it doesn't mean that we can totally abdicate responsibility to accomplish something. Just because we don't exactly feel top of the line, does not mean that we are unable to be used, unable to do our work. Rather, precisely because we are weak sometimes is why we have been assigned the tasks before us. To run to gain the prize, not counting the hindrances or weights on us, but discarding them all. To return to the cold, rebuild, trample our own plans."

I could go on quoting my old thoughts, but I think I've pretty well established my point. I think of myself as a servant, as a dead-to-rights important servant, even when I wonder what I'm doing here, even when I wonder why I am supposed to be here. And this needs to change. I need to become more a child, less a servant. This is not to say that I should serve less, it is rather to say that I should be a child first. This is a paradigm shift for me, and so I'm not entirely sure how to do it right now.

One of the other, absolutely crucial reasons that I write my diary is so that I can go back in a while, and see what was going on, see what I was being taught. Really. I go back and look at my diary or my blogging from two years ago, and there's a lot of, "I don't like this, I'm not content and I don't know why..." stuff. And now I know why. It's because I wasn't where I needed to be, because I had to change, because I had to do something radical like come here. Things like the Malay Tragedy (let's see if anyone else remembers that reference) happened. The job that I thought I was going to stay at forever seemed to head south. It wasn't as though everything was going wrong all at once, rather it was an erosion, like the river wearing a new course in the countryside, that made me move. So maybe in a few years, I'll get what all this was for. Maybe?


Simple patterns in the tessellations
remind me of direction in rolling justice
shining forth in the corners of the earth
more beautiful than the court of a crimson king.

When the galaxy came to be, the local group formed
when nights gained their familiar landmarks and shapes
when no man could have fathomed the depths
when else could You have crafted even my dreams?

A mantle holding the standing stones of my life
I replace nothing which quiets my racing mind
a wandering son, in search of how to truly sleep
ready to die, safe from the prying spade, soon to live.


Just one last bit... Anyone* who in the next four days says to me, "Looks like somebody is planning for the end of the world!" will get something from me, like a laugh, or maybe another joke. Just to see if anyone actually reads my blog...

*not including Jonathan.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

ummm... Looks like someone is planning for the end of the world.

I would add something witty here, but I can't think of anything.

Russ said...

Typed. Doesn't count.

Unknown said...

so we're supposed to call you? I give up.