Category: Thoughts

The Strange Competitive Nature of People…

Why is it when I’m driving on the freeway, the CAR driving in the lane next to me speeds up and slows down to keep me from passing? We are not going to the same place. I am not trying to beat him to some mutual destination. There is a huge honking pickup truck trying to swallow my bumper. I am just wanting to move into the appropriate lane so that Mr. Pickup Truck will pass me.

The CAR in the lane next to me matches my speed. Why? If I slow down; CAR slows down, if I speed up; CAR speeds up. All the while, Mr. Pickup Truck believes that CAR and I are playing a twisted game of don’t-let-HIM-pass.

Where are we going that we must beat the other? We are on the same road. We are going in the same direction.

Where are manners, politeness, courtesy and kindness?

There is a strange competitive nature of people.

If I win; you lose.

If I am first; you are not.

Do I have manners, politeness, courtesy and kindness even when I lose…even when it appears that I am not the first or the best.

Will I be mad at Mr. Truck for so rudely pushing me beyond the speed limit? Will I want to scream at silly CAR for being obliviously in my way?

Yes; and yes.

Too bad. This realization is humbling. I am a strange and competitive person even when there is no race and there are no stakes.

Could I compete in something that truly matters?

Could I work to win at love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, meekness and self control? Could I rein in the hostile nature of my competitiveness and honor another person just because life is more than sharing a road and going in the same direction. Honor another? Will I?

Yes. This is a race with high stakes. This is a place where I want to attempt the win.

With this strange competitive nature of mine and a newly chosen focus, I may lose.

I may lose my attitude, my hidden hatefulness, and thinly veiled hostility.

I may gain.

Christ in me. The HOPE of glory.

Mr. Pickup Truck and CAR; I will try.

I WILL try, on my honor, to honor this new resolve.

I have discovered that grammarians do not like writers who use the Passive Voice.

Those who are often observed using the Passive Voice, do not like grammarians.

I will continue with my observations.

Observe, do, be, grow if you so choose.

When I step through the threshold of time, into timelessness,

I will understand Eternity.

I will realize that existential thought was vanity in the vast expanse of forever.

This brings strange peace in moments of chaos. It brings comfort to terrors that exist only in present circumstances.

Then?

Timelessness.

A Sea of Forgetfulness.

No hate. No tears. No pain.

What I am begins, as I know, as I am known.

One thing I ask of the LORD, and this is what I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Eternity.

Unending. Eternity. Forever. Synonyms.

Words that mean the same thing.

There are so many words in the English language. Why do we use the same words over and over and over? (Do you see what I did?)

This was not intended to be an anti-jargon rant but “awesome” has lost its true meaning.

Now awesome means ANYTHING. It can apply to everything.

Pasta. Awesome

That dress; awesome.

The dog, the movie, the car, the child, the swing set, the touchdown… all; awesome.

When a word means everything it means nothing.

Pasta and a child, both awesome?

A dog and a car? How are these things similar? How does one word describe all of these unrelated things and so many more? It’s used daily.

Did you use it today?

Awesome.

I am tired of you.

Awesome, you bore me.

The definition of awesome is, “Inspiring awe and wonder; something that is extraordinary, or awing.”

Now things that are truly awesome have to have a different word.

Comparing a glorious sunset to a pasta dish is incongruous.

The sunset was awe inspiring (awesome) the pasta dish was delicious (not awesome).

Words. They have legitimate meanings.

Unless the word is awesome.

May I suggest a Thesaurus?

Recently, my eighty-something-year-old mother has given me a new and thought-provoking idea.

At the end of each of our conversations, she says, ”Darling, thank you for loving me.”

What?

Thanking someone for their love?

Profound.

I must not only accept her gratitude but implement it in my relationships with others.

Love is a precious gift.

Why have I not thanked those who love me?

I suppose I take love for granted.

I am still learning humbling lessons from my lovely mother.

Each year I contemplate what I would like to change in my life. I resolve to do this, or not do that. I have a deep conviction that by changing these few things, I will be a healthier, happier Me. Each year my resolve wanes as the tasks become tedious, or my desire for things I gave up becomes overwhelmingly strong.

The last few years I have made similar grandiose resolutions.

Many people do not share this bad habit and will not understand the addictive nature of my vise, or the difficulty in overcoming it.

I will give up watching television.

I will invest the time I spend watching television in reading and writing instead.

Television strips the power of imagination and contemplation from me. It entertains, occasionally, but really; it is a time thief. It takes the time I give it, giving me nothing in return. I am not rested, motivated or strengthened. I am ticking off minutes and hours of my life investing in vapor.

The thought, however, of getting off the couch after a long day at work, and doing something productive, has no appeal. I am held hostage by the repetitive choices that have become who I am.

I am not contemplating life-mystery, behavior, or meaning. I am not concerned about bettering myself or connecting with those who share my small space in time.

I have my few minutes of devotional time each morning, and then plow through the rest of the moments given to me each day as I please.

RESOLUTION: I will give up watching TV. CHALLENGE: I challenge myself to read and write instead.

Passage of time… Much time passes… Weeks pass… Maybe a month passes… Six weeks pass… A few more days pass… A few more hours pass… Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of seconds pass……

Where is that remote?

Well, this challenge went much like every other resolution I have ever made. Diet. Exercise. Writing. It all goes well for a few weeks. Maybe a few months… never longer. The cares of life crowd in… laundry, chores, bills, and work; and with tiredness and short days, weariness creeps in stealing motivation and thought. It is so much easier to numb stress with redundant TV reruns…Mind-drugs; as highly addictive as pain meds and strangely, as difficult from which to wean oneself.

This is no longer a resolution. It is not even a self-challenge. It is, instead a strong desire to use the time I am given productively. I am aware that rest is a mandate, and is an important part of living a healthy life.

I am attempting, however, to change how I define rest. I want to experience a thought-provoking life. I want meditative rest; to reflect, create, or enjoy the many things I have been given. I do not want the song in my heart or head, to be a song created by a marketing team, used to sell their products in a sixty-second commercial.

Television is not my enemy. The inability to control it in my life is what I must guard against. While it may occasionally be restful to watch a movie or to tune in to a favorite show, it is often nothing more than mind-numbing room noise.

With this realization, I will resume my attempt to write more consistently. I would like to share my thoughts with others who also share this fragment of time we have on this earth.

I no longer believe that my writing will have continuity, but I choose to resist the thought-less life.

It gives me profound joy when I look up into the searingly hot summer sky and know that the stars are still there.

They are hidden from my eyes by the intense light of the summer sun, and yet; they are there.

Their gentle, comforting, beauty, their attached mystery, and awe, still there.

Unseen. Yet there.

As the sun sets, I begin to see them once again; my heart is soothed. It is not that they are back. It is that they never left.

Mystery is there.

The wish that comes with the first-star sighting, stirs in me the continuity of unseen forces.

Unseen realities…

Objects that disappear, but do not cease to exist, tantalize the very core of thought processes.

Unseen stars on a wearisome summer day, incite in me, profound wonder and unexplainable joy.

Concrete concepts: abstract meaning.

I did because you said I couldn’t.

I did because you said I wouldn’t.

All my life I’ve been shaped by you.

Not doing what you’d want me to.

When did it change, this disdain?

When did I cry out in pain?

When did it start,

and when did I stop, hating you?

Now I see in you, what I never saw.

Your push, your drive, your stubborn will; replaced.

Two words actually changed it all.

“I’m sorry,” you said to me.

Your “I’m sorry” set me free.

I can chose to love you now.

I can refuse to hate.

Your words gave my heart new eyes.

I see a different man.

My eyes see you wasting away and my heart breaks because you said you were sorry.

You realized at some point that you had crushed my soul. I felt your disapproval. I knew I was not who you wanted me to be.

It took years for you to garner your strength; however, you became strong by admitting you were wrong.

You bowed your pride and loved me.

It would be easier to lose you if I didn’t love you now.

I can because you said I couldn’t. I did because you said I shouldn’t.

You shaped who I have become.

Intentionally or unintentionally you taught me how to be who I am.

Now, in this…Daddy, may my LOVE shape you.

I know you thought that it couldn’t.

It has, though I know you thought that it wouldn’t.

Shock. Heart-ache. Loneliness and a deep sense of loss.

A feeling that the earth has stopped spinning in its orbit.

Death. Why do you rob the soul of so much?

Time why have you become an enemy to my heart?

Heart-wrenching sobs escape from the depths of my soul. There must be no more air in my lungs, as I am unable to breathe. Intense gasping and numbness engulf me as I look heavenward. How?

How will I survive this gaping wound;

this unacceptable death?

Contemplation of life and love and loss leads me to one conclusion only. My life will be forever changed. My soul looks Heavenward for solace as I seek understanding, and as I remember who I was before death crushed my soul.

My spirit will believe that there is a comfort capable of going beyond my understanding.

I look to God and ask for him to hold my heart; to quiet my convulsive cries, and to catch my streaming tears, while I wrestle with this death; and all of its unwelcomed aftermath.

Death, though inevitable is entirely unacceptable.

Majestic arches into times now unknown.

Ruling governments conquered, then overthrown.

Surrounded now, as it was surrounded then,

by beauty and grace, and by hoards of men.

Forgetting and forgotten wisdom of God,

treading in the streets that were so often trod.

The Grecians, the Romans and the Sultan Kings,

The beauty, the wisdom and powerful things.

Did they hear Wisdom’s words? Did they heed her call?

Or forsaken, surprised, at their city’s fall?

Nothing remains now but the mortar and stone

And sweet imaginations I dream alone.

A city surrounded by legend on sea;

And treasured by Nations, by kings, and by me.