Friday, June 18, 2010

musings

I love life. I love the stars. I wish the real world was more like a fantasy novel. If it were, I would be a kender because I'm not afraid of anything and I love shiny objects. I try to be awake because Henry David Thoreau says that to be awake is to be alive. He says the mass of men live in quiet desperation. I have a hippy van and a dog named charley. I love my Thomas and believe in God. I'm very smart, and I know a lot of things, but the only real knowledge I've gained is that I am not wise.

I am naive. I believe that people are good and i always think people tell the truth. I am an easy target for salesmen, but i don't care. i'd rather be gullible than cynical. I believe in Karma but i don't think bad things happen to people JUST because they are bad. I mean, look at poor Job. I haven't figured out the algorithm yet, but karma definitely plays a role in the universe's justice system.

I lead a charmed life. I have received great love, witnessed of true sublime beauty, and felt a deep compassion for the suffering of humanity.

I hate holier than thou people more than pagans. I don't like smooshy apples. I want to believe in reincarnation for two reasons. 1. i think it would make the universe more fair, 2. i have too many things i want to do in life to complete in one lifetime.

When I was little i wanted to be a hobo. I wanted a stick with a little bundle wrapped in a handkerchief. I wanted to ride the trains and find work on farms with the seasons. I still think that would be a good life, but I think i'd have to live in the 1920's or 30's for it to work out.

I think God is beautiful and mysterious. I don't like when people try and subjugate God to reason and science, as if God must defend himself to our tiny world, like a human trying to explain his existence to an ant. Describing God, creation, and redemption is more poetry than physics, more art than equation. Sometimes I am afraid because there is so much I don't know.

I can't comprehend eternity. I can't even really think about it. It is more than I can bear. So i don't think about heaven or hell or what will happen to me when I die. I can't. I love God not because of eternity, but because I am humbled and and awe-struck that God allows me to know him in the terribly brief moment that is my life. I find it a great act of mercy that he even lets me try to worship.

I love Thomas because he is authentic. I love thomas because i am more myself with him than i am when i'm alone.

i don't need to be important, but i yearn to live fully, or as Thoreau says, "deliberately." I've seen true poverty and real sickness. I've seen a child die and a people suffer because they lived on the wrong continent. I've talked to AIDS patients who were abandoned by their families, I've danced with the oppressed, and I've lived in a hut. i've been to funerals of those who could not take the strain of another day. I've walked the halls of dirty, decrepit desolate hospitals. I've held mal-nurished children who cried for human touch. I've seen evil, twisted, horrible things. But, i'm an optimist and an idealist. In all the terribleness i've found beauty and joy in the enduring spirit of people all over the world.

Through natural disaster, war, oppression, famine, disease we live and we do the craziest thing of all, we bring little people into the world. Little people who will see the same awfulness and experience terrible heart ache. We must procreate because we believe there is something greater to life than suffering. that's cool.