Grad school has been taking its toll on me.
I have finished my first whole year and I am exhausted. I am worn down.
As I can see the end of my summer classes two weeks away I receive emails from the fall classes beginning to start. I can find no rest. I should have taken the summer off but I want this dream I am so close to it I must press on.
But I need rest. I need to leave my room I need to reignite the friendships I have neglected this past year.
I need to travel. I need to explore, I need conversation, I need to be known. God I haven't been to the pantry since Christmas. Who am I? What am I doing with my time, with my life?
So I've been picking up the phone, I've been texting those relationships I have allowed to wither.
I met up with David on Monday. We drove down to the city to talk.
I opened up. I'm done performing. I'm done hiding. So I shared.
We talked about our dreams.
We talked about our fears.
We talked about who we are.
We talked about being known, why it is so important to us humans and why it is so scary to be known.
David shared with me his fears about marriage. He talked about his engagement and the idea of losing himself in marriage. His father's marriage, his brother's, He shared how he doesn't want to give up his individuality and what makes him who he is.
"Marriage either halves you or doubles you."
He talked about how Jenna walked with him and worked out those fears that lead them to engagement.
We talked about the one thing the person we care about most could say to us that would hurt us the most.
He asked about Bea.
We revisited conversations from hotel rooms on the other side of this planet.
We talked about making new friends as adults. We talked about what friendship should look like and how to maintain that level.
I thought about the imagine this man paints on his Instagram, his social media lens life and the reality of who he is beside me as we watch the Earth rotate around the sun lowering it on our city to the next section of the planet illuminating the sky a shade of magenta that struck both of us speechless.
We are shaped by our past, our communities, and our place on the Earth. This man standing next to me, who he is and will be. Before I knew it, it was 10pm and we had spent four hours standing and sharing.
As we parted ways he looked me in the eyes and said he loved me. I cynically thought to myself how can this man say he loves me? He wasn't there in middle school. He wasn't there in college like my other friends. But then I thought to myself, maybe he doesn't have to be.
I know I have thought this many times before God but the definition of love for one person can be something very different to another. Or maybe the same, just given more freely than others. For some it could be a feeling, it could be a promise, it could be some mixture of the two. Or maybe it is tapping into a connection, a relationship, or a perspective of the Creator of all.
What do we mean when we say we love?
I've been thinking about about how it felt to sit on that ledge with David. Being still up there feeling the air on my skin, the deep breaths in my nose down to my lungs.
Up there in that moment
I felt peace
I felt You, oh God
no anxiety
no grad school
no social pressures
no expectations
Peace.
Adam and David, I wonder what the interaction of the two bible character would have been had they met. The first man, and the king of Israel. How strange it would be to attempt to explain kingship, government, and war to the first man on Earth.
It's interesting how our perspectives can shuffle our priorities.
When I walk in the ravines of the city I feel so small, everything feels so big. It feels as though I cannot make an impact. Mortgages, retirement funds, job descriptions, and health insurance fill my mind. I look up at the city and think about how insignificant I am among it.
Then I sit on this ledge over looking my city and everything feels so small. From up here what kind of car you drive doesn't matter because I can't even see the logo on the front. Those tiny shiny rocks we put on our fingers, in our ears and around our necks are invisible. The people I see from up here, I can't tell if they are gay or straight, if they are Muslim, Atheist, or Christian, Democrat, Republican, I can't tell if they are millionaires or broke, educated or not. That remodeled kitchen with the matching appliances goes unnoticed inside the downtown loft from the distant exterior. What are we even doing with our lives?
But perspectives are so valuable.
It is good to get down in the ravine, to notice the centipede, the spider, and the foliage. These tiny things are paramount to our planet's survival. To stay up on top of the city would lose this perspective. It's important to get down and know that this city is so much more than glass and steel that there are people filling it each with their own dreams, fears, and passions. Down in the ravine I can see clearly what holds the city together. The rocks and the streams, each root that holds up every leaf and each brick that stacks to collectively form the city.
But if I never zoom out and stand above the city then I lose the lens that the clothes I wear and the thoughts of what strangers think of me based on looks, and my actions isn't everything. It is good to sit above the city. From up here I can see the river's shape. I can see that parking tickets, being to work on time, and what kind of car I drove isn't that important. Up here I am reminded I am the gerridae. Up here I can see the beauty of the collection of each of those leaves to form a green landscape. I can see that those bricks together make a wonderful city magnificently reflecting the sun's colors all around. But if I stay up here too long I might forget the little things. Up here I cannot notice the pollution of the water shed. Up here I cannot notice the affects of every light switch burning coal to heat this planet.
So how do I balance the two?
How do I square the smallness of myself with the smallness of our planet?
How do I keep in mind that life is so much more than collecting a big digital number stored in some bank's computer system? Life is so much more than worrying about the little differences. and Yet, it is important to know who is Muslim, who is black, who is gay, who is a refugee. It is important to pay those bills to have a place to rest your head. From above we learn to see everyone as equals so that in the ravine we may fight for justice and equality where the differences are more clear. If we only live in the ravine all we notice is the differences and the insignificant things become the most important. However if we only live at the top of the city the most important things become insignificant. Everyone becomes the same, People start to look like a commodity, or the daily struggles and hardships are easily brushed over. We must live in the ravine but we must also take time to retreat and rest above the city.
Needed Perspective
William Beebe, the naturalist, tells us of a ritual through which he and the late Theodore Roosevelt used to go at Aagamore Hill. "After an evening talk, perhaps about the fringes of knowledge, or some new possibility of climbing into the minds or senses of animals, we would go out on the lawn, where we took turns in an amusing little astronomical rite. We searched until we found, with or without glasses, the faint heavenly spot of light-mist beyond the lower left-hand corner of the great square of Pegasus, when one or the other of us would recite:
That is the Spiral Galaxy of Andromeda
It is as large as our milky way.
It is one of a hundred million galaxies.
It is seven hundred and fifty thousand light-years away.
It consists of one hundred billion suns, each larger than our sun.
After an interval, Colonel Roosevelt would grin at me, and say:
'Now I think we are small enough! Let's go to bed!'"
-William Sloane Coffin
How strange that we exist. What a mystery to even breathe, to see what is around us to know to think and to love. Temporary is such a strange concept to me and yet it is maybe the truest truth. Everything in this life in this reality is temporary. How valuable that makes each moment, each breath.
Thank you God for evenings like Monday night. Thank you for friends like David.
I ask for many more moments like this.
My heart is filled with gratitude.
And I like it just like that.
Even as I sit here feeling my heart pound in my chest sending blood back and forth through my body like the rivers of the city, maintaining life.
Thank you.
God, I pray that Bea finds her honesty and I pray that she finds peace in that.
Thank You for the time I've had her in my life and I ask for much much more time.
I miss her and I love her very much so, oh God.
Please once more, oh God.
Hammock - I Can Almost See You