God's pulling me back in
So everything happens for a reason. I've been trying to comprehend this past week's happenings but i couldn't. two years and a month ago my grandmother died. let me tell you how this happened. I lost my wallet. in it was everything valuable to me, and everything that makes me a functioning citizen in this world where money and identification rule. so i felt useless. I called my dad who wouldn't tell me he was at my grandmother's death bed, but helped me figure out what to do with the lost information, how to cancel credit cards, etc etc. so on that day i probably called or talked to him like 4 or 5 times in a row - when i normally would call him once a week or every other day or something of the sort.
The last time of the succession of calls, i asked how grandma was doing, he grew silent. I didn't press him but got off of the phone and carried on my way.
he called me back a little later to tell me he didn't want to tell me there, but while i was on the phone with him, she passed away.
further observation of the situation led me to rethink the events and see how God plans things to get you back in line with him, with family, with life. sometimes we get so caught up in the everyday things (here i am/was fretting about three exams and a quiz next week) that we forget the eternal things and the things not of this life, but the next. we think too much on the present and not on the everlasting future.
this epiphany led me to a spiritual awakening among other things, but i remember the series of events sheltered around the loss of a wallet and everything that makes me "something" or "someone" in this material world.
so when i got my wallet stolen this past monday i was like "ok God, what's happening, who's dying?" and it wasn't that someone around me was dying, it was my spiritual self that is/was dying. we are all dying everyday. I'm learning about how the 16th century poets wrote about time's diminishing qualities, and it's true. each day we walk further west (like in my sonnet), and further away from the day we were born, closer to our graves. and i'm learning that each day without God is a lonely existence. Of course, whoever stole my wallet got about 25 bucks in cash from me but thankfully realized that all of the credit cards would be cancelled (within an hour after i perceived it stolen)and debit cards rendered useless.
today i got a package in the mail. I was confused - it was from a Lutheran Church downtown. Someone stole my wallet, gutted it of its monetary value and threw it infront of a Church. The church sent it back to me. I got my wallet back at the "cost" of 25$ but with a value that is ineffable. God's got great ways of speaking to me in terms that he knows i'll listen. And he's learning to speak to me in patterns.
i'm listening. I hear You.
A sonnet and things
first, here's something i wrote the other day. I've been so busy, that writing isn't easy for me as it once was, how sad. but i refuse to let my spark die. (of course, it's sad, would you expect anything else?)
sonnet 11798
What solemn steps, his tread through the streets, weaves
through valleys, shadows, death. He fears only
the morning journeys, the idle chatter
on stranger-lined pathways to hospital,
where he will wait judgment. Soon, his functions
will fade from flashes meant to cure, too soon.
I watch his steps with back towards the sun
rising. He stumbles. I wince, pray his legs
steady; call out to him in instinct. He
hears me not. In car I pass this man on
sidewalk, walking West. In him, I picture
Grandpa: his same processions in face mask.
I think to this man to change directions.
I know the consequences of this walk.
okay. so that was my sonnet in blank verse.
what else? I've been exercising a lot more lately. getting up at 6:30 each morning to run 1, 1.5 or 2 miles. i love coming back and taking a cold-ish shower. i love the feeling of accomplishment when i see my car and my house on the return. I also have grown a love affair with yoga. more for its stretching purposes than it's meditative purposes...i've found that the repetive slow motions work up a nice sweat, and then as you're warming up your muscles, you're stretching them at the same time and it's pretty nice.
i still dont like it here, in case you're wondering. i still want to go back to chapel hill where things seemed a little more simple.
okay. off to do some yoga, then reading then sleep. got 2 miles to conquer in the morning.
closing time
that's the title (at least, i think) of this song that is sort of the theme for the way things look to me. like things are wrapping up, ready to transition to other places, other times. and i dont just mean with me. I mean with this world.
i cannot begin to comprehend what has happened to the peoples of the gulf coast. but i can remember a dream I had once, i woke up in a deep sweat, gasping for air, as if i had drowned. in my dream, i did. it was a really big, elaborate dream constructed by my REM and i guess a depiction of what my mind thought at that moment "the end" would be like. I've had more than one of these dreams, I should add. it's kind of weird, really.
anyways. back to the dream. so the dream has me starting on a beach with some friends. we're playing something. i go to change my bathing suit. come back out, dark clouds, thunder. and BAM! lightning flash and it's like a scene change. i'm standin in line with my friend (who is faceless, at least, i can't remember who i had in my dream with me) and we're holding hands, ankle-deep in water. then, another flash. scene change. we're all apologizing to each other. i realize i hadn't apologized to my friend (i can't even begin to imagine what i had done to warrant that) and so i walk up and before i open my mouth, she just simply says "it's okay, i forgive you, He forgives." then we're back in line walking deeper into the water, as if driven by some force beyond our control, only, i could have gotten away, but i was pre-occupied with the fact that my best friend couldn't swim and was walking out to sea. so another flash and we're wiped out by a big wave. a huge, wave. my friend doesn't survive the wave. it's just me and God and Satan. (i add satan in as i look back. i was fighting something in that water) i start praying, saying the Lord's prayer and each line it feels as if my body is getting heavier and heavier, but i'm determined to finish before i go under. i think this is how God is going to end the world. say Amen and sucuumb to the waters rushing into my lungs...then i wake up coughing and gasping for air.
and i mean, i look at the destruction all of the millions of gallons of water dumped into the gulf coast region, and i can't help to think that to them down there, someone's had this experience. I can only pray that they called out to God before they left. but it's kind of scary, having these dreams, seeing pieces of them come to fruition. seeing this one dream that i think has some bits and pieces of prophecy being fulfilled....that's a bit scary on my part, but i shall not reveal it just yet. i dont know. it seems as if maybe i have something greater than me within me, and i'm afraid of it. perhaps i am. maybe i'm just imagining everything, and nothing really exists but time, and we're just images that will fade away -
i hope to at least leave a good impression.
so yeh, this was a bit random, i just had to get my thoughts out on it all.
