Time – you ask yourself where it went when you don’t have much of it left, and you ask for it to go faster when it seems like you have plenty to spare.It is something certain yet uncertain, plentiful yet sparse, gentle yet unforgiving.For all that time is not, it certainly is a teacher of all things.
When our time is over, and we move on to whatever plane is our destiny, we leave little gifts behind.These gifts offer those we leave with tiny pleasures, tiny pains, and little insights into the world that was.We have a name for these little treasures, these gifts not extended yet always given, and we call them memories.Our lives can be summed up in the word memory.We either leave them behind or we don’t, and often time the choice is ours.Memories are some of the greatest gifts we can offer our loved ones, for when we no longer can reach out to comfort them, the memories we leave behind do it for us.They are, in essence, the “us” no longer alive but in the form we call memory.
For some of us it is hard to give the gift of ourselves that inspires thought long after we leave.We struggle to understand our value to a world that seems unforgiving, a world in which value is placed all-too-often on things that don’t matter.We sometimes can only see our value in the cars we drive, the toys we play with, or the way we look.When those things go we often are left to feel without value, without soul; because the things we cherished were without value and without soul.
For others it is easy to understand the gifts we give because they always get them in return.The laugh of a toddler as he wipes his nose on your pant leg, the chuckle of a preschooler as she pulls on your cheeks to get you to make a silly face, or the smile of your teenager as she tries to ignore your stupid jokes.It is easy to see the gift of love you give your spouse as she kisses you, because you can certainly see the gifts she offers without even trying.
It is hard to go from one of these extremes to the other.It is hard to forgive those who you feel wronged you in life.It is hard mostly to forgive yourself for both allowing yourself not only to hurt the ones you love but also from being hurt.You have to, though.You have to offer yourself the peace you need in order to share in peace with others.You have to extend yourself love if you wish to love others.You simply have to feel yourself worthy in order to find others worthy.
I am turning a corner in my life.I have found a unique spirituality, one that was always with me but one I finally understand.I feel love, in all it’s grandeur and all of it’s uniqueness.I feel so many things it is as if my heart is about to burst.I feel…
Wow.
I look back on the asshole that was me and wonder who that person was.I remember anger unabated when I met my wife.I remember hating the world, skeptical to the core of a world that never seemed to cut me many breaks.I remember seeing the world through glasses distorted by anger, hatred and selfishness.I can’t remember that person, I can’t feel what he felt, I can’t see what he saw, and I can’t be who he was.I can only hope to have one day get better than the one before it.I can only keep not expecting, but just allowing my life to change.I can’t ignore my anger, I can just learn to accept it for what it is – a memory of a time I can never forget.In accepting my past, in accepting the things that have happened to me, I accept who I am and fully understand that the dark side of me is only one side, and it need not own who I am.
I am letting go…
And I can feel the past slipping into a corner of my being.I can feel it becoming a part of me but not me.I can turn away from anger and grasp onto love.I can feel good about myself while loving my life.I can be what I was intended to be.
…and letting God.
I can feel His presence not like anything I ever thought it would be.I can see Him in the sunlight, in the moonlight, in the stars, in the grass, in everything around me.I can see Him in my children, in my wife, in my past and in my present.What’s else, I can see Him in the gaps.I see Him between the stars, between the blades of grass, between the sun and the earth.I can see Him in the ocean, and in those little bubbles that form when wave meets sand on the shoreline.I can see Him all around me in what is, and more miraculously, in what is not.
I can’t see Him as the angry God of my Christian roots. I can’t see Him flailing away at human weakness, just in human blindness. Simply, God is, isn’t and always will be.