Simple things and journeys

Simplicity.

It always seems to get the best of me.

Always slipping away from me.

Every time I think I can see it slips through my fingers.

Like sand held in the palm of a child’s hand.

Just when I think I understand, it’s gone.

It comes, but not for long.

A short visit,

Just enough to get the appetite whet.

Just enough to remind me of its beauty.

Of the freedom that lies within.

But that’s not how my mind is.

So I can choose to hate who I am,

Or I can learn to love the life I’ve been given,

Taking every advantage of the things that remind and drive home that simplicity.

The time has come to track this journey, to slow down enough to see what has really happened to and around me. This year has been full of beautiful things, but I have never stopped to appreciate them, to allow their transformation to sink in.

Yes, I’m torn in several directions. Mainly one that screams I need a job, I need a plan, I need a man and a future to move towards. Go, go, go, work, work, work. Try, try, strive. Like a hamster’s wheel that seals you into an endless fate of nonstop hurry and worry, never arriving anywhere but spinning your tires like trying to get somewhere by running down an up escalator.

The other quietly whispers the gentle need to slow down. To walk. Maybe even allow things to pass me by without reaching out to try and catch them, dragging myself along with the ropes that dangle off them. Time. Time to slow down, to process, to unlock what has been a mystery for the past year. To share and to talk, but most of all to listen. To entertain my questions and seek Truth. Humbly and honestly. Yes, there’s the need and desire to give back, to have something to offer, but what does that mean? This second pull is much gentler, easily overpowered by the culture that envelops me like a bark encases a tree. I can’t seem to escape. Yet I hear the faint whisper offering a different place. A different direction. A different life. One of simplicity. Of humility. Of contentment. Of joy.

But now the question becomes whether receiving these things is wasting the gifts I’ve been given to strive to become someone. To study and write and publish and earn a name, some sort of fame to be a platform, to honor God and say, I’m a faithful servant, look what I’ve done. I’m not sure what I think yet, and I don’t think I have to.

But I know that one is louder, but the other deeper, more beautiful, a life of selfless love. Contrary to the world. And that’s why its not nearly as loud. A diamond shrouded in a humble beggars sac, just waiting to be discovered by any who would dare spare the moment it takes, the risk of discovering reality, the chance to make a choice that  could reveal an empty sac. But those who care to dare to open it will find something priceless. Something perfectly precious. They’ll find Life.