Oh yes.

Steam wafts upward in swirls of memories. The smell of healing saturates the air. There is chaos, there is peace, there is a moment without care of who or when or what happens. As the coffee brews, it drips serenity and drops life, creating a space for joy to take root, for movement to take place. With the deep and rich color comes a shining speck in time that is the depth our the soul, revealing all that one longs for to be made whole. A simple cup of coffee can be just a drug, but it means so much more to me.

Listen as the music plays.

Life is an orchestra. Full of  a diversity of instruments, all playing different notes in different ways, the various sounds mixing together into a creamy piece, inventing a tune as it goes along. The music carries you like a horse carries a rider, all over the place, yet still guided by the bridle. It’s largely a matter of interpretation, the way you perceive it and direct it into an accumulation of sounds that create music.

And like any notable orchestra, there are dynamics. Dynamics that carry the melody and sing the words of each instrument into a chorus of beauty, wrapped in the music, defined by the tensions and resolutions, the crescendos and decrescendos, the fortes and the pianos, the rests and the staccatos. As I listen to and even play this work of life, I discover how the sounds and dynamics and differences in each instrument clash and come close as they crescendo into a climax. But it’s not always pleasant. Sometimes there is irresolution, a sound that sounds like a problem with no solution, but if the instruments are not following the same conductor, if they are not united by the work of music they’re reading, then the sound will be obnoxious noise instead of life flowing freely, experimenting with the sounds, but all in unity. When the musicians cease to play the same piece, each deciding to read the music a little differently, the orchestra disperses into clashing sounds crashing into each other in a delirious mess.

Please be kind. Rewind.

What is it about seeing kindness that brings tears to my eyes.

What is it about seeing love that makes me cry.

I don’t pretend to understand it, but I know I can’t deny it.

There’s something so powerful, so moving, that it’s mere presence can be soothing to the deepest of wounds.

Seeing love spread like wildfire, like a cold in a class of middle schoolers, seeing how contagious kindness can be has the force to break down the walls I’ve put up around me.

It touches a heartstring so deep inside that it brings me to tears, makes the tough man cry.

I wish I had the eyes to see it every day as the world goes round and round the same way. But it’s actually not the same because some force has brought a change so deep that humanity becomes almost unrecognizable. A world of people who love one another and put their needs only after the others.

It really is true, that kindness is contagious and love is a raging fire that burns a path of reckless restoration and joy wherever it goes.

So as I watch, I’m not ashamed of the tears that slide down my cheeks, but instead I rejoice in the havoc love reeks. The havoc that turns a broken world inside out, that shows a better way to live together, a way that’s so powerfully beautiful when lived out.

So let the tears flow, let the hearts melt, for I want this kind of life regardless of the hand I’m dealt.

Swing. from February

Humanity. We swing back and forth on this great pendulum of the grandest grandfather clock you could imagine. From an egocentric, ethnocentric, self-consumed pride that says my life is the most important of all those alive and my decisions will ripple across space and time, so I must live it to the fullest and focus on everything I’m doing and the choices I make so that I can leave the impact and take the pressure of world change.

Then the pendulum swings to the other side, the selfless side. The dispensable side that says my life is just one in billions. It does not really matter how I live or what I’m doing, as long as I’m seeking to touch those closest to me. Life would go on just the same if I were gone, so I can live freely seeking to humbly live in a selfless way. My decisions aren’t a big deal, for trillions of people across space and time have made decisions and they don’t carry that far, so live freely and know that even if I weren’t here, God’s will would be done.

So which is right? We see one thing, then another, and we struggle deeply to settle somewhere in-between. Certain events will push us to one side or the other, different pressures coming from culture and friends, from nature and the like. It’s a struggle to see where we are headed and what’s going on as we push forward.

Connected. from February

Everything seems to be connected. Like a ball of yarn that winds and wraps around the earth, life is interwoven together in a way that can’t be ignored. Although I’ve been ignorant of it for 21 years, with a glimpse here or there of the seeming connectivity.

But it’s all connected. The physical. The emotional. Even spirituality.

When my body is off, this illness of whatever kind it is inside me, it overflows into my emotional mood, the way I relate to the people surrounding me. It brings my mood down into the depths, a reflection of how I physically feel. Or physical exhaustion is directly proportionate to emotional exhaustion, both leading to doubt and spiritual oblivion.

As humans, we are multi-dimensional, multi-faceted, but these multis are all related and united in each of us. And they’re connected to each other on top of that.

When I feel spiritually distant from God, doubting his goodness and reality, I distance myself from those around me. I push them away, hoping to stay protected, as I attempt to protect myself from God. When I am fighting what God is doing, I find that I’m fighting those I care most about, for no apparent reason. When I’m fighting to find my identity, over who I am in Christ, I find that I fight everyone close in my life, not allowing myself to see me as worthy of their unmerited love. Their patience. So I fight. My relationship with God overflows into my relationship with other.

Does that mean my interaction with him in submission, in love, will also be reflected? This is what they mean when they say the most important thing at the end of the day is to be in right relation with God. Because everything else dangles from that aspect, that fact.

Just like x/y=y/z, they’re directly proportionate, connected in every way that I can see. Man to man, god and humanity. The physical affects the emotional which affects the spiritual and everything in-between. We are holistic beings. Which is why taking care of ourselves, being good stewards of the bodys our souls shelve should be a major priority. No wonder I doubt exponentially more when I’m physically or emotionally exhausted. And when I’m doubting it exhausts me on every level.

And how we relate to each other. It all comes back to the pyramid. It all overflows from that.

And across space and time, we are connected as humanity.

I know I don’t usually see it, but it is seen in the liturgy. In the way we see each of these things. The same words are being said all over the world.