Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Pray For Us.

Midnight Freewrite

What is it about life? In the best of times it is bliss, just seeing the little amazing, mind boggling, miracles that keep it full of spice, variety and wonder, yet at the same time saying one comforting word: home. Life is home. At other times it might as well be a horror film where every moment you wonder when the zombies are going to tear someone’s heart out, literally. I know I was taught symbolism doesn’t have meaning without the literal translation, but I’m not sure I can translate life without the symbolism first. Is it the language or the things themselves? Sometimes I feel I’m only a bunch of words in someone else’s mouth; I have no substance myself. What is reality? What’s real? That is the question we are really asking, Right? It’s not all about Truth, right? We are talking about what is going on in our living breathing lives here. Where’s the beauty, the joy, the peace, the vibrancy that keeps us existing, it only slightly seems to gleam from us, or from some idealized heroic figure, like Einstein, or Churchill, or Mother Theresa, who we keep in the public eye. The truth is they are like us too, people who fall and pick themselves up again, have worries and troubles and for a moment think they are the mud of the earth, fearing they will fail in their hopes and aspirations and lose all, even, or mostly, themselves. I can’t describe very well what it’s like to be there, except it sucks. Friends are the only thing that can pull you out of that again, or be there till you get through it. Churchill began to paint; Mother Theresa had prayer and an entire world of poor people. (I can’t think of what Einstein had right now) There is something redeeming about laboring for someone other than yourself (I think it always comes down to a someone, and I’ll tell you why another time), whether it’s a connection with the light of a landscape or the light in the faces of the poorest of the poor. I suppose the laboring part began at the beginning, (well, shortly after), but the redeeming part was always there part of the potentially that is a single human person, an amazing beautiful, joyful, peaceful, vibrant individual who shines light on every other. This is what I dream of, this is my idea of life, to be such a person and still fully me. I only know of one such person (or is it three?) who labored to this degree, and as far as I know that’s why the rest of us are here, real.

[1] quod fuit ab initio quod audivimus quod vidimus oculis nostris quod perspeximus et manus nostrae temptaverunt de verbo vitae [2] et vita manifestata est et vidimus et testamur et adnuntiamus vobis vitam aeternam quae erat apud Patrem et apparuit nobis [3] quod vidimus et audivimus adnuntiamus et vobis ut et vos societatem habeatis nobiscum et societas nostra sit cum Patre et cum Filio eius Iesu Christo [4] et haec scribimus vobis ut gaudium nostrum sit plenum [5] et haec est adnuntiatio quam audivimus ab eo et adnuntiamus vobis quoniam Deus lux est et tenebrae in eo non sunt ullae

John 1:1-5