Snow. Beautiful glistening snow here in Appalachia. I don't know how or why, but every time I step out from my front porch into it's softly flowing serenity, I sniff the air only to hear in my mind the smooth, suave voice of Michael Jackson speaking to me, "I'm a lover, not a fighter." I giggle a bit, questioning why I hear Michael Jackson's voice so vivid, so audible. I find that I don't really even like that word, SNOW. Too bland. I think I'd rather like to call it "Feather dust." Much more fitting as to its actual substance, rather than what it appears to be.
That bastard of procrastination has crept up on me these past few months. And with the weather as it is, nasty habits of having me rush everywhere seem inevitably dangerous. Just the other day, I was running late to dinner, and just as I approached the driveway, I wiped out on a mighty large piece of ice. Busted it. I went into work the next day with a torturous ache. I was explaining my fall to a fellow staff member, how I laid in the ground after slipping and just enjoyed trying to eat the feather dust ("snow") with no hands, and how tasty it was. She stopped her fidgeting with an oxygen mask, suddenly narrowed her look at me and breathed that "sigh" breath. I got nervous. Was I rambling? Was I telling one of those dumb stories that she doesn't care about when she is trying to look and act like she does? Her pause as she looked at me seemed to transcend time and elapse through me an entire lifetime. "Let me ask you something, Beth," she framed. Still, though feeling vulnerable, no detection was made whether an unsuspected wrath was coming or a crude shriek of humor. "Yeah?" I hesitated. "You're fresh out aren't you?" Baffled, I had no clue. "Fresh out of what?" I replied. She retorted, "I could smell you from a mile away. You're fresh out of school. Newbie to life." What the crap was this lady talking about? Quickly, still in her presence, I tried to recap our short-lived interaction to see what in the world would give her leeway that I was "fresh out." Should I be offended? Pissed? Laugh as if it was funny? She began to exit to leave the room when I grabbed her arm and said, "I'm sorry but what do mean 'newbie to life?'" She cracked a side smile, one that was cocked with half-ass sincerity, "Oh, you'll get it when you're my age." No offense to her, but I didn't feel like waiting 30 years to figure out why falling on a piece of ice and eating snow somehow generalized me as a "newbie to life." I'm 23 years old, and by God, if something has not throbbed my soul and heartbeat, I need to check my pulse. Over and over and over again. I tried to brush off my irritation with the whole engagement, but I was left hauntingly ailed within. Number one, I hate being generalized, but number two, what kind of characteristics did she think being "fresh out" entails? Ignorance? Arrogance? Naivety? Lack of experience? All of the above? Pissed. Yes pissed I became.
So, at first, thought wreaked havoc on my mind. Yes, school gave me unequivocal amounts of knowledge, all enabling memorization and accumulation of facts. I knew things. Great. Grand. Exciting things to know. Doesn't mean jack squat though if not somehow put to life. But the outward journeys to Oregon, New Mexico and now West Virginia, paralleled with new discoveries inwardly, was, subconsciously, an attempt to let the real education happen. No preconceptions to life--however it was suppose to happen. Meet people, love people, give to these people, respect and cherish the God in these people, live life with these people amidst all our differences. To let creative streams flow with the most enchanting form of creativity:learning, and to do so together. Experience. Knowledge with experience breeds wisdom. From all this experience, I had to come to an honest grip and understanding of the nature of my hungers. I remember one night in Oregon I wrote down in closing to my journal-- in question of my time there-- open-ended, unanswered. "Do I have a hunger to love? Or just a love to hunger?" Maybe this is what the conversation with the respiratory therapist was to bring out, to assess my thoughts and experience, or rather my lack thereof.
Human hunger. In all its forms. These driving appetites surface all the time. But what to do with them? The physical hunger-- the need to survive with sweet nourishment. Social hunger in deepest desire of community, of understanding, care, love. Emotional hunger-- to be known. Affirmed. Accepted as designed. Mental hunger-- to be intellectually stimulated. Sexual hunger-- suppressed or not-- to know someone intimately as humanly possible. And then I think why do any of these hungers even have to be categorized? One simple hunger pervades all: the hunger of the soul.
And then I go back to the dreams embedded in the memory. Longing for adventure. The unknown. To explore without inhibition. The dreams always wanting themselves to somehow be "attained." Attain. Attain. Attain. Go. Go. Go. Strive. Strive. Strive. We're too concrete-minded as a society. Something does not have to be felt to be real. What I think I really hunger is not just attaining the dream, but in essence, we hope that the dream will somehow deliver its ultimate fulfillment. What was that hunger of the soul yearning for? Intangible, but recognizable. Felt, though indefinable. Verbalized and narrowed, though inexact. With the radio music on, an old Christmas carol of long ago sang soft melodies into my heart as I listened, "I wander as I wonder out under the sky..." Yes, yes of course. WONDER. The enchanting reality of wonder to take us over. and over, and over, again. As human beings open to God: To wonder, to behold, to forget the self and offer it up, this, yes this, is WORSHIP.
There is no conceptual mind to wonder. In the perpetual rest of the human heart, it fully and wholly exists. As the permanence of changing takes hold, I don't care if I am a newbie to life forever as the wonder permeates my soul as stages and experiences of life build on and from one another.
Think about this time of year. Next Saturday, beloved Christmas, the movie that has been playing for over decades will shine itself again on the television screen. Many, like my dad, will eagerly await its showing. It'll probably be his 100+ time seeing it. Doesn't matter. It's a chance to remember, to behold, to see, to watch, and to never, never forget. Cheers to life. Cheers to "It's a Wonderful Life."
No comments:
Post a Comment