There are so many fearful, petrified, walking dead in the city I don't know what to do with myself, so when I find myself in that hunched and contactless grey, I look to the sky and breathe deep. I feel alive - not just the tingly sensation when oxygen floods my starving parts, but a deeper surety.
I intend in that moment to open up. And immediately I reconnect with the anchor to my soul:
God, the rock, my strength,
is here.
And I go free.
My posture changes, I smile like a mad person
because suddenly this life isn't the thing anymore, can't crush me, because it's stuff that's easy and ever-changing.
The difference between Heaven and Heaven.
...
I have a hard time drawing a distinction between the sound of Jesus and Jesus. They sound the same.
But I know Jesus as Grace, which is directly applicable to every moment, so then that relationship is something I want to harbor and develop. He's not a guy from history, like Alexander the Great, that I'm somehow supposed to reach out to; he's not a ghost I channel or Ouija.
He's like a helmet...hooked into the innermost part of the brain and tied to your eardrums to coordinate balance. It's why 'Jesus lives in your heart' is a thing.
What do you hear.
Grace. Peace. Love.
It's a placement (perspective) and state of mind (perception) that I'm enough where I am and as I stand. I don't need to fake anything, am not too proud to ask for guidance or help, don't need to manipulate to get what I want or need. And no matter what harsh words or crappy circumstances come my way, the thing isn't the thing. All things only affect you as much as you let them.
This doesn't mean you're cold. On the contrary, when you're no longer blown about by the things outside of you, your capactiy for empathy, courage, patience, (and other fruits of the spirit) all increase in ways you could never have imagined.
People, the ones who want to affect you and be affected, will think you're cold or weird, but it's because they're losing control - not getting what they desire, that is, a stimulus to react to.
We all do it. We're just free now to do it less.
I was raised Christian, so that's the language I deal in. However, my perception of Jesus is one I received outside of a church building. It was given to me by people who practice walking the daily God, the moment by moment interaction we have with the life of things, because if God's not the God of the little things, what's he good for? Our days grow mundane without purpose - treading trodden trails (thank you DMB) - but if Love is here, and Grace is to change from who I was a moment ago (childish, dramatic, reactive instead of responsive) to who I want to be (classy, like George Clooney...or someone you know who's measured, even keeled, and who stills your soul), then every day is purposed, no second wasted, everything directing me to what I want to invest in and reap from. In this place is empowerment because you see the absolute PRESENCE of the moment at hand. It's a resource, time, and really the only one we actually have. (And it's a figment - doesn't THAT make you feel small.)
We spend it dealing in other things, games and business and business games and relationship follies and vices we return to again and again, but at the end of the day we only ever do the things we choose to do, and that's our life.
You are free to feel obligation and you are free to submit to it.
You are also free not to.
So here I am on a Saturday night wishing I was out, being popular, being outgoing, making real friends, as if I've never done these things and like the small measure of satisfaction they brought was lasting.
It's like sugar - delicious, mostly empty, a little ruinous. Depresses you. Makes you hate yourself.
Ha!
Again it's all a matter of placement: where do I stand and what am I looking at: my lack? the fact that I want attention and so I'll go out and grab happiness and then be accomplished because I can do things and am capable? That bit of my life would have been the boring, filler chapters where different characters play the same roles until the protagonist sees something he couldn't see until it was time.
But even those chapters have purpose.
...am I worth anything when my phone doesn't blow up.
I question my value ... perpetually. When I realized the value of humour, I had to be the funny guy. When I thought I was ugly as sin I thought I wasn't worth a damn. I can't lie to save my life and the kids who could were coasting through life...It's all delusion. In God, in the existence, we're all on the same plane: rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. What you walk in sets your pace, how you think determines on what your eyes rest, and if you face the rising sun you'll always have hope.
This is the moment of salvation, so go free.
del·i·quesce
deliˈkwes/
verb
( 1. (of organic matter) become liquid, typically during decomposition.
Chemistry
(of a solid) become liquid by absorbing moisture from the air.
