The Tenth Essay
Up ahead a cross roads appears, the choices are many. I could stay the course I am on, and see where it takes me, or I could get out of the Navy and stay in Norfolk and make due as I can. Or I could go home to Reno and take my chances there, or I could break away completely and go where ever, and let the winds take me as they will. I could make an attempt at Art school, I really could, but will I? Out side of the fact that I am getting out of the Navy, I honestly don’t know what I am going to do. And that thought scares the hell out of me. The only certainty in my life is the Mountain, and that I will make it there and I will spend some time there. Even though it means leaving Brittany behind in the east, and part of me would like to stay near her to continue to foster and grow our friendship, I know I belong in the west. Everything that calls me pulls me and draws me the most is there. I don’t belong in the east, my youth was given to the east, and my adult hood seems to belong in the west. And so I will strike out, I will go west, seek out the truth in God and see what futures await me.
These past few essays I’ve written have been saved under a folder called Preparation, because that is what I am doing right now. They are my way of preparing for what is to come in the future. I am getting my thoughts in order now, solidifying what I believe and what I don’t know, so that when I leave, when I reach that cross road, I won’t be like a leaf blowing in the wind with not care or inclination as to where I land, but I will be as a vessel of the sea, with my sails fully deployed using the wind to fuel my speed. These essays are my preparation for life to come, and they are the fruition of the life I lived before. They are the results of a journey made, a searching for the truth of life, and the lessons learned from that journey. Four years ago had I written these, they would have been much different, I am a very different person now then I was then. I am less pious, kinder, less naïve, but more cynical and embittered. The changes I have experienced in the past four years have been both good and bad, but it is my prayer that I am a better man now than I was then.
And so though I come upon these new cross roads with fear and trepidation, I do not dread it. I look forward to it and the way it will change me, as the past four years have changed me and all those cross roads I passed through there. I am ready to be changed by life, ready to explore what else is out there, ready to break from my comfort zone and throw myself into something entirely new and exciting and terrifying; I am ready to throw myself into the next chapter of my life.
But first I have to get to the end of this chapter. I am on the final leg of my life in the Navy, to all extents when I return from this deployment my Navel carrier is over. And once it is over I start my next chapter, my new leg in life, things change as they always do, and I will move on.
Now this is not to say that changes do not take place now, day to day, I am not saying that the only changes that will take place in my life will be in the future, because that is furthest from the truth. Everyday is a crossroad, everyday a chance to change for the better or the worse. Our actions in life, the decisions we make, the friends we hold dear, and the truths we follow change us, day by day we come to turning points in our lives, but it is our choices that determine what that turn will be. There is always the unforeseen, a tragic event, an unexpected love, a hidden blessing, but it is the way we respond to it, the way that we adapt and move with the way the winds of chance blow against us that determines who we are.
I watched the sun set this evening, the deep pink and deep blues of the sky contrasted to the light blue and teal of the ocean touched me deep inside. This beauty, this vastness all on display, all God’s way of calling out to me, telling me that He loves me. That and the words of Donald Miller in “Searching for God knows What” he speaks of truth, here are his words: I felt that truth was something living, complex, very large and dynamic and animated. Simple words, lists or formulas could never describe truth or explain the complex nature of our reality. Seeing this sunset I knew that the truth really is a living active thing and it is out there every time we look outside ourselves, outside our computer screens before us, or the walls we use to separate others from us.
God’s truth is ever evident in the nature around us and we are too blind to see it! I want to become intimate with this truth of God, to breathe it in, to live in it, to make it the whole of my existence, and then when I am so filled with that truth and love of God, I want to share it with others. I don’t know how I’ll go about this; I guess just sharing the truth with others as I come across them. But I want to share God with people in a way that is relevant! Not some formulaic “Do this and get this” way, but relationally!
It is through a relationship with God that we come to know and love the truth. Live, salvation is not about the facts or figures we have, but the relationships we have and what we did with them. Salvation was never about what we did or didn’t do, not a chart and a graph of rights and wrongs, but a look at the way we interacted with people, who we loved and why, we can make formulas on how to know God, or anybody for that matter, all we want, and we will still never know them by following these formulas. We may end up knowing a lot of facts but we would not know the truth. That comes from falling in love with God, and our relationship that goes from there.
I think that is why it hurts me so much when one of my friendships goes bad, I value the relationship with that person so much, that when it ends I am left with a profound sadness, and I morn the loss. I know we are imperfect and fallible, but every time I loose a friendship I wonder, can I loose God? I know in my heart that God will never leave me nor forsake me, and yet still my heart questions and wonders and worries. I want to become more and more intimate with God.
Every day I do a dance sometimes moving closer to God, and sometimes moving further away, I waltz down the road of my life seeking truth, God, and love, and upon me a cross road appears. The choices are all mine, and what ever choice I make, will shape who I am to become.
These past few essays I’ve written have been saved under a folder called Preparation, because that is what I am doing right now. They are my way of preparing for what is to come in the future. I am getting my thoughts in order now, solidifying what I believe and what I don’t know, so that when I leave, when I reach that cross road, I won’t be like a leaf blowing in the wind with not care or inclination as to where I land, but I will be as a vessel of the sea, with my sails fully deployed using the wind to fuel my speed. These essays are my preparation for life to come, and they are the fruition of the life I lived before. They are the results of a journey made, a searching for the truth of life, and the lessons learned from that journey. Four years ago had I written these, they would have been much different, I am a very different person now then I was then. I am less pious, kinder, less naïve, but more cynical and embittered. The changes I have experienced in the past four years have been both good and bad, but it is my prayer that I am a better man now than I was then.
And so though I come upon these new cross roads with fear and trepidation, I do not dread it. I look forward to it and the way it will change me, as the past four years have changed me and all those cross roads I passed through there. I am ready to be changed by life, ready to explore what else is out there, ready to break from my comfort zone and throw myself into something entirely new and exciting and terrifying; I am ready to throw myself into the next chapter of my life.
But first I have to get to the end of this chapter. I am on the final leg of my life in the Navy, to all extents when I return from this deployment my Navel carrier is over. And once it is over I start my next chapter, my new leg in life, things change as they always do, and I will move on.
Now this is not to say that changes do not take place now, day to day, I am not saying that the only changes that will take place in my life will be in the future, because that is furthest from the truth. Everyday is a crossroad, everyday a chance to change for the better or the worse. Our actions in life, the decisions we make, the friends we hold dear, and the truths we follow change us, day by day we come to turning points in our lives, but it is our choices that determine what that turn will be. There is always the unforeseen, a tragic event, an unexpected love, a hidden blessing, but it is the way we respond to it, the way that we adapt and move with the way the winds of chance blow against us that determines who we are.
I watched the sun set this evening, the deep pink and deep blues of the sky contrasted to the light blue and teal of the ocean touched me deep inside. This beauty, this vastness all on display, all God’s way of calling out to me, telling me that He loves me. That and the words of Donald Miller in “Searching for God knows What” he speaks of truth, here are his words: I felt that truth was something living, complex, very large and dynamic and animated. Simple words, lists or formulas could never describe truth or explain the complex nature of our reality. Seeing this sunset I knew that the truth really is a living active thing and it is out there every time we look outside ourselves, outside our computer screens before us, or the walls we use to separate others from us.
God’s truth is ever evident in the nature around us and we are too blind to see it! I want to become intimate with this truth of God, to breathe it in, to live in it, to make it the whole of my existence, and then when I am so filled with that truth and love of God, I want to share it with others. I don’t know how I’ll go about this; I guess just sharing the truth with others as I come across them. But I want to share God with people in a way that is relevant! Not some formulaic “Do this and get this” way, but relationally!
It is through a relationship with God that we come to know and love the truth. Live, salvation is not about the facts or figures we have, but the relationships we have and what we did with them. Salvation was never about what we did or didn’t do, not a chart and a graph of rights and wrongs, but a look at the way we interacted with people, who we loved and why, we can make formulas on how to know God, or anybody for that matter, all we want, and we will still never know them by following these formulas. We may end up knowing a lot of facts but we would not know the truth. That comes from falling in love with God, and our relationship that goes from there.
I think that is why it hurts me so much when one of my friendships goes bad, I value the relationship with that person so much, that when it ends I am left with a profound sadness, and I morn the loss. I know we are imperfect and fallible, but every time I loose a friendship I wonder, can I loose God? I know in my heart that God will never leave me nor forsake me, and yet still my heart questions and wonders and worries. I want to become more and more intimate with God.
Every day I do a dance sometimes moving closer to God, and sometimes moving further away, I waltz down the road of my life seeking truth, God, and love, and upon me a cross road appears. The choices are all mine, and what ever choice I make, will shape who I am to become.