Redefinition

I started writing for the simple purpose of trying to find out where to go from here ('here' clearly being relative to my situation at the time). I titled my blog, "The Next Step" because I felt that was always, all I needed. Beyond the next step was irrelevant, because when you're lost, one step in the right direction makes all the difference. My optimistic spirit was convinced that the rest would work itself out.

However, now the tables have turned.

I found my error when I tried to add up all of these abstract, obscure ideas. I carefully placed them in to a pile, then added heat. I melted them down in to one huge introspective lens. I set it up with myself as the target. Do you know what I saw?

Nothing. Well not really nothing, but it might as well have been nothing. It didn't matter.

Then I figured it out. The goal of every post was to help me take that one step. That step has now been taken. I have chosen my path, it's with the girl I love. I have chosen to take her, and journey with her. She is now square one, and the steps have changed.

This is nothing less than a redefinition of reality.
This is a redefinition of self.

God, fill this space. Make it so full that it might stop time. Time has turned on me. Make it stop.

Oh that I may follow you, that I might know You and Your ways.

I know that there is a hand. It's stretched out so far that I can't see where it comes from. It searches all day and night for me. How I wish it could find me now. Find us.

Grace and mercy, please find me, I know you're sufficient.



"So may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten,
Suns are like birds flying always over the mountain."

-Iron and Wine "Upward over the mountain"

A question that I try too hard not to ask: "What if I'm not as strong as you think I am?"

Maybe it's the look and the encouraging answer that would be sure to follow, that I'm not sure I want to hear... but it's comforting to know that I'm the one that needs convincing, not you.

So what do I need? Time? I don't think so. I think it's more so that I don't think about what I need enough. In my defense, it's usually because I'm too consumed with others needs. In your defense, I also get distracted way too easily.

There isn't time to go through every distracting trade-off. The reality is that things I love keep me from the things I love more. Damn this ridiculously positive disposition of mine... I swear I could make a killing selling my excess serotonin. Damn it Teej, that's not the point. Focus!

The answer isn't in the trade-off, it's actually surprisingly similar to the plan. The connection isn't in logistics, it's in the word. The word is 'companionship', and it doesn't represent a trade-off, it represents a balance of everything I love. It represents who I am.

Please love my thoughts, so I can explore them all with you.
I love you.

Heart of Gold

Before a single word was sung, I was already there. Overwhelmed with sorrow, walking down that red carpeted isle. I couldn't remember if it was in front of me, or behind. You put your arm around me, and told me to "be strong". This was the most affection you've ever shown me, and perhaps the only affection. It felt good, even though I had never been so sad.

I shake myself out of this moment, back to reality, but I'm drawn back in because I have to remember. I force myself to walk the isle again, I have to know, was he in front or behind me. I remember now, the procession was in front. I followed. I couldn't take it. At the end of the isle, we saw him for the last time. I won't ever allow myself to forget that day. I just wish that, in our last memory of him, that he would have been standing. I know you wish the same.

I find it truly fascinating how life can take such sharp turns at such high speeds. How did I get here? I ask that question often, perhaps because I keep moving. I think I fall in to the trap of trying to make sense of my present by analyzing the path of my past. The problem is that the path only exists when you look backwards. As we move, we are ever laying new pieces of path behind us, but in looking forward we see no path. It is said that the past works only by addition, because the only function you can do to it is add. But there is a million functions for the future, because nothing is fixed. However, despite how random life is, momentum seems to persist.

It's like driving in a car on the highway, and car starts accelerating and then maintains a speed of about 200km/hour, then after a few minutes slows back down to 100. The reduced speed feels painfully slow, it feels as if you could step out of the vehicle and walk beside it. Life is mundane, seemingly pointless, without progress. It only takes one moment, one crash, and life stops. In only takes one moment to see how delicate life is, and how powerful its motion.

So ten years later, I look back at the ground I've covered. Many painful turns were taken to get here... none as painful as that one. It's that one turn that brings us back to that "heart of gold". Will we ever find it, or more importantly, will our hearts ever compare to his. Ten years later I think about your words, telling me to "be strong," and what that really means. Over the years, I've learned a few things, and I can only hope that you will learn them too. I've learned that being stereotypically "strong", looks more like becoming hard, and takes very little strength at all. You don't need to be strong to protect yourself, you need to be strong to stay true to yourself and let people in. Being strong is to allowing oneself to be weak and vulnerable, and it is required to love and give. When true love reveals itself, it is in ones capacity to be weak that will determine the strength of the bond. This is where my strength is tested, and I cannot be certain, but I'm pretty sure that this is the only way a "heart of gold" can reveal itself.

"Water under the bridge is never coming back."
-Josh Ritter


I can't help but imagine an intersection. A place where roads meet and people interact. We are all constantly crossing each others paths, but this intersection is different. In this exact intersection, we understand, we forgive, and we embrace. After we cross this intersection we embark on a different path. A path that is a little lighter than the one before. Void of bitterness, void of anxiety and hurt towards the other individual. The new path is one traveled in love, and love never fails.

The problem is that I don't know the name of the street you should be on. I'm not even confident that I'm on the right street. All these streets look alike. In fact, I know that some streets will take me to where I want to go faster than the streets that will most likely bring me to this intersection with you.

So I weigh my values on a scale. What do I value? You should be able to tell by now, that this isn't simply a matter of logistics. The question is really, how many steps am I willing to take in a direction that might not benefit me, to have a healthy relationship with you?

I know that this demands trust. That means to trust that you will find that road, and find me. This is might not be realistic, but if I truly love, than I will be pushed to trust. I also know that a healthy relationship demands respect. This can be much more difficult, because as trust is a bi-product of love, respect a reflection of direction... and your life might be a train wreck, which makes respect hard. However, healthy relationships also demand grace and empathy, which make respect possible.

So let me be honest. I believe that there is something good inside you. Something so beautifully soft and human that longs for the most pure things. You might have tried to satisfy those longings with impostors, and those impostors might have led you to a place that you don't want to be. The regress will be painful, and might seem impossible. But I wonder, would it help you get there if you knew that I trusted you? If you knew that I respected you and have empathy for your story?

I want to find that intersection that restores relationships. I want to find the path that brings people back in to healthy community. A bridge where we could meet and watch the water pass by beneath us, knowing that it will never come back. That is where I want us to meet, because our roads might not be that different after all.

Maybe you’re like me. At times pushed to the point of torment with the burden of trying to make sense out of life. Most of the time the puzzle seems absurd. I know that I don’t have all the pieces, but still, the gaps can be overwhelming. Yet I know that somehow it all fits together. So I fumble along, trying to gain perspective into the purpose of my life.
Although I’m accustomed to this struggle, lately I do not feel qualified to ask such questions. I think of Stephen Hawking, debatably the greatest mind of the day. His conclusion to my questions is that we are indeed created by design, but because there is no possible way to know what purpose are creator designed us for, we might as well be an evolutionary accident without meaning. I feel if there is any genius within me, it cannot compare to his. Therefore, who am I to believe that I can possibly come to any other conclusion?

Yet I am pressed to believe differently. I wonder if Hawking has fallen in to the same curse as Herman Hess’s Siddhartha. A brilliant mind, that set out to satisfy a seemingly insatiable desire for wholeness. His mind was sharp, and the intensity of his searching could not be matched by any other. He spent most of his life in vain, building both treasure and understanding, in attempts to satisfy his craving. He boasted about how his life was like a rock falling through the water, always finding the fastest way, while others drift slowly to the bottom. In the end, it was through walking away from all he had gained to find his nirvana. When another pilgrim searching for peace found him, and asked him secret to his peace, his response was something like this, “your problem is exactly what you are doing, searching. When you search intently for something, you are only looking for one thing.” The reality is that it doesn’t matter how fast you can go, if you’re going in the wrong direction, it is the slower people who are in the lead. I can’t say for sure, maybe Hawking will find his nirvana through exhaustive calculations and quantum physics in the end, but I think he might have to walk away from his current path and pursue a new direction to find his peace.

I think it is amazing how great minds are humbled in their lack of wholeness. How men like Stephen Hawking feel the need to embark on a spiritual journey. In doing so, that admit that even though they have learned most things, but they have not learned what is most important. They have gained their world and now face losing their soul, so they change course.

What presses me forward is the invested dignity in being called to sonship. I feel like this is my only qualifier for attempting these thoughts. I believe with Hawking that we were created by design, but I also believe we were created in His image. When an artist creates something in his image, we can say it is like him, but not identical. However, I believe that the creator was not satisfied for us to be merely in his likeness, so he sent us his identical. For what is created by the artists hands cannot be identical, only what is begotten can be identical. The creator sent His son. Although our side of the offer was weakened, the covenant was strengthened, and dignity was extended.

Although I feel almost completely ignorant of these things, and I don’t know exactly what my purpose of being here is, I know I am created with love and intent. Although I can’t fully know him, I know He is good, and in His likeness good satisfies me more than evil. I also know that I betray His image and likeness with evil, and yet He extends me sonship, He extends me grace. What is more, I know that I need my creator, and even though He created me with purpose, He does not need me as I need Him. In fact, I can’t be sure He needs me at all. He is with me. Why is He with me? The grace involved is staggering, and He pursues further. Knowing this unreciprocated relationship is based entirely on grace, it makes it easy for me to love my creator. I truly hope I have something of value to give to Him.

So I think. My consciousness slurred by both arrogance and inadequacy. There is another voice. One that tells me that the answers I seek are not in consciousness alone, and that consciousness stems from the heart. Just as I must intellectually deduct meaning from breaking down my reality, so my heart must also be broken. For the voice told me a secret, that the answers I seek lie both outside, and within. The outside demands you understand the world, while all the inside requires a humble, soft heart that sets out to understand oneself. I’m not sure what is more difficult. Like Kant, I want those two things to consume me. I want that to be my fascination – The stary host above, and the moral code within.
I know that my nirvana doesn’t lie in one thing, but a dynamic of my world around me, and all that is within me, moving in perfect harmony in relation to my creator. Although this sounds unachievable, and it might very well be, I get these moments that tell me differently. These moments are so rich, that it seems like the whole universe is conspiring together to tell me that I am loved and that everything makes sense. These moments can seem fleeting, but I found the link between them. The task of making sense of all things is impossible, however, there is one name that encompasses all things. One name that brings order to the disarray of my universe. One name that brings me peace.

Thank you Jesus.

"I don't have many questions,
that you cannot answer.
I'm kinda simple that way."

Josh Ritter.

And so I walk down a another street unsatisfied. Despite recent disappointments, I find another restaurant close by. This one is fancier, offering a much more elaborate menu. I briefly wait in the entrance before I am seated and a menu is placed before me.

I am approached by a waiter, and I patiently wait as he rattles off his memorized list of specials. The list is exhaustive and it's hard to keep my pose. I want to be polite and let him finish. But I have to be honest with myself, I really only have one thing on my mind, and I knew it before the waiter even opened his mouth...

What I want isn't on the menu, as least not today.

In the end, to his disappointment, I tell him that I'm fine and a coffee will do.

The reality is that I am fine. I might even be great. Life has once again taken some strange paths and led me to an intersection so peculiarly 'right' that it has to be divine. I feel as if I moving away from months of searching because I've had some strange encounter with truth. A new struggle emerges as I need to let go of some of the 'unknowns' in my life, and once again accept something concrete. Not that I fully understand what this transition means, but one thing I do know is that spiritually, I'm moving in a different direction because I have been confronted by the truth.

For all this, I am very thankful. In the midst of this I express my discontent... it's not that I'm unhappy with life, it's just that sometimes, I really want someone to share it with... but if it's not on the menu, there isn't much i can do but enjoy my coffee.

Thanks for reading.