Yesterday - during a midday break I wandered into a green house - I've been doing a lot of exploring around campus - trying to find secret spots, little lost hideaways. I found a rather large tunnel on campus, shots to follow soon. But yesterday was spent mostly in this green house on the 7th floor of some building somewhere. Greenhouses always remind me of a store back home called Fernies - the heat, humidity and the scent of growing things. I like greenhouses - for some reason I feel very cultured when I'm in one.
I keep finding more and more parts and pieces. New truths and insights daily - hourly - part of me enjoys this - this learning and processing and the understanding and comfort that it brings - another part of me just wants to go to bed. Parts of me just want to figure out life all at once and be done with the confusing bits, other parts of me see that what I have been given drives me back to the source - looking for understanding and for peace. Thank goodness that we are given no more than what we can bear. And that is not to say that life has been unbearable - far from it!
Life is new in a strange way I'm sure most won't understand - I know I don't - Hebrews 12 and Philippians 2 have been running thru my mind - back and forth - the example of Epaphroditus - how few men I can call brothers, fellow workers and fellow soldiers - and not because they were lacking but because I did not let them in - did not work with them or fight for them. How many have I taken for granted and not honored. Squandering relationships, letting them go. Connecting with people means opening up, and hurting with them, for them. Walking thru life with them, being with them where they are. I want to understand people - to see the hurt in empty eyes and hurt too - to understand and be understood. To share the comfort I've received a thousand times over. It can be so easy not to let that lull in the conversation take place - that spot where people are getting ready to really connect with you. To ask and not really want an answer - to really listen is scary. Listen and hear - and then to DO something about it - because it stirs you - because it hurts, hurts to see friends fall, hurts to see them worried. Do I know you? Have we laughed, fought, cried, been honest, pondered, sung, listened, been listened to. To become a brother, a fellow worker, a fellow solider takes something in common, something shared - and to that extent we are all brothers - we all breath and sing and love and hurt. I want to pour myself into these people around me, I can't change the world - I can barely get my own act together. I can do nothing - only share the comfort I've received. But what is that - sharing comfort? How is that even done? As a brother I look out for my two younger sisters - sometimes comfort is the talk over coffee, a hug or a movie - sometimes it is calling them on something - telling them that they are wrong and need to make amends - it's complicate and simple - easy and hard - it's the right thing.
Once again, absolutely mind bending bro.
ReplyDeleteGreat questions. I guess one tip would be invest. Spend time with others. Give of yourself. And most of all, don't forget the reason we're all brothers: brothers in Christ. That reason alone gives us so much before us, it's quite amazing.