Small Planes

Another snow day, another excuse.  My frustration and fear mix like the wet snow and rain, piling heavy on rooftops and cars, heavy on the heads of my friends walking these slushy sidewalks.  I have things i must do.  Deadlines approaching fast with all the speed and weight of a train.  I have things i absolutely must do.  Work related things, stress related things, fear related things.  Things i MUST do. 

I have been working these many months, mostly unsupervised and undirected, having to find other sources of motivation than those threats of hard deadlines usually handed out by project managers and their bosses.  And, because perhaps today more than any other, i am in need of understanding just what it is that motivates me to do what i do, i have come upon something and shall attempt to explain it.  However it is not easy to give explanation, and oftentimes i remain myself unconvinced. 

I have worked hard, at times, and not so hard at others.  I attribute much of it to a lack of confidence in my abilities as a micro manager of my own time and my own focus, for want of perfection i can often spend long hours spinning my wheels, trying to find the purest solution to a problem, for that to me is the art of what i do.  Efficiency is a beautiful thing.  Something that both makes sense and is easy to read, yet performs its function in a tight and compact way.  I am in a way, as much an artist as those who paint with brush stroke or dip their pens in ink. 

I too am chasing an aesthetic.  It may not read like poetry or look much like a perfectly weighted painting, but there is much to be said of those who believe not just in the form or frame of something, but as much in the function of it.  How beautiful the ancient gravity fed aqueducts of Rome are not just because they are pleasing to look upon, but also because of their function.  I make a case for form and function, not as opposing ideas but in fact, inseparable.  All the while, looking for simplicity.  One feeds the other, and at the root of both is the genius of man, creating and expressing himself in the fullness of his faculties. 

It’s a shame that we live in this time and place, where industry has so destroyed what once was so well understood.  Function has taken a priority where money is involved and aesthetic has taken a hit, and those of us who were born in this culture are likely to believe that the two are forever opposed, warring each other.

None of this is easy. 

And the thought of opening myself up to the world around me, to experience its tragedy, seems almost impossible. 

But as i have committed myself some years ago, to such a tragedy as that of Christ on the Cross, have accepted His sacrifice as mysteriously having something to do with me and my life, its impossible for me not to be a part of the world in its suffering… not to at random moments experience such tragedy and longing for restoration.  I believe this is Christ in me.

And so living beneath the weight of a world i don’t belong to and yet am for a little while so much a part of, I have moments where my pulse suddenly quickens, the world around slows to such a degree that i am seeing it as if for the first time, and it becomes like a dream.

Now is such a moment, such a dream.  I am much to busy.  My life becomes much to full of activity that i am simply a being living in and through his activities and have little or no capacity for experiencing life on any other level.  It strips me of my inward self, so much that I seem to forget who and what i am, the inward reflections becoming more and more difficult over the years.  This is not what i want to become.

It’s difficult to love someone in this position.  It’s difficult to express and share my thoughts, when i have so few of them.  I am in need of many things, this perhaps being one of the more urgent needs.  That God would take from me the many things that fill my life to such an extent that i begin to choke for the want and longing of life in His Kingdom. 

4.  Why does thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy rest?  In heaven ought to be thy home (Phil. iii. 20), and all earthly things are to be looked upon as it were by the way.  All things pass away, and thou together with them.  Beware thou cleave not unto them, lest thou be caught, and so perish.  Let thy thoughts be on the Highest, and thy prayers for mercy directed unto Christ without ceasing.  If thou canst not contemplate high and heavenly things, rest thyself in the passion of Christ, and dwell willingly on His sacred wounds.  For if thou fly devoutly unto the wounds and precious marks of the Lord Jesus, thou shalt feel great comfort in tribulation:  neither wilt thou much care for the slight of men, and wilt easily bear the words of those that reproach thee.

5.  Christ was also in the world, despised of men, and in His greatest necessity forsaken by His acquaintance and friends in the midst of reproaches. (2 Tim. ii. 5)  Christ was willing to suffer and be despised; and darest thou complain of anything?  Christ had adversaries and backbiters; and dost thou wish to have all men thy friends and benefactors?  Whence shall thy patience attain her crown, (Matt. xii. 24; xvi. 21; john xx. 20) if no adversity befall thee?  If thou art willing to suffer no contradiction, how wilt thou be the friend of Christ?  Suffer with Christ, and for Christ, if thou desire to reign with Christ.

1.  WHENSOEVER a man desireth any thing inordinately, he becometh presently disquieted in himself.  The proud and covetous can never rest.  The poor and humble in spirit dwell in the multitude of peace.  The man that is not yet perfectly dead to himself, is quickly tempted and overcome in small and trifling things.  The weak in spirit, and he that is yet in a manner carnal and prone to the things of sense, can hardly withdraw himself altogether from earthly desires.  And therefore he is often afflicted when he goeth about to withdraw himself from them; and is easily angered when any opposeth him.

2.  And if he hath followed his appetite, he is presently disquited with remorse of conscience; for that he hath yielded to his passion which profiteth him nothing to the obtaining of the peace which he sought.  True quietness of heart therefore is gotten by resisteing our passions, not by obeying them.  There is then no peace in the heart of a carnal man, nor in him that is given to outward things, but in the spritual and devout man.

smile down on us sun, show your rays

when things come undone

all animals lead, us to light

when we can’t see

stars, saturn and moon, glow for those

who cannot get through

rain fall and voice sound for those of whom

still are not found

gentle moon, find us soon

gentle moon, find us soon

black sky and black sea, lighten up

when we can’t breathe

all dreams escape fire, over worlds

fly but won’t tire

slow down on us wind, hold us still

when everything spins

all secrets and lies, let them out

dreams escape fire, they won’t tire

dreams escape fire, they won’t tire

gentle moon, find us soon

gentle moon, find us soon

all calendars pass, days die off

and hope cannot last

but if love was like stone, then yours was mine

through to my bones

but how can we give back to those

with whom we can’t live

when will the flame break

and spare the good people it takes

souls escape fire, they rise higher

souls escape fire, they rise higher

gentle moon, find us soon

gentle moon, find us soon

Children are dancing circles around the yard,
Leaves are turning circles in the street,
Birds are flying circles in the air,
Stars are painting circles around us all,

… though you may not know it …

my heart is drawing circles around you…

Carefully crafted moments of midnight.

Nothing moves.  A mystery light from the other room glows softly, flickering on and off, it becomes mine as my heart slows to match its pulse, this mysterious moment, black shapes that seem to dance in my dreams become chairs and couches, walls of some room ive never seen before, certainly not the same room i was in when the lights were on.  I dont remember the blinds on the windows being so lovely, its lines so long and straight, black and blue.  It’s these symmetries that tell me im not sleeping.  These difficult lines. 

…

I am sleepily haunted.  Visited by memory, and by words, fragmented.  There is no sequence in either.  Just things i remember hearing or saying.  Things i thought promised.  Things i shouldn’t have promised.

We walk among each other, like we were walking in fields of tall grass, our hands barely touching the tall blades.  Impressions are made but not long lasting. 

I may remember you from yester year, but to hear you speak today is a mystery.

And what of myself, old as i am.  I am covered in their ashes.

…

Tonight, i am waiting in dark rooms, in sleepy houses, for dreams or for words.  Whichever should decide to visit me first.

remember.  1997.  you were in the library.  you and your buddies, sitting on the office floor, eating, or more often not eating, the awful shit they served in cafeterias back then (back before they outlawed it).  there was a small television we used to turn on. thats where i saw the karma police video for the first time.  its playing now (pandora).  “i’ve given all i can, but it’s not enough, i’ve given all i can but we’re still on the payroll”

i hated school.  i really did.  but i often wonder what happens to those moments.  wonder why they come bubbling up, wonder why they take my breath away.  Perhaps its the distance between me now and me then.

distance. 

with each year that word takes on new meaning, new weight.  it gets heavy.  a sort of painful lesson i have to keep learning. 

i don’t really know what any of this means.  …  we are so frightened.  so much of the time.

…

me and a.l. took a slight detour the other day heading down Berverly.  We turned right at the steel mill onto anderson.  its a short road, but it has a lovely stretch of about a hundred yards.  you arrive at a sharp left turn.  to the right, some distance is what looks to be a farm house, lovely, from what little i can see of hit, hidden behind some ancient trees.  this is the good part, just past the bend in the road is my favorite part, the grass is tall on both sides, gently rolling hills, old pines lining both sides, and as long as you look straight ahead or slightly to the right, you can suddenly imagine what 1870 must have felt like.  (minus the steering wheel and cracked windshield)

we took another right onto mccambell.  after we drove past a stretch of boring looking subdivisions (the kind with all the private fences), we saw an old fence on our left, it met us with wild roses, of the rambling variety. 

the loveliest things often have a ‘rambling’ quality.  perhaps more for me to smoke.

…

my good friend found love, but cancer may have found her first…

i don’t know what to do with this one.

…

the sun is setting, think i’ll go have a look.

Its a strange world we live in when we can surf for incredible people on the internet and land on some ridiculous quote site…  all those incredible words and phrases that took life times to come up with are cutely displayed in a ‘choose your flavor’ list of categories, next to cheap advertisements, like say a close up of a woman putting on eye liner.  over and over and over. 

…

this is my life.  my life in a field where all day i dwell in a cave like building with thick white painted cinder block walls.

I have been in a sort of email dialogue with a.l. and have been prompted that i should write more about my life.  I really don’t know what to say.  I am wrestling today with some intense feelings of loss, of frustration and confusion, of hopelessness.  There are dreams we have as kids that only seem to torment us as we grow further and further from them.  I suppose this is something of what i have been dealing with.  The pace of life keeps picking up, and my reaction time seems to get slower.  I often wonder what my life will be when i am 35.  I keep trying to assure myself that the person i hope to be, and the person i currently am, will in the next 7 years will be moving in such opposite directions that something will snap.  Ill have some kind of breakdown, and make this decision to live the rest of my life following hard after eccentricities and less about responsibility.

I always tend to feel this way while working, doing the computer thing.  I know why so many computer jocks are arrogant and proud, they have to be…  because it takes years of not knowing anything before you can gain even an ounce of competence.  I have never been made to feel stupid or inadequate in any of the positions i have been in, all of it has been self imposed.  I seem to wrestle with this self esteem thing constantly, and it grinds me to a pulp…

I had one of these episodes this morning.  Wondering if i should be here, if this new project is something that i am capable of.  However, after walking down stairs into the WIA office and talking to some of the people down there about the current WIA Online stuff, i feel stronger somehow.  Happy almost to have managed it.  To go down there and be like, look damnit, i dont know what any of these stupid acronyms are and i need you to get to explainin!  Ok, not really.  I did go down, i did say that the best thing for me would be to just have them walk me through some of their current processes, ask a few questions and try and get some dialogue.  It helped.  It made the world small again, it made this project somehow smaller.

It’s hard to know what to do with episodes like that.  I mean, somethings trying to speak out.  And yet, i know that when the emotion and the adrenaline is pumping, that my ability to see anything further than the next five minutes is totally gone.  And so everything feels hopeless and lost. 

Some how God wants to speak to me about this.  He want’s to speak out of eternity into my little episodes, my little windows of time when everything is doomed, and He wants me to see beyond it, by looking into it.  What of this moment?  Why should it trouble me so?  And who is speaking, me?  Or something else? 

I guess i just have to keep listening.