Sitting here this bright and sunny Tuesday late afternoon, I took just a moment to watch the wind blow the waves, quite briskly from north to south (my left to right as I see it). It is really pleasant from a humidity standpoint, breezy and dry. Though it is windy I could care less. I have felt so lousy the last 3 days that I am reveling in the day, shoot it could be freaking snowing out right now and I would feel joyful. I'm happy to be and feel alive. I tried to capture the movement of the water but I really couldn't in this pic. If I turned more to my left in the shot, it looks to the NE point of the island but if I do that it would show the waves and white-caps but also all the docks and boats parked there. This was a prettier shot without all of that man-made clutter. I made an executive decision to go with this shot...well I am the blog owner so I guess I get some editorial privileges, eh?!
Any reader of this blog knows I pretty much wear my emotions, thoughts and feelings on my sleeve. But at times like these I feel rather dis-connected and detached...I guess what I'm saying here is I feel like I've been on the sidelines of life instead of on the playing field the last few days so it becomes a tad bit challenging to just suddenly pick up where I left off. I mean I spent the majority of the last 3 days in bed, at the Docs or hospital so I haven't really felt like I have been living. NOPE, just existing and I can't tell you dear reader person out there in BLOGVILLE how much I detest that feeling of being a spectator or non-participant in life. Ach....I really do dislike it...why? Good question but easy to answer.
For much of my last year to two years of my drinking and drugging days that is how I felt: I just existed, much like a boulder gathering freaking moss on some forgotten hillside somewhere, hopefully as far away from the sunlight or people as I could possibly be. And I succeeded in achieving that lifestyle and feeling for a large segment of that time period.
But looking back on that time now it feels like such a waste and of course in many ways it was wasteful. But I also realize that even in that simple existence of EXISTING I learned things. And certainly that experience benefits me today first and foremost by the simple fact that it reminds me every time I think about it how valuable this life is, this time on the planet, especially when it comes to appreciating people we love and who love us. Because the bottom line is this life ends and it ends suddenly sometimes and when it's over well that is it, it's over. This is a lesson I will never forget...make the best of what time one does have because it is finite and it is fleeting. Life is over before we know it...in the literal blink of an eye sometimes, poof and it's...er, they are gone.
I started this morning thinking about people I loved who are no longer with us on the planet. In a way it is sad...I don't know that I'll see them again in eternity.
This probably is not the post to start with this train of thought but I don't believe for an instant that the reason we are here on this earth is to be happy. I think we are here to DIE. I really do and if you are familiar with the Bible in Luke Chapter 9 verse 23 Jesus makes it pretty clear that following him is no bowl of cherries.:
Then he said to them all: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? Luke Chapter 9: 23-25
It's funny but that is the verse that convinced me to believe in HIM and become a Christian. Why? Because it was the first time that something biblical had made total sense to me in the realm of my own life experience. To FOLLOW you DIE DAILY pick up a CROSS and FOLLOW...I don't know folks but that resonated with me. I guess I was under no illusions that we were supposed to be in some sort of fairy tale existence here on earth. Life is too hard. Even those folks who by all standards of earthly living are successful can suffer terribly in this life. Here is a real life example that is happening right now not far from where I live...
There is a huge local news story in Ft Wayne Indiana, just 50 miles south of where I live about a teenage boy, a standout high school basketball player who committed to play ball at the University of Michigan who survived a plane crash in N Michigan over this past weekend that killed his dad (who was doing the flying, his stepmother and one of their pets. Years ago he and his dad survived a first plane crash (and again dad was flying) that killed his mom and two siblings. His pilot father was a physician in the Ft Wayne area and they were quite wealthy. They were heading to their Summer Home on Walloon Lake up by Charlevoix, MI where Ernest Hemingway spent his youth. By all appearances this was an idyllic situation yet their family was fraught with tragic experiences...
It just proves that life is fleeting and good things won't last...in one instant everything we know and love can disappear and all we have left is....WHAT? That's the real question in life, isn't it? What do we have when everything we know and love is taken away from us....what is left? God? Our faith?
I'll be posting on that question and my thoughts here in the future. Thanks for reading and hey, it's good to be back in the land of the living!
