There Was An Old Man Who Lived in a Shoe

Like so many bones on an old man’s chest, ivory white tendrils slowly pressing in, straining out the little life that remains.  Bound neatly in rows, they clasp together over his throat.  The knot is tied, and the clock begins.  It won’t be long now.

It seems, just moments before, all was free.  Footloose and fancy free kind of free.  The wind passed by each toe like a dissipating serpent, cooling each one with its every slither.  The sweat dripped off like aerated honey, salty more than sweet.  It all felt so good, so kind, so benevolent.

But, that day has passed.  The death knell sounds for this old man, and the next.  Before, they ran, one beside the other.  The grass brushed past as they chased after summer.  They didn’t even mind when the earth heaved her impediments along their path.  This was freedom, and any hindrance was none at all compared to the sinewy shackles that awaited them.

To some, it was just a shoe, a shoddy piece of leather shod about the man.  He had known some younger days, but as long as this walk-about sarcophagus was enclosed around him, there seemed little hope, and even lesser light.  Work called, and with it, the hours of tedium and tyranny.  Oh, to breathe the fresh, damp air again; to burrow each toe into the grassy hill.  Still, decorum decided.  A working man in this day and age must wear his shoes, by Jove!  There was no room, no desire, no ilk that cried be loose of these bounds.

And, so the old man waits, in quiet, and dank, solitude, accepting his fate for as long as he must, fast bound and entwined by these laces and soles.  The freedom he knows, he knows will return.  In eight hours – eight, eternal hours – the tomb will burst open, the shackles will flail, and the light will burst through again.  It seemed this moment would never come, but, alas!  At last!  My foot is free!  The shoe that held me is cast away in some closet somewhere.

Freedom has never felt so good.

Pinpricks of Light

The sky above is all black and blue, a thousand different bruises on a canvas still sublime.  The morning shone a rainbow bright, the evening hues a tattered night.  For the few stars that I can see, they seem only to illuminate the darkened tones.  The smoke from a late night barbecue wafts in, with as many embers as there are stars above.  They’re echoed by each home’s bulb, burning as a marker that there is life behind these walls.

And, oh is there!  From behind me comes the sound of a wailing child, perhaps undone by a sibling’s swat.  It swirls from the center, yet seems to gain in strength as it diminishes.  All about is peace and verve, wrenched out of view by a solitary shriek.

It isn’t long before I realize that the sound is emanating from a place very near, pulsing from behind the walls just behind, pulsing from behind the walls that are mine.  The muted pool of stars and sky had been pierced from under by a baby’s cry.

No more could I dwell in the land of Nod.  The battered and bruised sky above had given sway to the threats coming from indoors.  The door that barred me from this discord was quickly mastered, the light – oh, the light – flooding out any bliss that I had found elsewhere.

Only once everyone was in bed did I regain some of the evening lost.  Tomorrow would come with its rays of sun, and obliterate every remembrance of what might have gone wrong.  “His mercies are new every morning?”  It has proven true in this sphere.  Whatever ills had occurred seemed blurred by the night sky, absorbing every blow with pinpoint accuracy.

I’m glad there’s Someone up there, beyond that velvet curtain, absorbing the blows from here below.  For every bellow that sounds from this war-torn Earth, there seems an equal and opposite declaration from above:  “It is finished,” He cries!  At every light, in every home, He whispers, “It is finished!”  “He was bruised for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities,” so that the baby’s cry is not the final word.  There is hope burning from within these walls, joy that floods into the streets and the alleyways, peace that defies every naysayer.  This is His sky, these are His homes, these are His people, and He has come that they might have peace!

What To Do With Conflict

Life is a series of conflicts and conquests.  More conflicts than conquests, I suppose.  We get just enough wins to keep us hopeful.  There seems in us an innate belief in the anticipated windfall, a sunny horizon with manageable shards of shadow.  But, those shards weigh heavy when they fall.

They start small, at first; an errant word here, a furtive glance there.  Someone slighted someone else, just one tug at the thread.  Forgiveness seems forgotten, and the thread becomes unraveled again.  One conflict becomes many, and the tapestry is twain in two.

There’s no avoiding conflict, that much is clear.  It seems the universe is bent, albeit unwillingly, bent on disheveled dissonance.  However much optimism is mustered, no matter the good will amassed, there is an ever-present opposition, hell bent on wrecking the racket.

It’s why I find this verse so intriguing.  In my reading today, I stumbled upon Psalm 119:75.  “I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.”

“I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.”

“In faithfulness, you have afflicted me.”

Amidst all the things that are set against me, I must add the Lord?!  Among all the conflicts that arise in my life, I must also anticipate divine opposition?  Why?

God is good, God is Love, God is generous, and kind, right?  On what grounds, then, must he afflict me?  On what merit does such aggravation rest?

Simple.  Amidst all the conflict that this world proffers, I am its greatest source.  I don’t know what I want, and when I think I do, I impose my edicts on all those around.  My wants conflict with hers, and – Bam! – disharmony ensues.

Enter the Lord.  He sees this storm brewing from a mile away, from all its angles, with all its avenues.  And, because He is a faithful God, true to His Word and benevolent towards His children, He intervenes.  He afflicts.  Because, what He knows, and I often forget, is that conflict is best combated when commingled with the Cross.  Whatever struggles I face, whatever quandaries may surface, the cross of Jesus is the means by which things are sewn back together.

Through the lens of the cross, I esteem others as greater than myself.  Through the lens of the cross, my comfort is no longer the aim, but merely the byproduct of reconciliation.

“In faithfulness, [Christ] was afflicted,” so that every discomfort proves bearable.  If He could do that, then every conflict gains a redemptive purpose, every thorn in the flesh a back door benevolence.

As unseemly as this may seem, welcome conflict as a means of grace.  Don’t go looking for it, certainly, but as it comes – and it will come – use that sunshine seeking optimism of yours to shed a few bright lights on what seems all storm and shadow.  Trust that if an infinite good can come from the Son of God on a cross, then a measure of joy can be derived from your conflict(s), no matter the size.

 

Love

Love is a compulsion peculiar to all.  Every person feels it.  Every person longs for it.  It drives us to do things contrary to logic, adverse to reason.  It will find its expression in some inevitable form or fashion.  It will attach great significance to some person or object that it finds worthy of its affection.  It is a force, overlooked by no one.

Even the lonely, the dark and the vagrant, have known love.  They have sought it out.  They see it on the horizon, calling them forward.  Though the tangled tendrils of their misery strive to hold them back, they are beckoned away, even still.  Though they may have never experienced its tender embrace, they know by intuition that it is their paramount pursuit.

Some seek after it, yet don’t know how.  They pursue when they should have been patient; they speak when they should have listened.  Left to their own devices, they push and pull in all the wrong directions.  They strike out once, twice, and many more times again until finally they settle to take love in whatever form they can.  A perversity settles in, confusing the mind and cajoling the heart, away, away, and further still.  They abuse and extort, pillage and plunder, all for a taste of that siren’s song.

Its melody is hauntingly familiar, like some lullaby from a not so distant past.  There echoes in the reverberations of days gone by a lilting rhyme so pure and sweet.  Every heart beats out its tune, but the rhythm seems just a hair off.  We all want the song to go on without end, but it seems the wrong baton is beating the air.  Even the greatest expression of love seems to pale from what it could be, from what it was meant to be.

And, so the ditty becomes a dirge, forlorn notes written on a dusty page.  If only we knew the Conductor, the One who first drummed this sonnet into our little bonnets.  Surely He would know what to do, surely He knows how it goes.  I remember reading on another little dusty page that God is, what was it, God is love.  Is that right?  He is the very definition of that which we seek?

I want love as much as the next guy, but if its set to my own meter, is it really worth the playing?  If left to my own devices, won’t I err every time?  The truth is, it seems He and I bandy that baton back and forth, a thousand times a day.  But, when He is in full control, when He is Maestro to my meager tambourine, you’ve never heard a sweeter sound.  Love comes ringing out, sonorous and true.

And, that’s a love worth singing about!

Don’t Miss It!

I rushed headlong towards the front door, in hopes that I could enjoy a few moments to myself.  Beyond that frame lay a wild world of skulking bears, whooping Indians, and savvy marksmen.  The sun had about a half hour left before it retired, and I was anxious to get in at least one more chapter of The Last of the Mohicans.

I know; I thought it was only a movie, too.  Turns out, there’s this incredible novel that inspired it.  Extended prose, powerful imagery, and an enchanted narrative all made for a welcome repose in the sunset.

I had forgotten the thrill of traipsing through a classic work of fiction.  It seems, these days, the only vistas I stopped to enjoy were pixelated and packaged.  Why behold the sunrise when you can watch the latest from Fox News?  The sun careening through the sky simply doesn’t move fast enough to keep my interest.

Now, I’m not opposed to technology.  I’m using it right now, obviously.  I simply don’t know what we’re missing by its use.  The human creature is only capable of focusing on one thing at a time.  It’s why I hold a finger up to shoosh one child while I listen to the other.  It’s why texting and driving don’t even belong in the same paragraph.   It’s why you can go out of your mind for lack of sleep if you can’t get out of your mind.

If we’re only given a few fleeting moments on this earth, we have to be very careful how we expend them.  It may very well be that God had greater intentions for us, and so much more to say; we simply weren’t placid enough to receive it.  Our world is in turmoil, and I think it’s largely because the Church has hit her snooze button.  We’re as brain-dead as our culture, welcoming the assault of information, when we should be salt of Gospel dissemination.

I’m not saying to sell your cell, or burn your burner phone, although if you have one, you may have graver concerns.  All I’m saying is that it’s a matter of priority.  Keep things in order, and be diligent.  They will not order themselves.  You have to be proactive, setting aside time to ponder and pray, to study to show thyself approved, to seek ye first the kingdom of God.

If you can do that, your life will be an adventure akin to that of the Mohican.  Just beware of the bears.