Early Morning Walks
My fingers are still cold. The air outside moves in particles big enough to see, the fog drifting by the street lamps. It's quiet out there, and the early morning anxiety I woke with eased as I strolled up and down the sidewalks of 80th, 81st, and 84th. Fighting it out with God over old wounds and wonderings, His quiet reassurance that all will be well, that love is real, that selflessness is a grace to be received, not a goal to be driven toward. Filling my mind with my family, my friends, thinking of their days, their struggles, their dreams. Thinking of my colleagues at church in the arts ministry, each of them wanting to make of their lives art that God enjoys, that He points toward and says, "This is my child."
What is accomplishment? There is value to being hailed in the broad market, I suppose, but have there not been hundreds and thousands of voices through the ages that warn us not to listen much to the hue and cry of the street? Our lives are but a mist, a bit of smoke that flees from us even as it arrives. "Prosperity will have its season. Even when it's here, it's going by," says the song from David Wilcox.
What is truth, we asked last night. What does it look like in art and poetry and worship? What is this authenticity the postmoderns want? The honesty of my feeling in the moment? Or the character that sets aside the feeling to do the right thing, the thing that is for the greater good? Express the self? Set the self aside for the good of the other? Either/or? Both?
With God, there are no worries in the realm of expression and honesty. He sees it all, whether we bid Him to or not.
Early morning walks...a good place to learn...
7:43:40 AM 
