Stunned

The Lord is always faithful to bring us across the things in life that serve as roadsigns, a little reminder that life is waiting to be remembered. The warning signs that remind us that time isn't easily persuaded, and stopping is sometimes the only way to go. The stoplights that remind us how transient things are--that there is just as much green as there is red, in the end. And when we wonder, "will things ever change?" we can remember that they always have and always will.
I'm not often seen as an emotional, whimsical sort of character, but I'm the dangerous sort of person that, when carried off by the occasional fancy, stays afar off entagled with the fancy longer than some of the more flighty fellows. So either way you cut it, I'm just as wrong and right, stupid and smart, as the rest of the people who change sides more often. I've always felt sort of middle-of-the-road, inspired to do too much until I realize that inspiration is not the master of time, and nowadays I more or less submit to time.
But I feel very strongly and very tangibly, things that I think I can almost see as I begin to feel them. I can feel them like a fist turning a knob, like paper going into a printer. I never actually FELT very good with words, because the words always seemed so formless in comparison to an idea that ricochets back and forth and jumps and stretches and and grows and rises and falls. I probably got a fair bit into figuring out how to use words just because of my stubborn belief in the idea that everything can be healed, fixed, and made right, if everyone put their feelings into words.
But more nowadays, it feels like beating against a brick wall. Nothing heroic--more or less downright stupid. I'm starting to realize that sometimes people need to protect themselves. Sometimes a mind can't handle the ideas out of the complicated structure of another mind. Sometimes people need to lie and don't realize they're doing it. Sometimes...especially in matters that hold our heart and our head and bonk them together for being naughty, like two OC boys who refuse to apologize to each other (or do, but never mean it), no amount of words will fix anything. That's not cynical. It's just true.
It's idealistic to think that yapping away at something can fix it all of the time. The most priceless things that we ever realize are the things that we finally make sense of when we're sitting down, out of breath, unconscious, paralyzed. We go through life picking up the puzzle pieces, and only when we drop them and see them scatter across the ground do we realize that we need to get on our knees and piece them together. Only when we shut up, do we realize the things that are really worth saying.
I definitely talk more about things than I do things, because, let's face it, it takes less time to talk about something than it does to do it, and a) I've got too many ideas to do at once, b) I'm a lazy nutcase, and c) No one likes to let a good idea pass without letting people know they've had it. So I (along with many other idealistic youngsters) have a mouth with unlimited visiting hours and the contents of a petting zoo.
Today there are things that make me stop and think about the beauty of being quiet. Quietly working and quietly taking a break. Quietly changing one's mind. Quietly dancing in the dark. Quietly praying. Quietly holding a hand. Quietly listening to the things people have to say. Quietly being quiet.
That's not to say that I'm going to become the most quiet and serene person on the planet. I've tried it, it's not possible, and it's not the way Jesus wants me to go. I envy the people who have a calling of quietness and wisdom; I seem fated to be be always saying twice as much as them and being wrong twice as often. But I'm grasping more the concept of wasting less time, wasting fewer words.
I had this sort of picture in my mind today, of dying and being a pot of ashes. Just a few grams of matter, a few handfuls to sprinkle. Every single grain would matter then, wouldn't it. Every leaf I landed on, every droplet that fell on me and merged me with other little particles of dust. I wouldn't be me, walking as I always have--I would be me, quietly falling to the ground. And I thought, maybe that's something I should be doing more often in my life--quietly falling to the ground.
So coming here to this stoplight has helped me to realize that stoplights are opportunities--a chance to put in a CD, a chance to look at the roadmap, a chance to poke a hole into a coffee and take a long draw. Going can become a pure waste of time when you're not also stopping enough. We need to have a tumble to land our faces on the concrete and get a good look at terra firma, from whence we've come, and where we're going, and the road that will take us there.
There's another thing words are no good for--expressing the deeply overwhelming love that I have for Jesus that grows and doubles with every day. The thrilling feeling of being forever and firmly fixed to My Lord, My Lover.
This is me, quietly falling to the ground.