Unanswered Questions

Life is a grand adventure.

Most of the time, it doesn't seem to be this way. Most of the time, we live in the realm of complacency. It's the world of maybe and the universe of 'what if?'

In more recent years, I've found that life is what you make it. If you put your whole being into becoming an athlete, that's exactly what you'll get back in return, an athletic talent or toned body (whichever comes first).

So in the same way, if you spend all day focusing on yourself, your needs, and your desires, that's exactly what will come back to you in the end. Is that the life you want to lead?

One about...you?

Unanswered questions are generally treated as an enemy. To live in the unknown is to give up control of your life. When we are concentrated so heavily on ourselves, we lose control.

I cannot control what will happen tomorrow. No matter how hard I try, things will never go exactly according to plan. Life is too messy...too unpredictable.

Have you ever just tried to listen?

I'm not talking about with people, or music, or random noise, I'm talking about just listening...

Listening to your soul, and the souls of those around you. You can sometimes hear God in those moments. He doesn't draw an arrow in your path saying GO HERE NOW!

If you listen carefully, he's showing you where to go. You may go left when he says right, but somehow you end up right where you were supposed to be. It is in these moments that our character is decided. You have to decide who you are going to be and how you are going to turn it into a story worth telling.

At the end of the day, you have to eliminate the 'maybe' and destroy the 'what if?'

Because these are the words that stop you from creating a single act that will change lives.

Live in the now so that tomorrow will become easier to overcome.

Unutterable Thoughts

It's been just over a week that I've been back at school for what should be my final semester in Florida. It's great to see how transition works as old friends are no longer gracing us with their presence and new people have taken over, swarming all around. At first it's intimidating to realize that you don't know as many people as you once did but if you're brave, you might see it as a challenge for opportunity and risk. You never know what could happen.

I've always been fascinated with stories about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. I've found myself obsessed with the idea of the round table. I'm currently reading a book called THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, which is a classic novel following the rise and fall of Arthur Pendragon and his knights of Camelot.

The round table is a symbol for equality and unity. With a rectangular or square table, someone gets a position at the head and everyone else wants to fight for the spots to the right and left of the man in command.

In the times before Arthur, kings and rulers fought for a concept called Might is Right. The strong survive and must push their strength on those around them simply for the fact that they had the power to do so. Arthur didn't like this. Arthur, under the tutelage of Merlyn, came up with a new code.

Might for Right.

The two words have a strong working relationship but not in the way thought of by those that came before Arthur's Camelot. We must utilize our strengths for the right ideas. Whether that be for freedom or religion, God or country, might had to be used for right.

Everyone has a Right to follow. 

Everyone has a purpose.

Arthur's Knight's fought for adventure, romance, quests, for maidens, and treasures. In the end, they did it to spread equality and peace throughout the land. They wanted to stop war.

They wanted to stop injustice.


They wanted freedom.

We live in a society that puts a lot of stock in position. We elect leaders for the purpose of protecting our freedoms yet the position becomes more powerful than what we were dreaming for in the first place. That's not to say that leadership is a bad thing, we need our leaders to stand up for us and rage against injustice and fight for right.

Equality is generally a word saved for conversations about race and gender but it seldom finds its way into the Right conversation. Equality did serve a purpose for racial, gender, and class movements, and there are still issues today that stem from those concepts but it's not the kind of equality I want to discuss right now.

Equal can be defined as:

Being the same in value.

When the word value comes to mind, we hardly think about our value as an individual. We think of money or products or our stuff we own. It's very material based. I don't know this to be true, but if I can be allowed to guess for a moment I have a theory. If you were to look into the minds of ten people, how many would say yes to the question: Do you think you are valuable?

My guess is very few would respond positively. But that's the problem, isn't it? We find value in what we own and what we're good at and our friends, but how many of us actually find value in ourselves? It took me a while to agree with this statement but I've finally come to terms with the fact that who you are is much more important to your identity than what you do.

You could be the best writer in the world and yet be the biggest jerk alive. What do you have to show for that? When we see ourselves as someone with little value we start to build and design a class system for those we interact with everyday. We lose our identity to the idea that we are not equal to those that are better than us. It all started by putting more stock in what you're good at and not who you are.

So it comes down to a question, what do I have to offer the world?

What value do I bring to the table?

The answer lies in your heart. The answer lies in your mind. The answer lies in you.

We can have the biggest dreams in the world and want to accomplish great things for those around us, but if your heart has holes, if your heart is empty, what's the point?

Your story is important. You have a place in this world and should not be discouraged by someone with a greater talent or skill.

Sir Lancelot was the greatest Knight of the Round Table. Every other knight wanted to be half as good as he was if not better. He had favor from the King and the people of Camelot adored him, yet on the inside he was empty. His whole life he devoted himself to being the best knight, and he became it. He devoted himself to an idea, and on the brink of obsession he accomplished his goals, but for what?

He fell in love with the King's wife and eventually had an affair with her. He had no honor left and became nothing. He was driven to madness all because his identity was wrapped up with knighthood and nothing else. Once that fell apart, he had nothing left to live for.

When your identity is stuck in what you do and not in who you are, you eventually will lose everything. You'll gain the entire world which inevitably fades away to dust. All that remains is your soul, but you didn't do anything to fill it with this notion of equality and you definitely were not fighting for

RIGHT.


"They would be at the same time so distant that unutterable thoughts of space and eternity would baffle themselves in his sighing breast,  and he would imagine to himself how he was falling upward higher and higher amongst them, never reaching, never ending, leaving and losing everything in the tranquil speed of space."
-T.H. White

Incipit Liber Primus

“What is the most resilient parasite?”

Have you ever had so many thoughts swirling around in your brain that you almost don’t have enough power to control them?

It’s almost as though these thoughts are pushing their way past the surface and trying to manifest themselves as its own entity.  They become hard to filter making it even more difficult to manage a single thought. 

Some thoughts might be healthy, while others…more destructive.

When an idea takes a hold of your mind it soon grabs onto your very being and wraps your arms into a straight jacket. It won’t let go until you are completely insane over its concepts.

It takes a powerful idea to bring someone to the brink beyond reality.  Thoughts are powerful. Thoughts can create life and yet at the same time destroy it.

Do we have control over what we think?

Do we have control over our minds?

Some have suggested that the mind is like any other muscle in the body. And like your other muscles, it must be exercised and conditioned in order to make it more durable.

We were designed with growth in mind and yet we let our brains become lazy due to inactivity. We coast through life intellectually because somewhere along the way we believed the lies that we weren’t smart enough to think for ourselves.

I think the heart of the issue lies within our fear of the word development. To reiterate an old thought, we live in an expedient society.

We want a quick fix for our problems even if it means placing a band-aid over our wounds rather than doing something to actually heal the ailment in question.

Phrases like: “time heals all wounds” intimidates us to our core all because of that first word. Time is not the only thing to heal all wounds but it is an essential step for the healing process but we are too scared to face our pain and ourselves during that time.

Nothing that is worth having (spiritually, emotionally, physically, etc.) will be given freely or with ease. We have to at some capacity earn what we are after; otherwise, what was the purpose in our pursuit to begin with?

Let us reintroduce development into our vernacular. Allow us to find the strength to press through periods of pain, horror, and dread without ignoring the issues staring us in the face.

To overcome fear and insecurities is only the beginning, but we have this strong desire to jump straight from the beginning of our journey to the end. But every good story has three parts:

A beginning…

                        A middle…

                                                And an end.

Master Storytellers

The church is full of insecure people who have a misunderstanding of who God is. I don’t blame them. I mean, we believe in an invisible deity who doesn’t seem to participate all that much in our lives. We want to believe he does but there’s just something that remains over us that brings about just enough disbelief.

It breeds just enough doubt.

Maybe the problem doesn’t lie within our interpretation of God but rather lies in our cultural need for expedience. Today we can travel across the world in minutes through technology such as the internet and cell phones. We have text messaging which offers the option of immediate reply. We watch movies and if something doesn’t blow up in the first sixteen seconds we grow bored.

We want it fast. We want it right. We want it now.

So when God doesn’t tear open the sky for us when we feel the need for him most, we lose faith.

We grow tired.

We become weak.

God can be characterized as a lot of things. To some he becomes a father or a brother or a friend, depending on who you were hurt the most by. He is the face of love, he is just, and he offers freedom to everyone.

What most people overlook about God is his role as a storyteller. He is the master storyteller and the thing about a story is this: nothing worth having is given freely.

When we were young we were warned not to touch a hot stove. Some parents explained to their children why; whereas other wonderful parents just expected their children to trust them. Children are curious no matter what age. The only way a child is going to know and comprehend in full that a stove will burn them and cause pain is if they touch it themselves.

I’m not saying that God is holding our hands over a hot oven but that doesn’t mean he won’t stop us from getting burned.

Why do we insist that God should take our problems away from us? What do we gain from his interference?

The moment we stop growing and maturing is the same moment our souls begin to die. It’s a slow process with symptoms of unhealthy apathy and a twisted sense of right and wrong.

Every good storyteller understands good structure. Early on in a story, conflict is implemented. Without it a story isn’t worth being told.

Without conflict why are we alive? Conflict is a necessary part of life we have to experience, otherwise we’d stay the same. If you live without ever being challenged are you capable of having strength?

What good is a man who has never had the chance to stand up for himself?

What good is a man who doesn’t know how to cope with pain?

What good is a man who has found no purpose?

A part of me feels that perhaps God wrote us into existence to invite us on a journey. It’s an opportunity to prove that we weren’t an accident or a mistake. It’s a chance to make a difference in the world.

We are meant to take on the attributes of God that inspire others. I don’t think a single human being can capture every aspect of God which is what makes us human. Maybe that’s what the Bible means about us being the body. Each individual person has a different way of reaching those around them. We have different skill sets, talents, and things we’re great at.

We have different means to inspire but what we all have in common is that our lives tell a story. Stories take time to tell. Not everything happens right away.

Behaviors and abilities need time to be learned. Good stories don’t happen overnight. So why do we treat God as a genie, expecting him to grant our three wishes?

If God is telling a story with our lives why don’t we be patient and allow that story to unfold?

Maybe that loneliness you’re feeling is going to help you cherish the time spent with those you care most about. Maybe one day you’ll be able to peel the weights from your shoulders and finally feel what it’s like to soar in blissful freedom.

I can speculate all day and quite frankly I’ll continue to do so. My story is one of observation and action. I’m always looking for another adventure, physically, emotionally or spiritually. Sometimes all of the above!

If you watch those around you, you might learn something. We are creatures that wear many masks and each mask hides a different fear and insecurity. An event occurred that changed your life forever that you felt the need to hide from your pain by covering it up. It became too hard to look in the mirror because your story was filled with too much drama, conflict, and hurt to handle.

So you tried to stop the story. Put it on hold until something magically saved you. The only problem is magical fixes don’t happen at the drop of a hat.

You can close your eyes and wish for the pain to go away all you want but nothing will happen.

I know for me, this is a selfish request. There is nothing in this world powerful enough to kill my spirit which allows for me growth and a sense of honor.

Life is about the choices we make. Who we are is determined by the challenges we are faced with day in and day out.

Life, like story, is full of these seemingly random moments that do not appear to connect in any way shape or form. It is not until later down the road that we realize every moment had its purpose.

Every moment has a reason.

Nothing in our life is without purpose. These stories…our stories are building toward something.

God has called all of us, in a general sense, to reach those who are lost yet that’s not all there is to life. Every individual has their own, very specific reason for living and we are constantly searching for it no matter how much it evades our grasp.

But what happens when we discover our reason for living? What happens when it all begins to come together in a perfectly serendipitous fashion?

It’s simple really…our stories spark life and we become this unstoppable force powered by the will and determination to live. Those seemingly random moments allow for us to be truly reborn as humanities greatest strength.

A man driven by purpose is one who will bow to insecurity and inspire those around him.

Freedom Earned

Yesterday, America celebrated its independence. There is something beautiful about one nation setting aside their drastic differences by coming together to acknowledge the freedom that didn't come so freely.

The price of freedom is hard work and sacrifice. That's one of the problems with my generation, they aren't willing to give up the things they want or have for a greater prize.

Freedom transcends beyond the physical. We have this tendency as people to let our burdens control our actions.

We always have our choices in life. Free will is probably the most generous gift that has been given to humanity and we abuse that freedom with every selfish choice we make.

The path of the righteouss is filled with sacrifice and pain but I'll keep my pain if it reminds me of the gifts I take for granted everyday.

The Search for Meaning (19%)

Are you ready to stand up and be who you really are?

 

Our lives are designed for purpose. It's a vague statement which leads to confusion and chaos. Nobody wakes up knowing what their destiny is. 

 

Everyone is on a search for meaning. Everyone wants to live with purpose. The suicide count would be higher if this weren't true.

Without the will to live for something greater than yourself, you have nothing else to live for. We find fillers to bridge the gap like a significant other or a job but what happens when you get dumped or fired?

If you put your entire being into something that can fail, you'll lose yourself entirely. There are consequences for every decision we make. Sometimes they render goodness while other times very evil things can come into existence.

 

If all we did was exist what would be the point?

There has to be something more. There has to be something bigger than you or me.

Live for more than yourself.

 

Live for something greater.

Capacity to Overcome (12%)

Fear is a powerful agent.

It can control us.

It can motivate us.

Or it can cripple us.

I don’t know what’s in store tomorrow…in fact, no one does. Why do we live as though we’re in control of our fate? Since when did we choose our destiny?

I believe in Destiny but I’m not much for admitting fate is a big deal. It’s so gloomy and dark. It’s a very heavy word.

But destiny breeds meaning and purpose. It makes me feel alive and whole. You can’t escape fate but you can become a master of your destiny.

Control is a word we seem not to grasp. The fact of the matter is this, if we’re in control of our lives it means we’re in control of our mistakes as well. All we ever see are the things that drag us down. Has it ever crossed your mind to look at the good things you have done and are capable of?

Maybe if we focused on the good things a little bit more we would halt ourselves from doing the bad things.