Perspective

It’s all a matter of perspective. In another world, I believe a me with 10% less resolve might have fallen greatly into a devastating quantity of temptation. So many times I’ve skirted the edges of failure, lack of motivation, and deceit with begrudging kindness, patience, and morality. And yet, a 10% better me might avoid countless obstacles I’ve struggled over, and pass temptations and trials I’ve so foolishly leapt into headlong.

I pray I’m learning as I go, that I might eventually be the better me.

But really everything is a matter of perspective. You can be angry, or pensive, realizing how little anger solves. You can be impatient and cruel, but kind words and love in adversity effect far more substantial good.

Even a little tweak on perspective changes a good deal. Water, for instance, is necessary for survival. It hydrates us, floats our necessary vitals along lifelines throughout our bodies, gets nourishment and resources into organs and cells and out. It keeps the temperature of the earth within reasonable averages. The advantages of water are endless. Without water’s extraordinary properties, we couldn’t exist. And yet, water is devastating. Water floods, pours down and carries vehicles and houses away, seeps through cracks in the roof and decays wood, erodes stone, pools through our apparel and chills us to the bone. Water is as devious as it is necessary, crawling into every nook and applying a natural entropy.

Oxygen is the same. Without oxygen, our cells suffocate and die. Without oxygen, most living creatures on this earth cannot exist. And yet, oxygen rusts metal, and increases the rate of entropy in a great many things. Injected straight into our bloodstreams, it’s murder.  Too much oxygen and not a reasonable balance can overwhelm our systems. Liquid oxygen is an explosion waiting to happen.

It’s all a matter of perspective. Existence is tentative. Why be angry? Why be cruel? Is not nature and the rest of humanity cruel enough? Where has that brought us? Countless innocents are dying or refugees or are abused by other humans – what have we ever gained with hate?

Listening to Christmas

Listen. The sky-sluice unleashes its floodgates and the waters rivulet over the eaves and down the drains. It's all the same as those plastic chutes, racing marbles as children do, tiny marble-droplets of rain rolling down my windowpanes, Is the world different or just the same, with off-hued glasses removed, revealing the world in plain light? The birds warble and dive between the stormy night trees and the bats weave and dart among the leaves, and the weather is just right - a bit cool, I believe.
And nothing special, nothing wise, nothing crazy outside our lives rears its groundhog head, nor casts a shadow over this pre-wintry twilight light, whose full moon hides behind scraggly clouds. It's a bat night, if ever there was, and the hazelnuts pay no mind. But Christmas time, sing the homes, covered in uncharacteristic light and humming with sounds of chords and words of snow, though none shows (not here - we've green instead of white).
It's give and go says every Christmas show, but I've a mind to share and stay, and I've already given everything anyway, so here's my soul, my heart, my life. I, too, can give like Christ, at least in my own way. Gentle, gentle, hold me now, the evening begins its sway. Let me let you let us sleep and tomorrow we'll engage the day.