poolside

for those of us who, like myself, have spent our whole lives growing up in the church environment there are certain phrases and words that are used frequently that tend to lose their meaning. somewhere within all the sunday school classes, youth group retreats, missions trips, and endless sermons we become desensitized in routine. we hear certain words so many times that we just assume we know what they mean. we are like the dogs that Pavlov worked so hard to condition, we hear something and we immediately know how we are supposed to respond without first thinking about the value behind what we are hearing. we overlook seemingly simple concepts that when explored, have the power to change our lives. we let the meaning die in the familiarity of the words.

one of these all too common phrases i am rediscovering is: child-like faith. ya we hear all the time that we are supposed to have faith like little children but what does that mean? what does it look like to view our relationship with our creator through the eyes of the innocent? we have lost touch with our sense of wonder and amazement in a society that promotes "growing up" as quickly as possible. we are told to give up our dreams as kids because they are unrealistic and immature. then we pretend to have it all together and to be able to do things for ourselves. we push our kids to grow up so fast, that if we blink we miss it all. we forget that life isn't about the destination, it's about what god shows us and does in our lives on the way.

i always used to think having a child-like faith meant viewing things as simplistically as children, savoring the beauty of life and living everyday like it's your first. and i still believe that the joy expressed by children interacting with their world is still how we should approach our loving creator. but as i thought about it more, another component of the nature of children stood out to me and brought the term, "child-like faith" into a new light for me.

think about your childhood and how you handled something new. think about doing something you had never done before. think about the first time you ever went swimming. the water looked so deep and terrifying. it was unfamiliar, something completely new. you had now idea if you had what it would take to swim. or would you just sink beneath the blue depths, never to rise again? this was a new frontier. you hesitate for a moment as anxiety begins to fill you but your dad holds your hand and leads you forward, he knew what he was doing and you follow because you know he won't let anything bad happen to you. then the time come and you find yourself at the edge of the greatest thing you've ever done. the pool didn't look this big or deep from further away. you look down and insecurity and fear seize your whole body and you are struck paralyzed with the idea of the unknown. immediately your mind takes over and you turn to leave to safety but then your dad calls out to you. he looks you in the eyes and tells you that you can do it. he reminds you that he will be there for you. they are just words but that look in his eyes and how he says them gives you the strength you need and you jump in.

first you just let your dad take you around the shallow end. then in no time you are off on your own, testing your newly found courage. you abandoned all your fears and left them at the side of the pool, but you couldn't have done it alone. the only reason you jumped in the first place was because you knew your dad would be there to catch you. his love inspired you to dive in with him. and it's the same in our relationship with our heavenly father, whose love is greater than anything we can imagine. we can leave our panic and anxiety at the end of the "pool" and dive into what god has for us. we abandon fear because we know that god will take care of us and will be with us no matter what. too many times i let my desire to know what's next and to control my own life keep me on the edge of something great. but god promises to provide for and love us always. so we have the freedom to dive n and truly enjoy the full life we have in christ, knowing god is watching and directing us.

false sense of function

today is the day we realize that we were right to fear our aspirations. sometimes ambition leads to a cold, dead trail. our hearts beat like the steady drum of industry. we have fixed our ears to fit the frequency of what we want to hear while we have become deaf to the truth. we have taught our eyes to see in airbrushed pigments while we have become blind to true beauty. we have trained our hands to grasp for the synthetic while our fingertips have gone numb. if creation was meant to find significance in its creator than we have found God, and he looks a lot like us. deep inside we long for something to touch, something to love. but we are merely skin and bones and our hunger will never be satisfied as we carry on with our eyes fixed to the ground in front of us. no one will survive this destructive dance. dysfunction breeds tolerance. every effort is spent concealing the leeches that sleep and grow on the back of our necks. they go on feeding while we have become accustomed to their parasitic kiss. my brother has gone missing, and i have become indifferent while his blood calls to me from beneath the chapel. the sun goes down again and the whole world lets out a collective sigh. tomorrow we will repeat the same desperate cycle. at least we know the routine here in this false sense of function. at least we have control.

autumn

here i am again. times passes all too quickly while we blink. this is my favorite time of year. this is when the lonely scarves make their way back to kiss the necks of their sun-tanned lovers. this is a time to sit and sip warm coffee in the crisp, afternoon breeze. this is a time to reflect on the beauty of life as auburn leaves light up the sky. this is autumn and it's beautiful. even the word "autumn" has an enchanting sound to it. i think one day when i die beneath the changing leaves with my scarf tied tightly around my neck, i will tell them to write "autumn" on my tombstone. not because it has some deep, philosophical meaning or because i want to inspire thought, simply because it is beautiful. but i didn't always have such an intimate relationship with autumn. in fact i used to call her "fall." those were the days i was i love with her care-free sister, "summer." fall was the reason i attempted so desperately to build a time machine out of cardboard boxes and hulla-hoops in my backyard when i was younger. i used to wish that i could rip fall right out of the calendar. fall meant no more sunny days spent by the pool. fall meant school, homework, and exams. fall meant the end of my social life. fall was always around the corner, it was always tucked away in the back of our minds while we pretended to ignore her. fall was the inevitable. and worst of all, fall was change. it was trying to cope with the ever-changing social ladder that you never wanted to find yourself at the bottom of. it was memorizing hundreds of seemingly useless facts and dates on columbus sailing ocean blue's and 1492's. it meant faded tans and long sleeves. it meant brown bag lunches and soggy sandwiches. it meant growing up, and dare i say, "maturing." maturity, a word made up by adults to justify their boring lives. but one fateful day in fall, everything changed, like things always do. it was one of those overcast days that dares you to sleep the whole day away, but instead i was off to school so i wouldn't find myself working at McDonalds one day, according to my mom. although i would rather have been almost anywhere that there, it was usually easy enough to fake education. just sit there quietly with your eyes focused on a spot just above the teacher's head while you day dream about all of summer's simplicity and the adventures you will have when your mistress returns. but this day was different. i trudged through the halls spilling melancholy with every step, just as i always did after clocking in for another shift. i sat down in some distant seat, if it wasn't in the back row i broke out my tape measure and made sure it was no less than one thousand miles from the front. if i could read the writing on the board without binoculars i was too close. but today, instead of focusing on that faithful little spot right above the Math teacher's head, my eyes drifted to the window. and instead of my mind flirting with the past and my future, my thoughts were trapped in the present, here and now. while the teacher carried on about complex fractions and radical numbers i began to panic inside. what was happening? this is not my routine and this is not comfortable. a leaf flickering in the breeze caught my eye. i tried to tell myself that it wasn't worth my time but the way it danced there on that branch captured my complete attention. soon i felt the cool breeze come through the window and it whispered to me and told me her name. "i am autumn," she said, "and i am not here to hurt you, only to open your eyes." since that day autumn has won my heart with her love. and here is it in her familiar embrace once again. i see a golden leaf clinging desperately to the limb ti will soon no longer know as home. it holds on for dear life, terrified of what's next. scared of leaving the familiar and entering into the unknown. scared that it's not ready for what lies ahead, unsure of itself. "am i ready?" "what am i meant for?" "what if i'm not good enough?" it asks. then i watch as it receives a gentle nudge and it flutters gracefully to my feet. i look at it and i see beauty. i see courage and purpose. it reminds me how precious life is, just like it will remind countless others with open eyes, and maybe even a few still lost in summer's absence. so maybe "autumn" has a little more poetic value than i'm willing to admit. sometimes i guess we find hope where we least expect it to show up.