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Responsibility

Responsibility

I hate that word. 

I can hear the storm wailing outside my mid-suburban house, tucked away in a small suburb outside of Chicago.  This happened every so often and I loved it.  Every once in a while when it stormed so ferociously, I would venture outside the safety of the house and bask in the glory of God’s tears.  The lightning, the soaking, the sound; it made my heart beat.  I never happened across the thought that I could be struck randomly by lightning, or catch a cold from getting my clothes soaked, or slip and fall and break some part of my body.  I was safe.

I can feel the massing pressure on my mind; in my apartment not-so-far from my mid-suburban house, 15 years later, I can feel it.  Something changed, something happened, something became clouded.  It’s not my mind; I am sharp as ever.  It’s not my strength; I am as strong as I have ever been.  It’s not my drive; I get up ever day and work hard.  Every once in awhile I will head back to the place of my youth, I walk around the park I used to play so diligently in.  Almost every time I feel the need to just break down and cry.  The experience is one of a kind.  I don’t feel safe anymore.

I used to be haunted by dreams when I was a child.  I would dream of the incredibly intense movies such as “The Time Machine” and “Dune”, in vivid surreal images attributed to me.  In one specific dream, as a child I walk to the park I played so diligently in, looking forward to the new adventures I would accrue; but instead of a park there was a vast desert.  I would walk out into the desert park and be eaten by a giant sand worm.  An interesting dream, it was always more detailed than that but that was the basic idea.  As I think back about that dream, I feel like it explains my life.  I want to continue to be a child and play and have fun and not worry one bit.  Whether it is in a storm, or in a park playground, I want that feeling.  But when I come back to the place and try to experience it again, it is no longer the symbol of my joy, but the symbol of my fear.  The joy is gone, the playing is done, and this place I have arrived to is nothing but dry desert.  In that desert is my death.

I am caught in this; it’s holding me down, weighing me down.  I am under the brunt of 1000 lbs of pressure every day and I just ignore it.  In my struggle to not want responsibility I have created some sort of monster that I can’t even stand to look into the face of.  Reality, death, responsibility, all loom over me like a monster in the desert.  How do I escape this weight?  Perhaps that is the devil’s trick for me in the end.  Such a pleasant life, with not a care or a worry but for an ocean away; there is something I am missing, I understand that fully.  I have Christ, I know what it means to love and be loved.  But I am being lulled to sleep, and it is time for that to change.  The child in my life is my archetype, my passion, my care.  It is time for that child to grow up, to release, and to explore the realm which God has created us to master and uphold, and witness His all mighty name too. 

Somehow in all this wanting to be a child again, I have become the opposite, one who no longer feels with that same passion as the child in the storm.  The past can be a dangerous thing.  God help me with this struggle.

I was thinking about perspective. 

One time Cj and I went into this giant dollar store called “Deals”.  We browsed the aisles of the store looking for anything of interest to us at that time, whether it be a spatula or some decorations for the upcoming Christmas season.  As I meandered through the 1 dollar cornucopia of merchandise I started to feel as if I was wasting my time.  Nothing here interested me or seemed of value.  I thought to myself, “this place sucks.”  CJ thought as much, and we ended up leaving the store and laughing about the silly useless things we saw inside.

Narrow minded, commercialized, lavish, extravagant, arrogant, spoiled, over-stimulated.

The same day, a child enters “Deals”.  His mother was trying to pay off her debt she owed from her last medical bill, the house which was about to be repossessed, the car she couldn’t afford to get fixed, the food that she was barely able to put in her refrigerator.  This child looks wide-eyed at the assortment of colors, toys, and knick knacks which are in front of him.  He rarely gets this chance.  He was gifted with 5 dollars (only once before did he ever have that much money, and he used that to help his family pay rent) from a man who often spoke to his mother at church.  The selection was endless, each little trinket or play thing holding more exciting possibilities than the last.  He was ecstatic.

God is most definitely not fair. 

“Deals” happens to donate, per capita, the highest percentage nationally to non-profit and charitable funds/organizations.  Each and every item sold from its store is hand made from specific low income areas of Africa.  Each employee is paid fair trade wages, these specific areas have had significant leaps in conditions of living, and overall economy and lifestyle.  The goal and vision of “Deals” is to make globalization a “fair” ideal. 

The Rabbi enters the store.  He speaks with the woman in front of him, smiling down at the star gazed child that accompanied her.  “I almost forgot to tell you, let me know if you need help with rent this month.”  The Pharisee exits the store, un-amused by anything the store had to offer.  He beats his chest and goes to small group.  He eats his 45 dollar dinner.  He calls the name of “Christ” day after day.

New chapters in my life are becoming blurred.  With all the moving that I do it's no wonder!

Once again stahlster is living in a different quarters.  I moved to Elgin...from Elgin!  A thanks to my good brother Mike O for housing me for the last 8 months or so, his house was a haven for me.  It won't be replaced in my heart.  I pray that it is the same for CJ, what a perfect situation.

How beautiful our lives are.  Sometimes I just look at people who I am nothing like, or who I have nothing in common with, and imagine the love God has for them.  I realize more and more how I need desperately for God to give me perspective.  As I come into my own maturity and (adult...ick) life, I recognize my weakness so vividly, but ignore it so willingly.

A season has past in life and another comes.  Friends I spent time with have moved on, and God has placed a wonderful assortment of new beings in my midst (no more wonderful than those previously in my midst).  It is a pure joy to experience the lives of people; the intricacies of their methods and ways.  It will never get old to me.  God works through us, together; isolation is our poison.  Love wins.