Perspective

Nothing good matters. At least nothing good that I do, anyway.

The debt simply is too great. It would be the same as some fool emptying out the ocean one soup spoonful at a time and expecting praise for his accomplishment. Why? What difference does it make?

Only the bad matters on my end. Only then does the blood of Jesus matter. And boy does it matter. Like drying that same ocean by grasping the planet and hurling it face-first into the belly of the sun, it matters.

My death, my sin, my shame. His glory. Nothing else matters.

If anything else did, though, it would only be whether I am willing to have my world plucked from space and sent sunward, certain to crash and be forever, unrecognizably changed.

But assuming any other victory when it happens makes for childish arrogance. And why, then, go back to the place that got me into this mess in the first place?

Travelling

Every road has a story. Coursing onward like arteries to the heart of recollection, roads share new memories with each journey.

One road will always be known for the building with the funny name, just past the stop light. Another remains a childhood image, indelibly set. Another always means almost home, or almost somewhere, or only just beginning.

Even roads never taken tell stories. So do the people who miss them on a map, forever cursing some night they drove hours in the wrong direction or slept in a distant town anxiously awaiting morning from the driver seat.

Every road leads somewhere. Every destination has its reason. And every road tells an intricate story to anyone willing to slow down a bit and listen.

Pop

A firecracker rockets heavenward atop a sparkling trail of light. Faster, faster, faster until finally slower, then slower, then slower. All but stopped cold in the equilibrious pause known by the firecracker and so few others, a decision waits.

From that decisive moment to a time when all sight, sound and the spent-up firecracker itself are forgotton, only an instant passes. So the firecracker--everything it is made of and all it should believe itself to be--takes everything that is packed within it and bursts wildly for, and in, that solitary moment.

No firecracker believes it lasts forever. Yet not one finds that moment too short a time to shine. Only utterly damaged firecrackers forfeit their moment.

Oh, to be so well constructed. Or, perhaps, to so clearly see the design.

Hands

Lips speak of love, but hands show it.

Dry, wrinkled fingertips smelling slightly of something unnatural put away the final dishes at dinnertime. Soft, warm hands charged with standing hairs on the back fold through clean clothes on the weekend. Ice-cold hands, made so in a moment by the first touch of others, hold still against the sudden chill, waiting for warmth.

Lips will say what they may. Hands have no need of words. They have no way of hiding their truth--for better or worse. Their place is one of action, not proclaiming right or wrong nor defending either.

Hands are meant for more. The full grip of their purpose often goes unnoticed, just as it should. Hands are not made to be noticed, admired, considered--but to feel. And when they do all they do just as it should be done, words fail anyway. Words lose their hold, one they never truly knew.

Gripped

Lips speak of love, but hands show it.

Dry, wrinkled fingertips smelling slightly of something unnatural put away the final dishes at dinnertime. Soft, warm hands charged with standing hairs on the back fold through clean clothes on the weekend. Ice-cold hands, made so in a moment by the first touch of others, hold still against the sudden chill, waiting for warmth.

Lips will say what they may. Hands have no need of words. They have no way of hiding their truth--for better or worse. Their place is one of action, not proclaiming right or wrong nor defending either.

Hands are meant for more. The full grip of their purpose often goes unnoticed, just as it should. Hands are not made to be noticed, admired, considered--but to feel. And when they do all they do just as it should be done, words fail anyway. Words lose their hold, one they never truly knew.

Humorous

Senses of humor are the dangdest things.

Read any ad for a dating service. Right up there with walks on the beach and candle-lit dinners comes, naturally, a good sense of humor. Everybody wants one. Everybody wants everybody else to have one. Generally, we like them.

So, then, why are the best ones so often punished? For instance, if in the far away land of hypothetical things a woman spills a giant cup of flavored water on the floor just before bedtime, one might imagine one of only two responses. One sense of humor is deployed immediately, barely containing the capacity even to consider keeping it selfward.

The other is not.

No, the other sense of humor is stifled instantly like hope or human will within an iron-fisted, communist regime. Nothing funny comes of it, and by distemper, jealousy or some other poisonous barb this sense of humor accomplishes something extraordinary.

It demands the stronger sense be silenced. It banishes laughter, persecutes joy and burns at the stake any semblance of happiness derived from the situation. So much for wanting that sense of humor, or at least for using it often. Dangdest things, they are. Dangdest things.

Creation

Heaven most sounds like a place we have made. Not in whether it exists, but more in how it must operate does heaven bear the scars of human creation. Loved ones are reunited there. Heroes of faith wait on perpetual display. Questions concerning all things unknown are answered.

Funny, heaven may well exist without needing God at all. At least our derivation of it asserts as much. Nevermind that scriptures speak of no one being given in marraige there. Why then should there be sons, daughters, grandparents, mothers, fathers--beyond the consumate one? Heaven is described only as a place where God is worshipped wholly.

Maybe that picture is too bland for believers. Maybe the thought of such a place is not one worth believing in at all, one without the relationships we hold dearest. Then, maybe therein lies the problem.

Calling All Imbeciles

Just had a wonderful thought, preceded by a less glorious one.

If only crazy people had an advanced warning system, life would be so much simpler. At least on the telephone. Perhaps something resembling the Bat Phone, with a little flashing light accompanying each call to indicate impending lunacy. Perhaps it could have different colors. Maybe blue for idiots, orange for insecurity, gold for the simply misinformed. Red would be reserved for the truly crazy among them, perhaps with some small siren.

Imagine how much better off we would all be! Think of the time we would save, the tempers we would keep, the nerves we would withold in addition to our last! Then, consider how much more time would be had during the subsequent employment, and the fun it would be explaining to soon-former bosses why no one would return calls.

Just To Be Close

To the married, and generally happy among us:

Ever experience your spouse in a new way? Maybe she sings a song that she would never sing in public. Maybe he laughs a certain way when he knows only his wife is near enough to hear. Maybe she slurps spaghetti, he curls when his back is scratched or she pouts like a little girl.

In those moments, do you ever wish like anything that other people could experience what you are? You think, "if only her parents knew she danced that childishly," or, "if only his college roommates could see him right now." But you know that only you will ever experience your loved one in that way. It deepens your bond and strengthens your love, but part of you still wishes you could share it.

That happens with intimacy. All but incredible moments beg to be shared. Yet there is one relationship that invites us into an intimacy free of reservation, self-doubt, fear or anything else that might stop us from sharing it with everyone we meet. Yet, somehow, we find a way.

Treasures

If the sports radio talk show host was right all those years ago, then life is not the sum of things attained, but instead a wealth of experience.

Money fades, changes color or gets lost. Houses break. Cars stop running. Materialistically, the argument holds merit. And anyone believing experience to hold no value, likely, never had many good ones. So, for the sake of thought let it be true.

The problem is, experience fades too. It changes color. On the worst of occassions, it gets lost. Go back to a college football game. Go back to a high school classroom. Go back anywhere worth going back, then realize just how much has changed.

Life is experience, but like anything else worthwhile, the experiences must be made continually. New ones are necessary. Otherwise, they are little more than things gathered up with time. In fact, they may be a little less.

Choosing Tigers

The left door never hides the lady. That same, foresaken story retells itself without hesitation or exception. The tiger prowls behind the door on the left. The lady waits behind the door to the right. And, in between, a choice.

Any sort of fool may choose poorly once, but what manner of fool makes the same mistake repeatedly, worse yet continually? A rare and true fool this one must be. As if enjoying the lethal sting of claws and teeth, that fool takes his chances when chance is no more.

How blind and embicilic must he be not to choose the right door? He wants the lady, longs for her even. He tremors at fear of the tiger. Yet injuries inflicted already, by reason or excuse, mar him into making his ill-fated decision. The story never changes. Neither does its unlearned lesson.

Down and Set

A hometown divided never stood so tall.

Few trivialities rival the outcome of a football game, yet tonight offered no ordinary contest. The first in a continuous future promising to last so long not a soul will remember how it all started, lines were drawn between neighbor and neighbor, friend and friend.

So too was the field marked time from time, allegiance from allegiance, expectation from seldom considered expectation. Black and red dotted one side, blue and gold the other. Few knew how to feel, or at least how to feel strongly. Yet, each one did.

A time will come for cheering for the one and casting down the other. At least for some it will. But that night is not this night. This night, washed clean by the cold September rain needed more than anything else in this bruised town, there were only proper respects for both teams.

Offspring

An experiment never meant for the meek nor faint of heart:

Ask your father a question. Ask him to think back, to consider you as the child you were. Then ask him what he would choose if given the opportunity to change but one something about you--the person you were, the way you treated others, what you thought or believed, how you acted or refused to act. Let him think. Then, listen.

When he tells you his greatest wish is that you would have treated your sister better, consider why. Consider how his love for her--every bit his own joy as you are--mirrors your own. Then lift that same listening heart and soul heavenward.

Never come to that eternal place of reckoning, that destination of accountability, with pent-up praise of always knowing God and loving God and wanting nothing more than to make God happy at any cost only to hear those same devastating words:

I know, I just wish you would have shown love to my children.

Places Worth Crying

Tears belong to heaven. So casually considered, an idea pervades this training ground declaring tears to be no more. Yet heaven is no place worth being if such is so, and God knows far better than to allow it.

The architect of all divine destination promises to wipe away all tears. Yet what tear can be wiped away that is not formed, that is not overpowered with emotion and laid sacrifice to consciousness beyond the common kind? Hoping against such tears forfeits all but the truest reason to shed them, silently.

When heaven nearest touches earth, tears roll. That glorious moment of perfection spent, and far too soon fleeting, demands tears. So even heaven, timeless as it may be, must afford that same grace. To assume for a moment that such a place might exist without that otherworldly wonder known only through clouded eyes is to relegate the eternal hopelessly beyond its natural place, without ever knowing it.

Rolling

Science class taught us all something that never seemed to make much sense. The textbooks called it potential energy, some idea that a ball sitting motionless atop some hill has more energy than the same still ball at bottom of said hill. Some lesson, we all thought.

Then we grew a little, we lived a little. We struggled through tremendous times of trouble and celebrated pure moments of victory. And we did it all along the great, eternal ebb and flow known by anyone who lives. Then, at some point, that little ball atop the hill began making sense.

Never did the ball below change for us, but the one with all the energy did. Because even our greatest moments of joy and purpose always hold that potential for lesser things. It is as if the ball possesses more than mere energy to fall, but the knowledge that it must.

That lesson never makes the textbook. It never makes any book. It only makes its mark on lives that choose to learn it, and more so still on lives that do not.

By the Book

Life should fit the book. Living should be the conformed thing, molded and shaped by every word within pages of truth. It should not happen the other way around, with the bound up words fashioned to fit the lifestyle.

But convenience leaves so little room for what should be. Some days uprightness and justice seem the better options. Other days mercy better fits. Grace most always makes its own case, and forgiveness comes and goes as the clever soul chooses.

So it seems, anyway. The lesson will not be ultimately lost, that eventually truth will declare itself truth. Justice will take its place, as will mercy and grace. And the fooled soul so otherwise assured of its rightful place will be shown for what it is--as lost as it can be. Pray, that soul, the time will not be too late.

Beautiful Feet

My feet are as ugly as feet come. Given the chance, I would gladly trade them for just about any other set. The biggest toes barely work. The bones creak and pop in no particular order save that they always do. All but bent and broken completely, my feet accomplish little more than holding me mostly upright--sometimes.

So the idea that these two platforms of dysfunction might be beautiful seems laughable at best, until God says otherwise. Because the Bible states that feet bringing good news are in fact beautiful. Yes, even these wayward walkers can be so much more than what they seem.

Evidently, the aching sounds of age prove little compared to standing firm. And even standing firm only gets a person so far. Beauty lies in the boldness of placing one foot in front of the other and going. Moving ever-forward with the best news ever published upon human hearts, those feet become glorious indeed.

And those feet can be even these feet, or any others that choose their steps well.

Spheres

Two spheres illuminate the broad-backed sky. One shines just enough to reveal the darkness surrounding it. The other shines too brilliantly to know darkness. All creation owes itself to the guidance offered by them, the two great lights among shadows.

Yet even these two orbs, bright enough to point out the heavens between them, know that one is but a poor reflection of the other. More mirror than majestic light, the sphere that names the night would itself be humbled in darkness if not for the bearer of daylight. Otherwise lost and left no better nor worse than the spaces between stars, the night sphere looks toward the radiance of the light maker. In doing so, all of space may see itself through the black—if it chooses.

Firm and fixed through all time, the spheres keep their perfect place. Nothing lifts itself so high as the creator of light. Just a little lower, among the hidden darkness yet still not part of it, the reflector holds firm. To the true and blinding light, it only proves a redirection of something much, much greater. To eyes that may never look directly upon its source, though, it spans the gap between shuttering still in darkness and seeing any light at all.

Homebound

Every house along some long and leading road is a destination. We never stop there, never think of stopping there. We have places to be. Yet just off to the right and to the left, between the hay bales and barbed-wire fencing, sit a hundred places to be. They are the end of the journey, rather than the road itself, for someone.

The house off to the right, with the gravel driveway and the three oak trees in the side yard, is the home of two grandparents. Children and their own children come to visit each Thanksgiving, or Christmas, with bulky brown suitcases and home movies from a birthday months ago.

That house on the left, the one with the brick carport and the trampoline just beside an old tire swing, is where an older brother and his wife live. Every summer, about this time, a car pulls in with flashlights and fishing gear, and with memories yet to be made.

But we, we pass by these houses just like all the rest, barely noticing the bright brick bumps along the way home. We pay no attention to stories we have no need of knowing, stories that were never ours to share. The long road leads us that way, toward a destination. It seldom allows us to consider others.

Paper Promise

Made in a moment, the promise lasts long after the words describing it. It changes. It grows. And the decision rightly made is shown beneath the baring light of time.

Like any paper promise, the handling makes all the difference. It can be carelessly considered, eventually lost and left to litter the ground. So too might it be thrown away, discarded in search of another. Yet even the softest or most delicate paper promise, kept, may last forever.

Folded and tucked away like the memory of a new love, the perfect paper promise keeps close to the heart that chooses it. Though its words and sentiments last as long as their makers allow, the mere act of keeping them becomes its own new promise each day. Those vows, too, line the winding way toward heaven, well.

Papered Airplanes

Writing on paper seems so much safer than jumping out of a moving plane, but there are similarities. In either case, the most difficult step is the first one. Everything else simply seems to happen in its own time and in its own way. Then, I suppose most things work that way.

Science calls it inertia. I seldom ever call it anything, but I recognize it. It is the principle that something still wants to stay that way and something moving wants to keep moving. For this reason the first step into open air is more difficult than the fall, the first pen stroke worse than the rambling to follow. The first steps require more than mere motion. They require something to be overcome.

In just about every way a step can be important, the first one is. One step in the right direction or the wrong leads quickly down a path, and that path always leads somewhere. It is that mounted pressure of knowing so that worsens the lack of motion we must overcome. It is a tricky proposition, yet one as common as dirt. The longer we think about it, the more common it becomes.

War, Men and Memories

Men of war, aged by time, are something to behold. Some become bitter, some broken. Some remain resentful. Then there are others. These men, perhaps no truer treasures than their ill-fated brethren, continue to shine.

One man returned two emaciated soldiers, toothless victims of another tongue, more than sixty years ago to their homes. He remembers the smiles that raced across otherwise devastated faces. He remembers learning of home, an entire world away from his own.

Another man airlifted food into the starving belly of a civilian land cut off from the world breaking into pieces atop it each day. He remembers the return trip, steering his plane with welling eyes as he looked earthward to find a field of tulips cut to spell two words—thank you. Strangers taught him mercy and grace through his own actions.

These men have been called heroes, along with a thousand other fitting titles. They deserve to be treasured still, wondered upon by new eyes and ears. Despite what should so seem their fate, though, these men are bound inevitably by their own mortality. So too are their stories—stories that simply must be told again and again throughout history—if a generation chooses. Whether that choice is not to listen or simply to wait, the result becomes more similar each day.

Business Trip

God left heaven. The gravity of such a thought somehow loses itself within a season filled with lesser things. God left heaven. Willingly, intentionally, presumably without hesitation, He left.

Why so many of the thoughts and actions of the eternal author should seem peculiar, the mortal mind may never know. Yet they do. All of creation with mind and heart enough to conceive it spends its collective lifetime hoping toward heaven. The pinnacle of all goodness, heaven is no place to be left.

Forget the dingy manger, the filthy animals, the picture of an unclean place within a society that knows it. What would it matter if it were a palace, a portrait of splendid opulence? He came from heaven. Were He not already God, would He have known the difference?

God left heaven. Even for the supreme maker whose thoughts transpire so laughably far beyond our own, that decision must be questioned. Why would He do it? Perhaps, among the more obvious answers, He did it to answer His own call.

God knew what He would ask of man. Leave it behind. Leave it all behind. Everything—every sight and sound and simple sensation ever known—leave it. It will not be easy, but leave it. It will not always make sense. Leave it. The reward to come makes distant memory of all the confusion, of all the care. Leave that behind, too.

Smoke and Silence

I only smell candles when they are blown out. I never notice the tiny flickers, the warmth, the aroma. The instant a candle is blown out, though, I know it. Thoughts come. Suddenly an empty room becomes a family birthday party. Little children laugh, noisemakers serve their purpose. In a nearby room, the rip of wrapping paper signals a new gift.

Sugary-sweet, like the homemade icing on someone’s favorite cake, the scene lingers. Then, vanishing like the tiny puff of smoke itself, the memory is gone. More thoughts come. On one especially common occasion, a new thought comes.

Candles are no different than people. Made with a purpose in mind, each one shines its solitary light for as long as the whipping winds of circumstance allow. Then, in that indescribable moment between darkness and a room free of the smoke it left, people notice. People who have never noticed before, notice. Another memory to be had, they think of other things.

Sounded Silence

Growing up, I never paid much attention to the miracles of Jesus involving the healing of mutes. If I did, it was only to suppose the tale seemed somehow out of place among the others. Healing the crippled, the blind, the deaf, I thought, made so much more sense. What wonderful signs of the power of God they were! But healing the mute? It never seemed so great a feat.

In learning a little more of language, though, it should have made more sense. A mute, after all, sees the entire world of created things, at least as much as he chooses. The sweetest songs and most sudden calls for help can be heard, if only the mute decides to listen. Anything and everything that happens can be taken in, up to the noblest signs of God and man. Yet nothing comes out.

And in healing such a person, Christ sent out a message across time and space that even this overwhelming hindrance is subject to divine mercy. It is as if Christ knew that followers to come would carry the same burden—more than able to see the face of God and hear the words from almighty lips, yet unable to pour that blessing of truth into a dying world. So Christ healed. In a world in desperate need, and for it, Christ healed. It is a shame so few people understand the act completely, or that so few who do share it.

Holidays in Heaven

If heaven had holidays, what would they be? Surely they would be markers of spiritual events, perhaps even like some holidays here. Perhaps some of the holidays might even mark some of the same occasions. Christmas may well be a holiday in heaven, as may Easter. Imagine it.

One would be a joyous occasion, filled with hope and promise as all of creation celebrates the arrival of the king. There would be songs, services, sacred observances to commemorate the coming. Who knows? Perhaps there would even be a tree.

Then there would be the other. No less joyous, in a way, this holiday would bring with it solemn reminders of a purpose, and of a price fully paid. Celebration would come, but only after still reflection. A little colder, a little darker, this holiday would celebrate the grand design.

Imagine those two events, as many miles from earth as anything could be. Imagine the eyes and hearts of men celebrating. Imagine how long it must take to understand why holidays in heaven are so different from ones here, and how man ever got them so backward.

Storychaser

Anna Nicole Smith? Did I miss something? Anna Nicole Smith?

For several weeks, every media outlet short of the Ham Radio Operators Guild breaks in with the latest news and startling information on Anna Nicole Smith. Being the career journalist that I am, my only logical assumption is that I have missed some boat entirely.

Did she win a Nobel Prize and no one told me? Which terminal disease exactly did she cure? Now I will admit that, prior to these last few weeks, I knew about as much about Anna Nicole Smith as rapid weight loss or octogenarian nuptials. And I must admit that I know little more now, save that every television channel between ESPN and the scrolling abyss that tells me when Sportscenter next airs on ESPN remains infatuated with the woman.

A Pulitzer Prize winner dies in an upscale New York apartment, and every newspaper in America runs a four inch box in its “deaths of national note” section, hidden away on some printed page no right-minded person could find with a magnifying glass and flashlight. A noted philanthropist dies penniless from the millions of dollars spending themselves on better causes elsewhere, and her sole survivor spends an hour listening to the local editor explaining why her paragraph never made the “deaths of national note” section.

But Anna Nicole Smith is another matter. Taking her proper place among such hallmarks of humanity—the Berlin Wall, Watergate, the Kennedy assassination—Anna Nicole Smith lights up television screens and Nielson Ratings like a Las Vegas midnight. Is anyone else asking why?

This country is at war. Presidential candidates are gearing up for an election that will choose sides throughout a country divided. Even a half hour on melting ice caps would be welcomed at this point. But Anna Nicole Smith?

Some things, evidently, are not to be understood. On behalf of my profession, our apologies for yet another.

Yes and No

Jesus said let your yes be yes and your no, no. He said it to say that swearing by just about anything is pointless.

It always seemed such an ideal statement. If every person said yes and meant yes or said no and meant no, then yes, there would be no further need for swearing. Yet this world is not that world. In this place, full of lies and willing deceit, an honest person needs to convey his true faithfulness.

Recently, though, an idea came. For the true follower of Christ, perhaps there is more to this concept of yes and no. The disciple is called to be honest, full of integrity and grace. Yet people stumble. Without exception, they stumble. Jesus knew this certainty well, so He taught to it.

If a believer is asked where he was or what he was doing and he responds with some wildly fabricated tale, what Jesus said makes little difference. The sincerity of faith may itself be questioned. Even if Jesus wanted to make a difference in this situation, one wonders if He could.

Yet what of a believer asked a question of expectation? If he is specifically asked if he was where he should have been, knowing wholeheartedly that he was not, how simple is the response? Yes. As much deceit as the teller of tales, yet so much easier and, seemingly, so much sweeter. For this reason Jesus said it—guard even your yes and your no. Sometimes even one such stone can tumble an entire house of integrity. Sometimes, it can do far, far worse.

Paper and Stones

A baby is born, a man married and another dead, all on the same day. They are listed there on the same page of the local newspaper. A birth, evidently, is no more like a crossword than a death. Engagement announcements and silver anniversaries have plenty in common with death too, at least more than with editorials and advice columns. At least we are told so.

If a career in journalism teaches anything it is not to read too much into a page of print, but still there are questions here in need of answers. Why must a new parent, spending his life away two quarters at a time to see his son’s name printed for the first time, be reminded of the coming conclusion? Why must a couple greeting the golden years of their own time together, their own union, read on until their page is finished?

Perhaps the reasoning is simple. Maybe all the milestones are lumped together along the same page to make room for more pressing stories. Knowing something of milestones, though, the idea may need to be reconsidered. Milestones gathered together and left to themselves lead a path to nowhere in particular, nowhere worth going. It happens, though. It happens every day.

Four Grounds For Standing

Jesus tells a simple story of four grounds, one farmer and a sack full of seed. The farmer never changes. Neither does the seed. The soil, then, tells the story.

One ground is hard and unresponsive. Trampled on by the weight of the world, it yields no harvest. No better is the ground covered in thorns and thistles, nor the one embedded with stone. Only the good soil welcomes the seed, nurturing and feeding it until it produces much fruit.

Interesting, perhaps, is the soil never mentioned in the story. Jesus never speaks of burlap. He never speaks of dried cloth, presumably because any fool knows no seed planted in burlap will grow. The seed among thorns or stones has a preferable lot to one buried there. Even the seed carried off on the wings of crows stands a better chance. So what is a listening ear to make of the omission?

Seeds were never made to stay in the sack. Better to sow the beaten path than to ruin the seed in silence. So much power in a speck of seed that may grow into a mighty, towering tree, yet it is utterly helpless until it touches ground. Only then is it anything at all. And the simple sower, whose poured-out sweat and blood can make the plant not one inch taller nor shorter, can keep an entire field from growing by doing something so common as nothing at all.

It is a humbling lesson from the story to hope terribly he does not.

Wedding Dance

Play on, music. Play on.

Standing neatly by as one darkened piece to an encirlcling black and pink backdrop, the scene spoke. A father quivers back tears. Billowed waves of white flow down from the sides of his eldest daughter, just touching the floor. Four feet turn innocently, interrupted by each other only enough to suggest their motion is no common one. The music plays.

Suddenly the sight of this man speaks out to the one watching as if by name. A man never known, never spoken to beyond a half smile earlier that same day, becomes a lesson. Play on, music.

One man struggles to compose himself within a foreign moment, holding his child for the final time before entrusting her into the care of another man. In doing so, without knowing it, he stirs deeply the soul of an onlooker who realizes in an indelible instant that he is now far closer to that moment--kissing his beloved child goodbye for her own sake--than he will ever again be to the happily imagined one, the man who dances with the girl next.

Such a thought nearly seats a person itself. Too much for anyone to grasp all at once, it leads quickly to another.

Play on, music. Play on.

Beginning

Nothing beats the smell of an unread book. More pulp than promise, the freshness of that stale scent intoxicates. As long as books are printed, they will start off smelling like this one does right now.

Of course, though, everything that ever is anything at all changes. Soon the common stench of a story told overtakes the blinding blank. Tales of places gone and things remembered, futures hoped for and lifetimes already lived take their dutiful place. It hardly ever seems there was a time without a story.

And when this book finds its place within open hands some time hence, some time much farther off than it ever actually could be, not the slightest notice will be paid to the smell of paper. Far too much attention will be devoted elsewhere, captivated within recourse and recollection.

More still, that person holding those hands will care nothing for the thoughts of this night. Nor should it be. Because for all the mind knows to be true at the mere thought of each new page, it understands the oppresive shame in having paper remembered only for it. Pages were meant for so much more, beginning with this one.