Want my vote? Come and get it.
Politics are useful enough, but I would give all the thumb waving and podium thumping ever mine to give for one candidate who might actually promise, let alone accomplish, something useful. Consider this platform.
From here forward, by federal law and its full range of punishments, no person shall ever be able to ask the first question that comes to mind. The second question is fine, as is the third or any subsequent question. But the first shall be forever banned.
Imagine the possibilities. No newspaper reporter would hate the virgin moments of each new encounter because that dreaded question--"so how long have you been at the paper"--would never come to sound. A teacher would not be asked each fall how her students are. No one would have to lie to minor acquaintances by responding coyly, "fine."
How much more interesting would this world be if people asked questions of others that required actual thought? Perhaps then the answers would follow suit. And an entire existence known as humanity would find itself in a place public policy, reform and promised idealism could never naturally take it--among the intriguing.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Monday, December 31, 2007
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?
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.
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.
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.
Friday, November 30, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, November 26, 2007
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.
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.
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