. . .

It's funny to me, a little, how people who were once perfect strangers can become closer to you than blood.

It is sad, too, that familial connections aren't what they could be.

I realize that a quick read through my blog might seem to indicate that I have no problem in talking from my heart, but the truth is that any ease that one can surmise is made possible only because of the nature of blogging - I find it easy to talk about myself, my hopes and dreams and fears, because it is just me and a screen, with words magically appearing here and being read over there, wherever you are.

After growing up around a group of people for awhile, or spending time with anyone over a lengthy period, you start to assume that you know a thing or two about them. But we are fluid beings, humans. We change so much over time . . . years have a way of eroding certain parts of us, exposing things that perhaps were hinted at but never fully seen before. And you may not notice the change as you live out your life, or notice the change in those around you, but just as the ocean rocks gradually lose their battle with the water, we find ourselves changing, growing. The rocks are still rocks, and I am still Greg, and you are still you, but a different rock, a different Greg, a different you, emerges.

Normally I try to have a point when I write. Perhaps today's point is to give voice to some kind of restless churning inside me. Perhaps it is about trying to avoid, well, today.

Maybe my mom was right, and I was running away when I moved out to Calgary.

Maybe the lack of connection I feel to my extended family (both sides) is because I just haven't tried hard enough.

Maybe it's too late. Maybe a person can be so insulated behind some self made walls, that the walls become them, and in their endeavors to escape the past, there are places they should not return. Maybe , instead of running away, I was running towards something. Maybe I wake up every morning wishing I could take those I love from THERE and bring them HERE, where life just feels better.

I wonder - do rocks ever question the whys of erosion? Do they long for the way things once were, though knowing there is no going back?

And what if what once was is more illusion that reality?

. . .


Hey. If you've stuck with me for this long on this post, then thanks for hanging in. I don't expect you'll gather much meaning from it unless you know me very, VERY well, but I still felt like writing it. I'd normally journal shit like this, but I have yet to procure a new journal. Sometimes it's just about getting what is in, out, and if anything I wrote is beneficial, then cheers.

Why I Cry In Movies

The other night, I threw in Slumdog Millionaire. Didn't watch the whole thing. Didn't want to.


Skip to the final scenes of the movie.

"I don't know where they've taken her . . . "

"I went on the show because I thought she might be watching . . . "

Tear.

Phone a friend . . .

Cue Latika

"Hello?"

Camera on Jamal - that look on his face, hearing her voice again, the impossible becoming possible set against the backdrop of his impossible run on the show.

Salim's sacrifice - redemption is available to all.

The rendez-vous at the train station - her shame at her scar, his tender kissing of it.

Roll credits. Jai Ho.


K, I took maybe 30 seconds to type that (then correcting some spelling and what not) . . . but I think that that is a good encapsulation of what it is that makes me cry in SM.

And now, the why of it all . . .

I wasn't made for good byes. I wasn't made for the mundane, for mediocrity. I see beauty in the ordinary, hope in despair - the way I see the world is just different. If you know me at all, then you know enough to know that I should be bitter, should hold a grudge. I just can't though. There is so much that happens everyday, all these little miracles, that seeing something truly good happen when there is no reason to think that it should is enough to touch me deeply and elicit tears as a response.

Latika is scarred - her beauty is marred, at least in her own eyes. Yet Jamal still wants no one but her, still sees her when no one else really does. That scar? Nothing a kiss can't fix . . .

Mike and I were talking recently about what resurrection life is like, how Jesus' body was still scarred even after he came back to life. And he said something I found intriguing. Help me out here if I get it wrong, k Mike? But I believe you said that our wounds don't go away, but their message does - that everything is redeemed, even the meaning of our scars.

The story of Latika's scar, for instance, begins with abuse at the hands of a man who knows not what love is, but ends at the hands of her one true love.

I have been scarred by abandonments in life, of people who needed to be there at key times being absent. The most significant one is that of my father, and though our relationship is better now then either of us may have dreamed possible, the damage is real. The message of THAT wound, though, is that there IS a Father, One Who doesn't leave. There IS unconditional love to be found. And it is in the times that I feel the wound most acutely that I draw most closely to that love.



I've been there before, too, countless times. Doing something just because maybe, just maybe, she'd be watching. The "she" changes with time, but the desire to make desire known doesn't. Or hasn't yet. And as I grow more aware of the Sacred Romance that breathes life into every day, I more eagerly anticipate my part in an image of that romance . . .

Until then, and hopefully long afterwards, I will cry in movies, not necessarily for what occurs on the screen so much as what occurs in me while watching it.

Long Time Coming . . .

I recounted my life's story, or at least the parts I figure most people would never know or guess, to Peter and Mary, my good friend Sara's parents, and the people with whom I am boarding (whom I am boarding with? Whatever. I live in their house.)

And it hit me as I told my tale - the horrible parts, the parts that no one was allowed to know ever, the things that brought me shame - they don't have that power anymore. Now, there is still a lot that I DIDN'T say . . . really, it was quite a bit tamer than all I could have said. But there are details of things that have happened to me that no one needs to know about outside of God and me and Peggy . . . either way, nothing from my past has any kind of hold or say on my present.

I blame Mike for helping me think this way :) (Thanks Mike). If it wasn't for his sermon on Sunday, I might not have started down this path of thought. I have a friend who recently blogged on her thoughts on Easter, and she is to blame as well . . .

Resurrection life, the life available to us in a post-Easter world, is a life where who we were doesn't have to be who we are, and who we were meant to be is who we can become. There is life out of death, beauty in the broken, and peace where once there was war. For most of my life, I have had a sense of restlessness inside, like who I was wasn't in line with who I appeared to be. I don't know how else to put it other than that - like I didn't really recognize that guy looking back at me in the mirror. There were things I would do and BE that didn't line up with what I felt to be true on a very deep level . . .

That war is abating now. Again, I'm not sure how to say it other than that I feel more in line with myself. It's been a very humbling process, and I've had to learn some hard lessons over and over and over again. And I'm sure there are more to follow . . . but for now, there is a peace, a contentedness, and if I am restless at all, it is only to dive even further into this adventure of life in due time.

There is no formula for life
No math can explain a soul on a journey
Grace rarely makes sense from the outside looking in
And there is no one I will not forgive
For I have been forgiven of all


If you are reading this, I want to hug you. And I really don't care if that seems "unmanly" or whatever - I know who I am . . .

Finally :)