Letter to a Dream (rewrite)

You know how you feel when you wake up from a dream, and the bits of dream slowly slip through your fingers, and all you can hang on to is a lingering feeling of love, or guilt, or fear.  That’s all I remember, except, like a dream, for a few of the most important good and bad parts.  I dreamed something important happened, but I don’t remember what or why, and I feel a aimless inspiration.  I dreamed that I loved someone, but I don’t remember who, and I feel empty.  I feel bad about this, but I know that, in time, I won’t remember that I felt bad about a dream, and eventually I will forget that I felt bad at all.

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friend of dreams

You know how you feel when you wake up from a dream, and the bits of dream slowly slip through your fingers, and all you can hang on to is a lingering feeling of love, or guilt, or fear.  That’s all I remember, except, like a dream, for a few of the most important good and bad parts.  I know something important happened, but I don’t remember what or why.  I know that I loved someone, but I don’t remember who.  I feel bad about this, but I know that, in time, I won’t remember what I felt bad about, and eventually I will forget that I felt bad at all.

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Summer Solstice 2010

This spring I decided to throw myself out and try things. I have been playing a lot more disc golf, and I joined a D&D club, and I got a job. Having a job is so strange after not having one for so long. I am doing data entry which is very dull but leaves me time to listen to audio books and music. At the D&D club I met a guy named John Dancy. He is very nerdy like me and we have a weekly game every Saturday in Grand Rapids, but last week was my cousin Cristina’s wedding so it was postponed. I have been questioning my liberal beliefs lately because, to me, they seem to strip one of the ability to do anything more than just whatever. Caitlin graduated with a b.a. in English. I am very proud of her. Hopefully she can find a nice job. In the mean time, she has been writing fiction.
This spring I learned how to make beer-batter fried tilapia. It is fun to make and fun to eat, but also it is unhealthy. We had a nice picnic in Milham Park and I learned how to grill brats.
This spring I played the Metal Gear Solid games 1 – 4, and they were the best games I have ever played. It is too bad I missed them when they were current, but they have all won special places in my heart.

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View

What do you do with a view?
You stare for minutes or hours
into the soul of the land;
the sky, the trees, the empty places,
all stretch out further than
you can see.

To see everything down there
from where you are up here
is to see the world like God;
the god who is your neighbor
and has its house on the hill next to yours
– but not as high of a hill
and, so, not as far of a view.

There is nothing more important
than to see beyond your own two hands,
past the book you are holding,
out beyond the walls that hold your pictures
and into the world that is not you.
Could anything be more important
than a house with a view?

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solar day

If you are happy that the world keeps spinning, time keeps happening, and seasons come and go, then welcome to Solar Day. Solar Day is a quarterly holiday celebrating the passage of time. It is non-political and non-religious. It is a holiday for people who want something to celebrate without having to worry about why that day is special. It celebrates something that is both fundamental and completely beyond humankind.

Each Solstice and Equinox is celebrated by taking some time out of the day to quietly reflect on the previous months. I like to write an account of what I did in those months in a special book I have. Afterwords, you can have a feast if you like.

The Spring Equinox is the Feast of Greens, featuring vegetables. The Summer Solstice is the Feast of Water, featuring soup and fish. The Fall Equinox is the Feast of Grains, featuring bread, and finally the Winter Solstice is the Feast of Meat, featuring delicious meat.

During the feast, it is important to verbally acknowledge all the good and bad things that have been done and that have happened during the past three months.

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Spring 2010

It was 60 degrees last Friday. On Sunday, it snowed. After a long winter with nothing to do outside except for cold, lonely walks, it is nice to have a glimpse of the fair weather ahead.

I am still unemployed. Seven months have gone by in a flash, with each day somehow longer than it should be. I am still waiting to hear back from WMU about grad school. I feel like I should be an obvious choice for admittance, but I have little hope that things will turn out how I hope. WMU, and Michigan, have little funding for students right now, so even if I do get in, it will not be an easy ride.

I have been baking and roasting and cooking many yummy foods, but lately a lot of bread. There is a certain glamor to baking the stuff of life. I feel like there is some obvious nutritional system that I am oblivious to, wherein eating healthy is simple.

Out of nowhere, Bear suddenly likes to play rough. Everyone in the apartment now has red scratches on the backs of their hands. Sometimes I worry that he may be sick, but I don’t have any money for a vet.

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Personal sin

A personal sin is a sin against another. In a world of no sin this is a bother. Sin is guilt from your mother. Sin is guilt from your father.

A personal sin is a sin against another. In a world without sin, this is a problem.

It’s not the sin that causes the burden. It is the knowledge that you have hurt someone. To let them down, to break what they thought was good about you. If they had no knowledge of you, it wouldn’t be sin. To expect nothing of you, it would not be sin. Thus how we act is consistent – there is no double standard or prejudices. We act with regard to how we are expected to act. To sin is to act outside of this expectation.

We know sin by the guilt and shame we are given. If we were given no guilt, we would live without sin. But who would give no guilt? Who would not care what we did, live or die, pain or pleasure, intent or accident? An fruit with no flavor or juice is worthless. We try to be the perfect fruit, having not too little or too much juice and flavor.

“For all have sinned and fallen short of glory” but who’s glory? The glory of others. Each other has an individual glory to give, and many of them cannot agree. Some give glory while others give guilt, sin. We cannot sin against no one, unless no one knows us or expects from us. To live without sin is to not live.

Do we cause others to sin? In the same light that our sin comes from abusing the expectations of others, so do our expectations cause others to sin. So what then? Knowing that we cause others to sin, should we seek to stop it? To do so we must cease our expectations, and open our minds to acceptance of all things. We may say to ourselves that our expectations create nothing good, and we must see the world as a river that carries all things past us, regardless of what we expect. But what good does this do us, or anyone else?

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Mary Claire

Of course she didn’t recognize me when I connected to her. She looked at me a moment, her head askance, then said “We were Childs together. Right? Or shortly thereafter?” She was right. We had trained together in the same cohort, although we only met briefly through mutual acquaintances at the very end of our childness. There had never been a connection or even an exchange, merely an acknowledgment.

“Mary,” I began. “Do you believe what they say about dreams?”

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winter solstice 2009

Every day, I am excited to continue reading “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.” Zen Buddhism intrigues me but I am not sure yet whether it is my path. For the past few weeks, it has been; but the harder I try the more I find myself not trying at all.

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Fall equinox 2009

This summer was the coldest one I can remember. Caitlin and I spent a few weekends at the beach in Muskegon, but it was never warm enough to swim. My parents bought a house and a church there this summer, and have started renovating both. It is hard for me to imagine my father and mother as pastors, but right now they are and someday perhaps they will no longer be.

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