backstage...

Every week (almost) I sit here and try to think of what I should tell you... What might inspire and encourage and give you insight into my journey while helping you on your own... What view of the world do I have to offer today?

Most times it's not anything at the forefront of my life that comes to mind -- it's the backstage wonderings and ramblings that seem to emerge as most important. -- setting the stage for all other things that happen to me. What's behind it all? What's underneath, beyond the obvious and the superficial... What are the connections I'm not making, between the divine and the everyday?

My daily life at the moment, front and center, has become a random chain of happenings jumping from place to place. Worlds that used to be quite separate all blur into one. I find it surreal that I can sit here in a cafe in the middle of America, with a cup of coffee and my laptop and free wireless, and be connected to all of my worlds. There's my friend the aid worker fighting sweat and sand in the Sudan... my creative team working 7 time zones away in Switzerland... my colleague pondering his future from Germany... my Mom waiting for emails and spring in Alaska... I can chat with four countries at once, handle my job, organize my life and the people in it, all through an invisible electronic connection.

Behind it all... beyond my present wandering exile and multitasking life and future, there is something bigger at stake. My comfort, my privileges, my everyday happiness... All of that is playing out for the sake of a storyline far more important.

Sometimes I forget. How did I get here, again? Why are most of my worldly possessions across the sea in an empty bedroom and the rest of them in a suitcase? What is the reason I'm not pulling a paycheck or looking for homeowner's insurance? How did I get myself into this?

As I'm sitting here in ostentatious comfort in this oversized cafe chair, with everything I could possibly need and more, I remember... Somewhere in the world there is a girl who hasn't looked in a mirror for years because she can't stand to see her own face. Somewhere there is a boy who can't walk because he didn't get the right shot at the right age. Somewhere, a mother has stopped crying for her starving children because she has no more water for tears. Somewhere, another heart is breaking for being forgotten.

One of those somewheres is a country called Liberia. Right now, at this moment, there's a ship there full of people meeting a land full of need -- one person at a time. Their stories come to the surface, brought forward through the eyes and ears of living human connections...

They remind me that this is what I'm about. This is why I'm here and there and everywhere. This is what I'm working toward and what I'm called to.... To take people backstage. If only their faces could be seen and their stories told... surely the world could never forget.

Here's one look backstage...

:: "What we see depends mainly on what we look for..." - John Lubbock

100 years to live...

(I borrowed this post from an email to my best friend...)

I've found a new song of the season. It was playing in a restaurant one night a few weeks ago, as I sat with good friends talking of life and future and ages... and it cemented that surreal moment forever in my mind.

We only have 100 years to live... One thing I have thought lately as I've gone from one decision to the next -- is that wherever any of this goes, whatever any of it means -- life is too short to not seize the moment. Maybe this random two months of my life is meant to teach me to surrender... to plan less and pray more... to think less and live more... to be present in every moment and to recognize each miracle from the inside out.

What really matters to me? People. Relationships. Phone calls and emails and all the lines that connect us. Awareness. Authenticity. Not being so busy that I miss things. Not being so self-absorbed that I miss opportunities. Finding beauty... Creating beauty... Unearthing the real and the true and the redeemed...

I'm sure there's heartache somewhere around the corner. I'm going to hit a day where everything seems to be falling apart and I'll wonder all over again. But I'll get past that day and go on to the next -- that's living. That's life.

I am all the ages I've ever been... I am all the worlds I've ever lived in... I am all the people I've ever known. And the more I embrace it all, mingled, messy, unresolved... the more I find myself in the middle of it, somewhere.

I look at how many time zones I'm living in right now... There's six on my computer screen, plus the one I'm in now. Seven worlds that matter immensely to me. Would I trade all those today for one simpler life, more peaceful?

Not a chance.

:: "There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein

vertigo...

It's a condition, a U2 song and a word that jumped out from my required reading this week ("The Millenium Matrix" by M. Rex Miller):

:: :: ::
Certain conditions or dynamics are known to induce vertigo: Fatigue slows the cognitive process and leaves people or institutions vulnerable to disorientation. Moving too quickly seems to upset the body's balance mechanisms and leads to coriolis vertigo (disorientation associated with operating physically free from the earth's movement). Pilots know that anytime they experience a loss of horizon (such as when flying at night or in clouds), they are in danger of vertigo. Too much noise and vibration in the environment creates a mental overload, which very often leads to vertigo. Finally, fixating on a particular item or issue can cause one to eliminate or deny other essential information and thereby lose the panoramic command of the environment.

Those suffering vertigo lose all sense of vertical and horizontal orientation; they literally lose their alignment to, and placement in, the real world. Pilots suffering vertigo have flown their planes full throttle into the earth.

Because it represents the tyranny of the subjective, the only effective recovery from vertigo is an absolute, resolute, focused reliance on objective reality (such as an airplane instrument panel).
:: :: ::

It's also an interesting metaphor for my life at the moment. Over these weeks I have Jumped from world to world, familiar to strange, known to unknown... It's some days very hard for me to determine what is real... What is true horizon... What is safe to focus on.

But I know it's there...

:: "We're not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be." - C.S. Lewis