It was so surprising how it swept in so quietly, unassuming. I sit here, wrapped in a blanket, staring out my window as the flakes swirl by the street light I had never seen before. The ground is slowly being coated in white, and a siren hasn't gone by in hours. The exuberant laughter of the young seems to be coated in a quiet "Shhhh...." for once. Subconsciously the whole city responds in kind. I have Norah Jones "The Long Day is Over" on repeat. It seems to be the only appropriate song. A sigh escapes as I allow my mind to drift with the snowflakes.
Even the soul is quieted. The rushed thoughts, the hurried emotions, the confusion of life, it all just slows down.
And as it slows down, quietly, unthreateningly, a thought creeps around the corner of the empty spaces I have allowed be. A thought I haven't wanted to think for a while. A thought I have been avoiding, hoping would go away with time, like a bad case of the flu. But instead it has remained, and in the relative safety and peace of the moment, it collides with the snow flakes and me. Maybe I don't have it as figured out as I thought I did. Maybe, just maybe, after years of self-therapy, real therapy, hangovers, prayer sessions, Bible readings, sermons... I am still a basket case. Maybe none of it really worked.
Ironically, in the quiet of the moment, and in the space I have created, the thought doesn't frighten me. In fact, it makes sense, and even more so, it frees me just a little. I laugh quietly at a silly presence of peace.
The sense of freedom grows as I realize, as I finally faced the harrowing thought, I can all of the sudden hear now. I don't always have to speak. Maybe being wrong more often than being right isn't such a bad thing. It just means I get to learn more. I get to keep growing, changing, listening to the wisdom of God through the mouths of others. Alone in this lonely city, when I don't have anyone to fool but myself, it seems foolish to keep trying.
It's risky... being wrong. It means I have to start over in some places. It means I have to be more vulnerable than I thought with others, and with others still, I have a lot of undoing to allow God to mend. Scarier still, that means I have to trust beyond myself to do it. The loss of control is a sharp contrast to the freedom, yet poetic.
As I continue to watch the flakes find their own distinct path down to their preordained sight of death, I am mesmerized by their carelessness. They are not preoccupied with the end that is coming to them; the ground that looms large to take their existence. Instead they are consumed by the path the wind takes them. Dancing freely they succumb to the grander motion of the unseen. This way... then that... up again, now down... Maybe, just maybe, the goal is to be preoccupied with the Wind that guides me, and allow Him to worry about the death.
That is His job, maybe I should let Him do it, and just enjoy the Wind. And maybe, just maybe, it starts with being a mess. A wholly unapologetic, unthreatened, confident, vulnerable, scared, angry, hurt, healed, manic, crazy, frustrated, peaceful, outrageous mess.
I love the Holy Spirit. Only He could tell me I was a mess, and me to laugh and love it. Thank You oh Beautiful One. Thank You.
