Wither and Bloom

It’s been a phenomenal week on the road, and I guess part of that is because I officially got the gig last Tuesday. If don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m going to be writing for a band—Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers—this fall, and touring with them. That’s the long story shortened many, many times. And I’m usually awful at explicating things right after they happen, but I think I can pin down a few things that I’ve already learned.

 

1.       One: Don’t have expectations, and I’m pretty firm on this one. My friend Jeremiah and I were talking about this the other day, about how we crazy humans (and Americans more specifically) live life with expectations, like we’re naturally entitles to something; and I think that when we live life with tons of expectations it inhibits our ability to live carpe diem, to live in the moment. I tried my best to avoid expectations for this week, and I was blown away.

 

2.       Two: Empathy. I’m officially a writer now. It’s weird. Because I’m 19 and have been given this incredible opportunity, but I am thankful. Empathy—in the introduction of his biography on Abraham Lincoln, Stephen B. Oates says that empathy is the biographer’s best asset. I would whole-heartedly agree, and would say that it might be any writer’s main asset, for it is empathy that allows a writer to put himself or herself in another’s shoes, experience another person’s point of view and emotions and fears and hopes and shortcomings and goals and prejudices. And the more I think about it, the more it seems to be true that empathy is a very noble thing, and a very Christ-like virtue; I think that when we truly strive for empathy we are able to love other people more, because we can understand where they are coming from and where they are going and why they act that way. It’s really a fantastic thing.

 

3.       Three: By no means are there only three things I learned this week, but the last one I want to touch on is something I talk about a lot, and it might bother you but I don’t really care if it does. Brothers and sisters, it is so damn important that we learn to live now, that we learn to live in the moment and not in the past or future. There is no past or future. They don’t exist, and yeah it’s obviously smart to have a plan for things, but don’t box yourself in by constantly dwelling on things like that. For Christians at least, this is my thinking: Our sins are forgiven (past); God is omniscient and omnipotent (future)); and what is our calling?—it is love, for Christ says, Love the Lord your God, and, Love your neighbor as yourself; love, most concretely I think, exists only in the present. Let’s live now. Let’s do that.

 

(Life is transient; people come and go; relationships wither and bloom. Though it may hurt, though it may pain our hearts, let us love those even if it’s someone that will leave all too soon; let us love the unloved; let us love the house sound guy or the famous musician’s son or the bartender or Cousin or Skunk or anyone that we come across—smile and shake someone’s hand, because it may make someone’s day just a little better, because when someone does that for me it makes my day better. Love your neighbor as yourself, and I know that I fail at this so much of the time but I am learning and strive to take lessons to heart. Love. It’s never an exhausted topic, and God has given me this fall opportunity first for love.)