Birthday Card for JC
I drew/wrote this on a few scraps of paper on 12.01.06 at a prayer meeting of sorts.
The illustration is not a cover for the card. It is more... something that went with it. I will preserve their juxtaposition.
(The text is listed as a tangent/comment.)
2 comments:
Dear God
Please teach us how to live
& teach us what is True
so that we can tell others
Thankyou for the faithfulness of those
who are less likely (socially & geographically & demographically) to believe than I. But I want to know & trust you for who you are, not because of the faith of others. Thankyou for the way you love us. I wish you were here.
I wish I knew if I loved you enough - such that if you were real & having a hard time, I would stay up with you to ward off the hallucinations - I would clean your room when you weren't around - I would take your hand and hold it in the awestruck disbelief that you were also holding mine. I think I would do at least these things, I wish I new for sure. That's why I go to Egypt. Why I make friends with strangers. Why I wait for people to show me who they really are. It's why I want to help
why I want to live. Why I laugh when I'm running outside on a beautiful day.
Why I do not count academic & financial pursuits as successes, why I become angry at things which oppress your people
It's why I struggle against this blanket
this veil over my eyes
this tangle that surrounds us all
& keeps us from each other
It's the rope that I hold to
that I feel the pulse of life in
Because I love you
I love you , I love you,
but I don't know how to love you.
Until I understand enough
to confidently speak your language,
I search.
And if all I ever do my whole life is search, It will be enough for me
maybe not enough for you
but enough for me,
if you understand that I search because I love you
& I want you to know.
similar:
comment on Tunnel Vision
references:
"...but I don't know how to love you" part of a story by David Sedaris as heard from Ira Glass of This American Life
Dead Poet's Society
context
John Keating: Close your eyes - closure! Close 'em! Now, describe what you see.
Todd Anderson: I... I close my eyes, and this image floats beside me.
JK: A sweaty-toothed madman.
TA: A sweaty-toothed madman with a stare that pounds my brain.
JK: Oh, that's *excellent*! Now, give him action - make him do something!
TA: His hands reach out and choke me.
JK: That's it! Wonderful, wonderful!
TA: And all the time he's mumbling.
JK: What's he mumbling?
TA: Mumbling truth... Truth's like a blanket that always leaves your feet cold.
JK: [some of the class start to laugh] Forget them, forget them! Stay with the blanket. Tell me about that blanket!
TA: Y-You push it, stretch it, it'll never be enough. You kick at it, beat it, it will never cover any of us. From the moment we enter crying to the moment we leave dying, it will cover just your head as you wail and cry and scream!
[class appauds]
JK: Don't you forget this.
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