Wonderings

I have so much to get done today, but I need to take a moment and get my thoughts down before they're gone.

Yesterday I received "Goodbye, I Love You" by Carol Lynn Pearson in the mail. I love everything she puts her pen to. I read with hunger through to book until I finished about an hour ago. With everything I read I come to love this woman more. Carol Lynn has such a beautiful way of touching the human soul. Her words make me weep.

I found so much that was so familiar in the story of Carol Lynn and Gerald. Their courtship and the dynamics between them was so similar to what I have experienced in my close friendships and relationships with girls. I feel that I have had some of the questions answered by reading their story. For some time I have wondered, what would have happened if I had just found a girl and gotten married? What if I had married the girl I once dated, never touching the world of gay dating? I know now that it would not have gone away. Hearts would have been broken. And that's just something I cannot do.

The beautiful spirituality of the book is not classic Mormonism. And I liked that. She spoke of femininity, of God and Goddess, of meditation and communion with Deity. It refreshed my soul to hear and read and feel the things she wrote.

But I found that while it is a first hand account, there was no declaration of what is, what should be, and how to act. There is no stance on the issue, no prescribed course of action for the church or the nation. There's only Carol Lynn and Gerald, revealed for all to see the deepest parts of their hearts. I think every one who knows this issue firsthand can see themselves there, watching them play out the very things we've felt ourselves.

There are so many things unanswered. It leads one to lift his eyes to the starry night and wonder. It seems that the knowledge God has given us is as each one of those pinpricks in the sky--bright, beautiful, and poignant. But such inky mystery separates them. What does all this mean? How does it all connect? And who am I, who so defies our understanding of the world here and beyond?

We truly are pioneers, as cheesy as the comparison seems. Though unlike the pioneers, I'm not sure what the destination is. In the barren wilderness I forge I can only raise my single voice and ask Him to show the way. He doesn't tell me the destination. He just tells me the next step. And when he doesn't even tell me the next step and the night gets ever darker, he gives me a hand to hold on to, and a shoulder to weep on.

I do not understand. I cannot even explain my own existence. But I know that I need God. As much as I need air to breathe and water to drink, I need him. I need to be engulfed in his spirit and his love.

"I know only as much of God and the world
As a creature with two eyes must;
But what I do understand I love,
And what I don't understand, I trust."

 - Carol Lynn Pearson

As I read this book, a 25 year old first edition copy, I marveled at how dramatically Carol Lynn's life changed. It was fascinating to read of her as a young woman, fresh in love, and to watch the way her world changed, and then to think of how her world has continued to change in one massive metamorphosis driven by divine design. It baffles me, to think of how my life will similarly change. It will morph and become something I cannot even now fathom. What will it be? What will I be? What will I know, and think, and love? The possibility that I contain, as a simple human being, amazes me.

"Today
You came running
With a small specked egg
Warm in your hand.
You could barely understand,
I know,
As I told you
Of Beginnings--
Of egg and bird
Told, too,
That years ago
You began,
Smaller than sight.
And then,
As egg yearns for sky
And seed
Stretches to tree,
You became--
Like me.

Oh,
But there's
So much more.
You and I,
Child,
Have just begun.

Think:
Worlds from now
What might we be? --
We,
Who are seed
Of Deity."

 - CLP

Under Construction

So, this isn't quite what I want it to be yet, but I'm working on getting this thing into a classier version of its former self.

As for the change of title and topic, I wanted to make it into something that I would use more, something that I could use to post my thoughts about anything, any time. So it's going to be about seeing life through different eyes.

I take the title from something I wrote about a year ago.

Beneath the surface lies a world so few see,

A world that most do not understand,

neither do they try.

A world of love and passion,

Of heartbreak and woe,

A world of shadows straining to find

who they are and where they belong.

I have found this world,

because I am a part of it.

Part of the shadow that flees the sun 

for a refuge of safety and peace.

I know the restraint of hiding from the day,

of seeking a place of solitude where my heart can find its home.

I know the chains of living one life by day,

and another by night.

I know the yearning of the shadow for love.

Need that the day cannot understand.

I know the fire of infant love as it courses through me,

reaching at last my aching heart.

I know the beauty of meeting the morn

with the eyes of glory looking into mine.

Though I am shadow,

I know the perfection of a completed heart.

I know its scarcity;

I know its grace;

I know its worth.

So how unlike the day can I truly be?

How different am I,

Though I walk in night to guard my heart?

My love is as yours.

My heart beats for peace,

As yours.

I am the shadow

But I am not the dark.

My soul is light.

My heart is love.

And my hand is strength.

Though I must hide from the day,

I will not fall.

I will not lose faith in the strength of human will.

Though I live in night,

I will believe.

I will live strong.

And when the world of shadow is finally ready to meet the day,

And when the day has found love and compassion for the shadow,

I will be there,

Unafraid,

Unashamed,

Undefeated.