the cookie cutter answer

Do you ever open a fortune cookie, eager that it may give you the answer? What answer you may ask. Well, the one that faces the question gnawing at us full frontal. It's the answer, we believe, will lay bear all of our grievances and act as that band-aid we've always wanted. You know, the answer to those questions like...."Why do children die of starvation?", "How can one man kill another?" and the more personal ones such as.."Why am I so frustrated by my parents?", "Why is this relationship so difficult?" and "How is it possible to earn a living doing what you love?"

Well, I think it's time we woke up and smelled reality. There is no cookie cutter answer to all of life's problems. They must be faced with determination and a dedication to hard work as well as the understanding that there is always grace. For you. For me. For us.

With this grace, we may be able to look one another in the face and admit that we don't have the answers. And perhaps agree that this not knowing may be what life's all about.

words.

It seems ironic that I love to write and the best writing program I have is textedit. Almost as if the universe was challenging me to transcribe a story from thought to life in the most difficult way possible. The truth is that my mind is plagued with thoughts and I've begun to wonder if perhaps I should write them down. I can't explain this. It is the most sincere release to be able to concentrate one's brain and express it in the simplicity of words. "Words? Simple?" You may ask. Yes, Indeed. For how can one word fully contain our infinite beings? Can the soul be harnessed by the likes of the english language? I hope it is not possible. I pray that each language, despite it's seeming complexity, still falls short in it's expression. One must believe that anything can be imagined on the basis of these words, but nothing can be fully realized in the same way that it is lived.

And yet, despite their inadequacy, we press on, using these words. Letting them fill up our lives and speak our hearts to those we love. These simple expressions are our gift to the world. As I'm writing this, I wonder which things that people have said stick out in my mind. It isn't the criticism or congratulations. Not the phrases filled with the wanderings of each day. Instead, quiet reflections, grasping at the truth, come singing to my heart. And it finds its peace.

two songs.

Here are the lyrics to two of the songs I've written in the last couple months:

It is a quiet fire
It is a sodden flame
a squelched desire
a word a thought a name

It is irrational
without the work of brain
it is emotional
it cannot hope again

(chorus)
This foolish love
who would call it that?
this eager crush
exempt from fear or shame

It is a solemn breeze
an imagined kiss
it is the gentle tease
of an abandoned wish

It is the afternoon
of the last baseball match
It is the purple bloom
of this tray of ash

this foolish love (x4)



Tagore (excerpt from a poem by Rabindrath Tagore)

Though the evening comes with slow steps
and has signaled for all to cease

Though your companions have gone to their rest
and you are tired

Though fear broods in the dark
and the face of the sky is veiled (X2)

Yet bird, o my bird, listen to me
don't close your wings