Heh… Hello Stranger…

Secondhand Serenade

Twist in My Story

Stranger

Turn Around
Turn Around and fix your eye in my direction
So there is a connection
I can't speak
I can't make a sound to somehow capture your attention
I'm staring at perfection
Take a look at me so you can see
How beautiful you are

You call me a stranger
You say I'm a danger
But all these thoughts are leaving you tonight
I'm broke and abandoned
You are an angel
Making all my dreams come true tonight

I'm confident
But I can't pretend I wasn't terrified to meet you
I knew you could see right through me
I saw my life flash right before my very eyes
And I knew just what we'd turn into
I was hopeing that you could see
Take a look at me so you can see

You call me a stranger
You say I'm a danger
But all these thoughts are leaving you tonight
I'm broke and abandoned
You are an angel
Making all my dreams come true tonight

You are an angel
Making all my dreams come true tonight

Take a look at me so you can see
How beautiful you are...

Your beauty seems so far away
I'd have to write a thousand songs to make you comprehend how beautiful you are

I know that I can't make you stay
But I would give my final breath to make you understand how beautiful you are
Understand how beautiful you are

You call me a stranger
You say I'm a danger
But all these thoughts are leaving you tonight
I'm broke and abandoned
You are an angel
Making all my dreams come true tonight

You call me a stranger
You say I'm a danger
You call me a stranger

I just love that line...

"I woke up this morning to a blood red sky…"

And maybe I just did…

This one's for all those who know exactly what that's like…

Mat Kearney

Nothing Left to Lose

All I need

Here it comes it's all blowing in tonight
I woke up this morning to a blood red sky
Burning on the bridge and turning off the lights
We're on the run I can see it in your eyes
 
If nothing is safe then I don't understand
You call me your boy but I'm trying to be the man
One more day and it's all slipping with the sand
You touch my lips and grab the back of my hand
The back of my hand....
 
Guess we both know we're in over our heads
We got nowhere to go and no home that's left
The water is rising on a river turning red
It all might be ok or we might be dead
 
If everything we've got is slipping away
I meant what I said when I said till my dying day
I'm holding onto you holding on to me
Maybe it's all gone black but you're all I see
You're all I see...
 
The walls are shaking, I hear them sound the alarm
Glass is breaking so don't let go of my arm
Grab your bags and a picture of where we met
All that we'll leave behind is all that's left
 
If everything we've got is blowing away
We've got a rock and a rock till our dying day
I'm holding on to you holding on to me
Maybe it's all we've got but you're all I need
You're all I need...
 
And if all we've got is what no one can break
I know I'll love you, if that's all we can take
The tears are coming down
They're mixing with the rain
I know I'll love you, if that's all we can take
 
A pool is running for miles on the concrete ground
We're eight feet deep and the rain's still coming down
TV's playing it all out of town
I'm grabbing at the fray for something that won't drown

Today I am happy to have been able to purchase a book that I have wanted since it was published a several months ago, No Shortcuts to the Top by Ed Viesturs—a book about one man's experiences climbing the world's 14 tallest mountains. Its purchase was however, bitter-sweet in that it found me missing with tender sadness the mountains that I have not seen now for more than a year, as well as those who helped me climb them. And I wonder, will thoughts of the life that I once left behind—of the chapter that has ended—ever truly leave me? Will I ever happily accept a more peacefully simple life? Or will I always reminiscently long to be that student across the Starbucks, in which I sit, to my right, who is making his Hebrew note cards, and the one to my immediate left who has fallen asleep after seemingly hours of study with both his book of notes and his scriptures still nestled in his lap and his highlighter still usefully gripped between his fingers?

Despite my most serious attempts move on with finality, I've discovered, as I once expressed with theoretical suspicion, that the dead don't truly die, and the idea of "moving on" while a reality, is not exactly as "terminal" as we seemingly expect it to be. 

But it changes with time, I suppose. Or at least, that's my current theory, as I have found myself experiencing the life that I once lived with some weird sort of objectivity—almost akin to the way an archeologist might excavate the remains of a culture now buried by the sands and debris of time. And as I brushed away the dirt, I wondered, now in retrospect, what was it that kept living through so much death? What hope stayed alive through so much hopelessness and disillusionment? What was it that I retained in the midst of losing everything I ever was?

But for you to understand what it was that I found buried with the ruins, I'd have to take you back to a time before time—a time long forgotten now only a fading memory. A time when I struggled in my faith to understand what it did in fact mean to be a person of faith. It was during this time that I discovered what remains, to this day, to be the best work of literature I've ever read, Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards. 

For those of you who have not had the privilege of experiencing this work first-hand (which I suppose will be most of you), I hope that you will allow me to summarize it's message for you:

Simply put, Edwards' idea in this book is that humans are created with natural senses: taste, touch, scent... ect. And in this same way, faith brings with it a new sense—a 6th sense, if you will. With faith comes a "spiritual sense" or a new ability to discern spiritual things—things to which, before we were unaware. With this new awareness of spiritual things, comes the root—the core—or what it means exactly to be a person of faith. Simply put, being made newly aware of spiritual things creates within us a love for God. Not necessarily a love for "religion" or a way of life, or even for any kind of benefit that God may have for us, but a very simple, a very real, a very emotional, and a very personal love for God just for who He is in and of Himself. For Edwards, it follows that wherever love for God exists, there must also necessarily exist a love for His attributes, or to put it another way, a love also for the things of God.

And the reasoning continues, if one loves God then one also loves the things of God; and if one loves the things or attributes of God then it would make sense that such a love would create the desire to want to be like (or emulate) those things or attributes of God. For example, if God is love (or loving) or an attribute of God is love then it would make sense that someone who loves God and his attributes would want to be loving themselves. But this creates a problem, because any attempt to emulate the attributes of God would necessarily leave you very much lacking in your ability to do so because we are not like God, we are human. And the fact that we are human and flawed creates a difference between our desire to emulate God's attributes and our ability to actually do so. It's that difference between our desire to emulate the attributes of God and our ability to actually do so which necessitates a dependency on the grace of God to make all our short-comings ok. And the more God's grace makes all our short-comings ok, the more those who love God do in fact love Him more for his gracious nature. And the more God's grace increases or "grows" our love for him, the more we grow in our desire to emulate his attributes; the more we realize we do not emulate his attributes; the more we realize we are dependant on his grace to be greater than our short-comings; the more we love him for His grace.... and on, and on the cycle of what it means to be a person of faith continues, but it keeps coming back to the truth that very simplistically it just means that one loves God. 

Ok, that's kinda a lot, so let me recap:

- Faith brings with it a new ability to discern spiritual things.

- Being newly aware of spiritual things creates within us a love for God.

- Loving God personally also includes loving the attributes of God.

- Loving attributes of God creates the desire to also emulate those attributes in ourselves.

- Desiring to emulate those attributes is different than actually being able to do so because we are human.

- Not being able to actually emulate the attributes of God is ok because God's grace is greater than our shortcomings.

- The fact that God's grace makes all our shortcomings ok, makes us love him more for who he is. 

And you might say that that's a very long winded and very complicated way to say that in a time before time, I discovered, for myself, that what it meant to me to be a person of faith was just simply that I loved God for who He is. And I might agree with you, but it might have been a necessary context for you to truly understand how I felt when sifting through the layers of sediment brought by the winds of time and circumstance to cover and bury the ruins of a life I once lived but destroyed at my own hands, and discovered exactly what kept living despite my best attempts to murder it and leave it for dead... There, amidst the remnants of everything lost, of everything buried that will not come back, I discovered what it was that through it all I retained—or maybe that retained and sustained me. There in my darkest moments, in my deepest moments of hopelessness, I realized that never did I ever for even one second stop loving God. Never did I stop loving God for who he was in and of himself. Never did I stop loving God or the things of God. 

I found and remembered evidence of the depression and sadness, the hopelessness and pain, the hot anger I had towards God—the anger, and if I'm totally honest, sometimes even hatred. But there with it still was the very much alive and beating heart of love for God. Evidence that even in my most intense anger towards Him; my anger never did at any point breed apathy. Never did I ever grow indifferent towards Him. And when I discovered this I remembered that even in my hopelessness I would turn to Him in desperation and say, "You have the words of eternal life. To whom else shall I turn?" Never in my deepest moments of pain did I ever think or feel or say that I didn't love God—because I knew that I did. Somehow, through it all, the love of God and the things of God never did abandon me. 

And so, as I find myself sifting through a life that I once lived, I think that Edwards must have been right. What it means to be a person of faith is just to love God. Because I still felt it even in my darkest moment. And that's how I know in retrospect that everything that I left behind and everything that still follows me to this day is all just somehow ok. That moving on can have real meaning but we still retain very real remnants from all that we can't leave behind, and I think that that's all just somehow ok. Because through no ability of my own, somehow when I had nothing else, I never stopped loving God. And if the love of God is evidence that He's never stopped loving you—and I believe that it is—then I think it must be true: His mercies must be new every morning, His faithfulness must be greater than my rebellion, His grace must be greater than all my sin.

So I'm going to enjoy this book about those mountains for which I long…. And I'm going to thank Him for the grace to keep loving Him… And I'm going to smile as I realize that somehow the pain in life hasn't robbed me of my ability to feel…

Rich Mullins

Never Picture Perfect

The Love of God

There's a wildness in God's mercy

I cannot find in my own

And it keeps this fire burning

To melt this heart of stone

Keeps me aching with a yearning

Keeps me glad to have been caught

In the reckless, raging, fury

That they call the love of God.

Joy and sorrow are this Ocean

In its every ebb and flow

Now the Lord a door has opened

That all Hell could never close

Here I'm tested and made worthy

Tossed about but lifted up

In the reckless, raging, fury

That they call the love of God

Do you ever wish that you were wrong?

I do.

In fact, I hope that I am wrong. I hope that God isn't as small as I have made Him out to be. I hope he doesn't fit in to the nice theological categories I have put him in. I hope that all my doubts are someday proved wrong and God proves himself to be faithful. I hope that someday I will realize that I am wrong; God has not left me here to decay with my own sinfulness and He actually is finishing the work he began in me. 

I hope I am wrong, I hope His calling is effectual. I hope that all the things I fail to see His working in are proved wrong and that He really was involved in everything. I hope He doesn't wait as long to come back as I my life demonstrates. I hope that His love isn't conditional on my performance and that His grace is not as small as I think it is. 

I hope I am wrong.  I hope that love really does last forever not just for the moment that has already passed by. I hope that I am not as big as I think I am and that the world does not revolve around me quite as much as I think it should. I hope that the things in life that I get consumed with are really not important at all. I hope that the life I know is not all there is but that waiting just past the horizon is a freedom more wild and more colorful than my mind can imagine.  I hope that heaven is not as boring as I think it will be. 

I hope I am wrong. I hope that the Bible is more than my life has made it out to be. I hope that more than just my "good" deeds bring glory to God. I hope that the people I love feel loved more than I show them.  I hope that my life will not be the train-wreck that it will almost certainly be but that in the end God will have painted a masterpiece. 

I hope I am wrong. I hope that love is neither the pitiful intention of good will we exhibit or the surreal painting of a Hollywood movie but is more vibrant and more costly and more alive than anything that could originate in myself. I really do hope that God's grace is greater than all my sin.

I hope I am wrong. I hope that faith is not the half-ass attempt at trusting that I think it is—like a little boy told to cover his eyes and he does so still trying to see between the cracks of his fingers.  I hope that, despite my best attempt otherwise, faith really will be made sight. I hope that my bootstraps really are too heavy for me to pick up and that in spite of my prideful delusion; I really am incapable of doing any good on my own. I hope that people like me a lot more than I think they do and that someday I will let go of the ridiculous idea that everybody has to. I hope that, although I would rather do anything than submit to God, that one day every knee really will bow. 

I hope I am wrong. I hope that despite all my efforts to prolong my life that one day I will die and I will be home. I hope I don't need half of the things I think I do. I hope that God does not do what I tell him to do and that He ignores half of my prayers and that the Spirit really does intercede when I fight him for something I don't really want. I hope life is more out of my hands than my desire for control will allow me to believe. I hope that I really am made of dust and not steel so that maybe one day I will realize that if God were not mindful of me I would blow away. I hope I am not as strong as I think I am and that I really don't have to have it all "together."  I hope that the status of the sky falling is not dependant on my opinion.

I hope that I am not as alone as I think I am and that I am not the only one who hopes he is wrong. But most of all, I hope that there is a love that is deeper than my sentiment, that there is a passion and commitment that overcomes my rebelliousness, and that His grace is greater than all my sin.

Who knows? Maybe I am. . . . .

Caedmon's Call

Long Line of Leavers

Prove me Wrong

Sometimes I fear maybe I'm not chosen
You've hardened my heart like Pharaoh
That would explain why life is so hard for me

And I am sad Esau hated
Crying against what's fated
Saying father, please, is there any left for me

Cast out my doubts, please prove me wrong
'Cause these daemons can be so headstrong
Make my walls fall, please prove me wrong
'Cause this resentment's been building
Burn them up with your fire so strong
If you can before I bail, please prove me wrong

I fear maybe this is all just a game
Our friends and our families all play too
Harness the young and give some comfort to the old

Don't let my doubts prove true
Draw me close and hold me near to you
Keep me still until the day you

Cast out my doubts, please prove me wrong
'Cause these daemons can be so headstrong
Make my walls fall, please prove me wrong
'Cause this resentment's been building
Burn them up with your fire so strong
If you can before I bail, please prove me wrong

It would seem appropriate, I suppose, and not at all surprising, at the turn of the New Year, to retrospectively take stock and consider the ebb and flow of your life. However distasteful the concept of a "new years resolution" is to me, such introspection would seem to be unavoidable this time—no, not for new years sake (that's just ironic… or coincidental… whatever best appropriates the situation)—but because I have recently become the victim of the morbid curiosity of peering at myself through the looking glass, as it were, as I stood making various eye contacts with the numerous strangers herded with me at that place where all virtue seems to go to die—the airport. And as I stood there with my fellow passengers awaiting both the permission of the "wranglers" to board, and the seemingly inexcusable delays caused by the asinine behavior of the various animals, I wondered… what was it they saw when, for that briefest of moments, eyes connect and you become newly aware of that other person's existence in this world.

It's a strange curiosity for sure, and an even more embarrassing one at that. But be that as it may, it is still fair, isn't it? Don't we all walk around with the awareness of how rapidly we assess and form opinions and ideas of others? Don't we all know how quick we ourselves are to admire and criticize at our mere pleasure?

And so I wondered, what was it they thought about when they saw me? Was I found attractive or unattractive? Did I seem friendly or cantankerous? Did they notice that pimple on my upper lip; think that I needed a haircut; or that my tie matched my shirt? And if they ever had the opportunity to know me, would their opinions be validated or altered? Furthermore, why do I even care?

It might be strange for some of you to learn the embarrassing truth about me of how often I think about the perception of myself through other's eyes—how often it has stolen sleep from my nights. It would be strange though, only if you didn't know that my generally caviler and dismissive attitude to the opinion of others has only callused over time—a roughness caused by the abrasive reality that, as far back as I can remember, I've bottled that immature and adolescent desire for popularity—all the while never really attaining it.

And so I wonder, in this my 28^th year of life, as I see the eyes of others looking back at me, has it all left me? Have I risen so far above my childhood? Furthermore, who am I? Will I ever be able to put my adolescent indiscretions behind me? Will I ever be able to find the peace to the puzzles about life that have caused me so much distress, hurt, and drama? Will I ever be normal? Will I ever be more than the sum of choices made and not made, chances taken and not taken? Will it ever just be ok to be me? Will I ever enjoy loving and being loved? Perhaps more disturbingly, I wonder what kind of life I even deserve—whether or not I am deserving of love and a peaceful life; whether I deserve success and the favor of others. And to add insult to serious injury, I wonder what of these, if any, are actually worth the pursuit or even realistically attainable.

Never have I expressed any thing with more sincerity than when I say that more than anything in this world I wish for—and have for some time now—answers; answers to the questions that have desperately eluded me for so long. Perhaps I would even settle for it at least to be ok that I don't have any.

Now, 2007 didn't exactly bring me any answers, just more unanswered questions. But if 2007 did in fact teach me anything, it's that I've had love both deserved and undeserved, friendships that were both deserved and undeserved, and the opinions of others that were both deserved and undeserved. And although I wish that I could say honestly of all of these that I was grateful for both, when it's all said and done, it just seems that I've learned that some of these questions and answers sometimes must just take some time, and it may be longer—much longer than I would like—but maybe that's ok...

Will 2008 bring any more answers? Will I finally be able to cut my personal preverbal "Gordian Knot"? Honestly, I haven't the slightest clue. But I think in the last year I learned that a man has to be more than the sum of his choices and that ball games are won in the 4^th quarter. That a score with 8 seconds left on the clock can erase 59 min 52 sec of bad play. That it's the endings that makes or breaks stories, so as long as there is one more chapter to be written, there is still time, and time has a way diffusing even the most intense feelings of grief and love, redeeming even the most bastardly of situations, solving the most complex riddles, and healing even the deepest wounds. And as long as there is time on the clock, there is still a shot to be taken, and with that shot is hope. Hope that maybe tomorrow will make a little better sense than today. And that hope brings with it the faith that when that clock expires, my story will bring glory to the one who wrote it with his pen of love and grace. And in that day I will be thankful for all those deservedly or not, that stuck around and through the ebb and flow of my life, and kept hoping—kept reading and enduring each chapter of this sordid tale. And when it's all said and done, I hope that the ending makes them grateful too....

Jon McLaughlin

Indiana

Human

Can you tell me how we got in this situation,
I can't seem to get you off my mind,
all these ups and downs,
they trip up our good intentions,
nobody said this was easy ride.

After all we're only human,
always fighting what we're feeling,
hurt instead of healing,
after all we're only human,
is there any other reason why we stay instead of leavin' after all

Can we get back to the point of this conversation,
when we saw things through each others eyes,
cause now all I see is ruin and devastation,
we all need some place we can hide inside and

After all we're only human,
always fighting what we're feeling,
hurt instead of healing,
after all we're only human,
is there any other reason why we stay instead of leavin'

I'm smart enough to know,
that life goes by,
and it leaves a trail of broken bones behind,
if you feel I'm letting go,
just give me time,
I'll come running to your side,

After all we're only human,
always fighting what we're feeling,
hurt instead of healing,
after all we're only human,
is there any other reason why we stay instead of leavin'

After all we're only human,
always fighting what we're feeling,
hurt instead of healing,
After all we're only human,
is there any other reason why we stay instead of leavin' after all

Don't you just love it when you find a song that is just…. fitting?

Collective Soul

Collective Soul

December

Why drink the water from my hand?
Contagious as you think I am
Just tilt my sun towards your domain.
Your cup runneth over again.

Don't scream about
Don't think aloud
Turn your head now baby
Just spit me out
Don't worry about
Don't speak of doubt
Turn your head now baby
Just spit me out

Why follow me to higher ground?
Lost as you swear I am.
Don't throw away your basic needs,
Ambiance and vanity.

December promise you gave unto me
December whispers of treachery
December clouds are now covering me
December songs no longer I sing

A friend of mine once asked me, "Do you ever think that it all happened for a reason?" And despite the fact that being a person of faith compels me to believe that there is a greater being who has foreordained every event of life many, many, years ago, I had to be honest and just say no because at least that's how it feels, doesn't it? That's how it feels when time passes and the answers are never found. The answers to: Why? What did it mean? And where do I go from here?

I mean sure, maybe everything does happen for a reason, even if the reason will never be discovered or understood by us in this lifetime—as if that helps. But what I reacted to is that naïve desire in human nature that has to "make sense" of everything, that has to sprinkle it with sugar so that the pill is easier to stomach, that never-diminishing last bastion of hope that just seems to think that the reality of life is just much to painful to swallow without a chaser. After all, I read somewhere that everything always works out for the good, and why wouldn't it?

Another friend of mine said, in one of my saddest moments in life, "There's always hope." To which I wanted to say, "No, no there's no hope anymore. Hope has gone and only despair is left." Because, whether or not it is true, that's exactly how it feels.

But the more I encounter comments and questions like these, the more I grow convinced that it is just part of our human nature to always hope, no matter the odds, no matter the cost. My friend was right at least by default—there's always hope.  It's probably why we love to root for the underdog and award Nobel prizes to love stories that survive untarnished after suffering fifty-one years, nine months, and four days of decisions that should not have been made (Love in the time of Cholera). It's in all of us, the desire to hope beyond all hope and have that hope not disappoint us in the end—yes, I might have read that somewhere as well… But it puts the question to us: Do you have what it takes? Is it in you to be the next Rudy or the next Florentino Ariza? Can you endure 50 years of life and circumstance because of the hope that lives in you? The truth is, it's not in me and I'd venture to say, it's not in you either. That's probably why the literature and films of our culture are littered to such an extent with stories such as these. Because in the world of the living, time has a way of dissolving the sugar-coating and making the hope within you grow rancid. And as the time passes, all the hope that turned to disappointment builds until the bitterness turns into that nauseating feeling which will inevitably resolve itself with the expelling of everything that you have tried to keep down for so long.

And that's ok, I suppose—at least it's ok with me. There's always hope, and it will always (or maybe just mostly) leave a bitter taste in your mouth and a nauseating feeling in your stomach. It's just the way things are, and what am I going to do? Argue about it? Just don't try to make me drink that cyanide you flavored with grape Kool-Aid and try to get me to think that it all happens for the good or happens for a reason—at least a reason that is both sensible and available to our understanding. Just let me drink it straight as I try to hold on.  

Smashing Pumpkins

MACHINA/The Machines of God

Try, Try, Try

Pop-tart, what's our mission?
Do we know but never listen
For too long they held me under
But I hear it's almost over

In Detroit on a Memphis train
Like you said it's down in the heat and the summer rain of
The automatic gauze of your memories
Down in the sleep at the airplane races

Try to hold on to this heart
A little bit longer
Try to hold on to this love aloud
Try to hold on
For this heart's a little bit colder
Try to hold on to this love

Paperback scrawl your hidden poems
Written around the dried out flowers
Here we are still trading places
To try to hold on

Pop-tart, can you envision
A free world of clearer vision

For too long they held us under
But I know we're getting over

In Detroit with the Nashville tears
Like you said it's down in the heat with the broken numbers
Down in the gaze of solemnity
Down in the way you've held together

To try to hold on To this heart
A little bit closer
Try to hold on to this love aloud
Try to hold on
For this heart's a little bit older
Try to hold on to this love aloud

And we are still alive

Try to hold on
And we have survived
Try to hold on
And no one should deny
We tried to hold to on

To the pulse of the feedback current
Into the flow of encrypted movement
Slapback kills the ancient remnants
That try to hold on

Try to hold on to this heart alive
Try to hold on to this love aloud
Try to hold on
And we are still alive
Try to hold on
And we have survived
Try to hold on

Pop-tart, you never listen
Skinned knees, Try to hold on
Stop start what's our mission
Skinned knees, Try to hold on

"I keep asking myself why we are together and I'm running out of reasons why…"

One of the characters of my new favorite TV show, Tell Me You Love Me (HBO), asked rhetorically, in an episode, "Why do people stay together when they make each other so miserable?" And the more this question haunted my thoughts, the more I have realized that finding an answer to this question, or variations of it, has occupied much of my time and thinking since I was a teenager. I can recall wondering and even, obnoxiously I suppose, asking on occasion, friends or acquaintances involved in any kind of romance, something along the lines of, "Why do you like him or her." I remember always finding most of the answers I got to be quite strange. Most of the answers always seemed to have to do more with the way the object of their affection makes them feel—thus more to do with them than the person for which they have affection. I suppose I shouldn't fault any of my "subjects" for it can be most difficult explaining in empirical terms those things which are invisible to the eye.

In my more foolish days I asked others the question, "Why did you decide to get married?" My folly was not in asking the question, but in thinking that people could handle the realization that more often than not, their decision was made irrationally. I chuckle to myself as I remember more than one person responding to this question by saying things to the effect of, "It makes you a better person." Which just demands some laughter, doesn't it? Don't get me wrong here, I'm not denying that it is quite possible that this is true—marriage could in fact make you a better person. But so do things like cancer and flesh-eating bacteria—this, of course, in a very "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" kind of way, which may or may not be very analogous to some relationships I suppose. It would seem somehow fitting here to recall the sentiment expressed in that early 90's hit "Self Esteem" by Offspring: "The more you suffer, the more it shows you really care, right?"

As I sit here "sifting" as it were through all the data collected from all the "research" regarding why people get together and why people stay together, if I had to guess I would say quite simply, people do it because of the hope of happiness. And I think this makes sense if you think about it. If people were happy enough with their lives as single people or at least didn't think they would be happier in a relationship, they most likely wouldn't look for romance. But romance is where it's all at right? It's where all the bohemian ideals of love, truth, and beauty reside in a world where this ideal is expressed consistently through film, music, and literature—that "the greatest thing in all the world is just to love and be loved in return." The promise of real and tangible happiness is why we look for it, why sometimes it finds us, and it's the hope that it is real and it can be ours is why we endure so much to make it so.

Now, lest this observation sounds critical, I should make clear, that amidst all the daily beatings that we endure in our regular tour of duty through this life, I think, happiness is very hard to find. It is more often the exception rather than the norm. So although it might not be the guiding principle of life, I tend to want to think that at some point, people should be happy, or at least experience happiness—that's the way it should work. But it rarely does, and so if you have a chance to be happy, I think that's a good thing.

But all this just begs the question, why then do people stay in relationships when they are so miserable? There are a number of reasons I suppose, for some people, its fear. Fear of being alone. Fear of the fallout from the break up. Sometimes its just easier to "adjust" and "make do" and in so doing arrive at some generally acceptable state of existence. For some of you, the first thing that popped into your mind is commitment. And I think that's true, sometimes people stay together even though they make each other miserable because at some point, they stood before God or at least a Justice of the Peace and some witnesses and said something to the effect of "till death do us part." But this to me is a sad state of affairs. When the first and maybe the only reason "why" a couple stays together is just because of well-intended words spoken on some day many days removed from now when perhaps you were someone you are not anymore. Shouldn't romance be much more than that? Shouldn't it be much more substantive than just hinging on the utterance of a few words? Is it noble? Yes. Pious? Certainly. But if we are honest, and some didn't hold a particular religious persuasion regarding the breaking of such vows, we all might be more willing to encourage people to have the courage to be happy.

Now certainly this issue is not exactly this simplistic either. Although it is ideal that the behavior of commitment be the product—the "fruit" if you will—of love and affection, often it is the very behavior of committing which itself creates the environment for love to grow and flourish where it was not before. But this kind of cause and effect dynamic is far from formulaic when it comes to romances and relationships. Because the truth is, people change over time. Sometimes people are genuinely miserable and have been for years. Sometimes they have exhausted themselves with effort and have done everything in their power to uphold the vows that they spoke with the best of intentions but still they remain miserable. And yet they stay.

Why do people stay together when they make each other so miserable? Simply put? I think because of the hope of happiness. Sometimes naively, but hope none the less—people hope that relationships can fix. They can get better or get back to when they were better. And some are lucky enough to see that they sometimes do. Some are not so lucky. But they all desperately hope. We all hope that just a little bit longer, just a little more endurance and then we can be happy. But the truth is that hope only lasts for so long. Hope, going unrealized, fades over time. And when hope goes it leaves a vacuum filled with despair and exhaustion.

Echoing in the halls of my mind is my college soccer coach pacing back and forth during training camp quoting Vince Lombardi saying "Gentleman, fatigue makes cowards of us all." Perhaps it's is when the exhaustion sets in that you really find what you are made of. Do you have the courage to do what you have to do to be happy? To choose that life is just too short and filled with too much pain to allow yourself to settle for a romance where reasons for its continued existence escape you? Where the first and maybe the only reason why is because of a religious belief regarding the nature of a

relational commitment?

Well, I'm not saying I have that kind of courage. But I do think that romances should be much more than that, whether people stay or leave. They should make you happy—at least more often than not. And having one that makes you happy is a good thing. It probably takes sacrifice, a lot of courage, and a little bit of luck. And although I can't tell you where or how to find or sustain one, what I do know is that if we are going to survive this 70ish-year tour through this beating of a life, somewhere along the way we have to find the courage to be happy.

"You Could Be Happy"

You could be happy and I won't know
But you weren't happy the day I watched you go

And all the things that I wished I had not said
Are played in loops 'till it's madness in my head

Is it too late to remind you how we were
But not our last days of silence, screaming, blur

Most of what I remember makes me sure
I should have stopped you from walking out the door

You could be happy, I hope you are
You made me happier than I'd been by far

Somehow everything I own smells of you
And for the tiniest moment it's all not true

Do the things that you always wanted to
Without me there to hold you back, don't think, just do

More than anything I want to see you, girl
Take a glorious bite out of the whole world

Dearest Ira,

Tonight, just before 3am, when I got home, I woke you up. You probably hated it, knowing how sparsely sleep finds you these days, but still, I did it anyway. There was so much I wanted to say to you. There's so much I would say to you now that will never be heard, and so much of your burden that I would bear with you that will never be born. I know, my friend, that you have loved and lost and I know all to well the blisters on your heart that find no salve. I know the disparity that saturates your soul when there is no more hope upon which to cling. And sadly, I know that there are no words or actions which can anesthetize your pain or will cauterize the bleeding. Still, in this moment of solace, long after you and the world have resigned away your day, I find that I want you to know that I think of you often with tenderness of heart and with great affection. I want you to know that there are tears often in my eyes; that I share your hurt. I hurt for you and with you and find no desire within myself for anything but just to reach out to you and touch you and hold you and exist with you in your sadness.

I know that in this moment, well intended reason and advice are worthless commodities which ultimately serve only to placate my own sense of "friendly" duty, all the while placing you at a safe enough distance from me where I will offer my nominal empathy but not my own blood. And although, much of this burden will be born in silence, there are things—so many things tonight that I wanted to say to you through the blood and sweat and tears. Things like, you are not alone. Although you may be lonely, you are not alone. Your wounds draw blood from my soul and your pain, sweat from my brow. You are my love and you are significant and meaningful to me.

And although I know that any words I have to offer would be traded up in a second for the faintest whisper of her voice, still I will tell you to not give up. Just draw one more breath and don't give up. Not because I can promise you that there is hope that will not disappoint you, but just because, when your soul goes down to the grave, there my soul will accompany you. So please, just don't give up. In this night I will bear your pain and make your burden my own. I will hold you and together we will breathe and just give it time. And although the passing of time may not heal your pain it will eventually scar over the wounds left from chances taken on a love which ran so deeply.

These are the things that I wanted to say to you tonight, just before 3am, when I got home and woke you up. This is what I hope you heard when all I could do is take your hand in mine and say, "I love you. I hope you know that." So don't give up, my friend. Just breathe. I am in this trench with you fighting with you and for you. I am here bearing your burden in my heart. I love you and I'll never leave you.