lent || waking up
The other night before I made preparations to go to bed I walked around town. Circling the town like batman, just walking. I left a friends house, and had started my definitive mix, knowing that I would feel wrong to stop in the middle of the medley that, well, in some ways defines me. It tells my story: my pains, longings and firm pillars that have been etched into the fibers of my humanity. Each song felt new, perhaps because I hadn’t listened to it in a while, but maybe I was just in need of something or someone to tell me who I was. Someone who knew me. I felt as if, as Moltman has said it, my life was waking up and I was looking to be known, embraced.
Waking up somewhere around midnight seems odd but that unrestricted presence comes alongside as we cry, lament and even protest at all hours-even in the darkest of nights. This night was not dark however, because I am in LA, but also there was a lightness to my stride. I felt as if I could walk all of my days. It was at this point I remembered how I had hurt my knee the other day and so maybe a seat outside the library would due as the mix landed at a song by Alexi Murdoc, ‘All of My Days’. The song ends with the awareness that we can breathe, which is important to me because of an idea that emerged as I was dating a fine woman a while back. We would remind each other to take deep breaths, and when you hold someone there is that moment when your breathing aligns. It just has to otherwise the space between you gets all confused.
When I wake up in the morning I put my face to my bed and my butt in the air and I breathe deep. My back stretches and my lungs fill with warm air because I am under the sheets. When I did this today it was like God was breathing with me. It was as if God was saying: …….I…..know……you…… your…… more than fine…… keep ……..on.
There was the sense of clarity as the heavens got really thin, but I think God is beyond clarity. God is not so much showing as much as doing something: waking us up, breathing with us, protecting us from ourselves, healing, embracing-as one author wrote-screaming alongside us. This is hardly ever something I can put my finger on, but am trusting it today. That God’s action and freedom just might intersect and fill my space, waking me up.
