I love life! I love everything about it. I love everything about being alive. I love the simple ecstasy of breathing; the way time stops when you taste something delicious; the nostalgia that a scent can bring; the peace that a song can bring to the soul; the contentment that laughing children can cause; the way that a hug is "comfort food" for the heart. Even the pain in life has a certain wonder to it. Perhaps because it forces us to be in the moment. It clears away the clutter and distractions we fill our lives with and screams in our ears, "Be here now! This is happening." I don't enjoy pain, but it tends to be more visceral than most of what occupies our time and energy. Perhaps if I dealt with chronic pain I wouldn't have such a friendly opinion of pain, but in my own experience my pain has been a valuable teacher. If we would take the time, spend less time in front of a screen (said while sitting in front of a screen), and more in the moment/environment in which we find ourselves, it would become vibrantly clear that "life is beautiful, life is wondrous" (Keb Mo, Life Is Beautiful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI_GNu8jaSA).
To borrow/take out of context, a quote from Jonathan Safran Foer (from Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close), "It's a tragedy that we get to live only one life." That's not to say that there aren't times when it's so very hard and seemingly unbearable. There are times that we might be thinking that living once is hard enough, who would want to live more than once. While that is true, most of the time I'm thinking, "I wish I could relive that moment again." I also find myself thinking, "wouldn't it be awesome if we could live more than one life?" The reason is because I just don't think one lifetime is going to be enough to do everything I'd like to do in life. Make no mistake, I'm not griping about the life I've lived. I have been able to experience and enjoy so many things in just 38 years, but I don't know that there is time to do everything I'd like to do, at least not if I want to be a responsible husband/father, which is my main priority. I only have one life to live, but if I had a few more, here's what I'd like to do.
It would be wonderful to have a life dedicated just to reading. I love to read. I'm not a particularly fast reader, and I certainly don't have a lot of free time to read for pleasure, but I'd love to have a life doing nothing else. I'd like to read all of the classics, both ancient (think Homer) and modern (think Dickens, Bronte, Thoreau, Hemingway, etc). I've read the Bible many times but I'd love to read all the major religious books (Koran, Book of Mormon, the Vedas, Tipitaka, Torah, etc). I'd love to read all of the great books of Christian history (the church fathers, Josephus, Philo, Edersheim, etc). I'd even love to read how to manuals on everything I have an interest in. The idea of spending a lifetime in a library is about as good as it could get for me. Knowing me, I would also like to toss in a few opportunities to teach classes based on all the things I learned in those books. In any lifetime I am sure I would be a talker.
Currently my parallel life fantasy is spending a lifetime as a chef. Several years ago I learned that I love to cook. It is such a peaceful stress reliever for me that I find myself wishing I could get into a kitchen at times when I find myself stressing out. Truth is it is probably linked to the fact that I'm also a stress eater, but hey there are worse ways to deal with stress than to cook delicious food. I am a good cook, not a great cook, but a good one. I want to be, not just a great one, but a bona fide, legit, chef. My biggest dream in life is to go to culinary school and be trained as a chef. Honestly, I don't have an overwhelming desire to own a restaurant, although I might like to try it; I just want to really know how to cook. Chefs, along with architects and doctors, absolutely fascinate me because of their extensive knowledge. Most anyone can cook edible food, but what a chef does is more akin to art. The creativity, variety, ingredients, presentation and technique of their food transcends just making something to eat. I'd love to have a life dedicated to learning, perfecting and experimenting with cooking.
For most of my life I have secretly wanted to be a rock star. Well, maybe not a rock star, but a musical performer, mainly a singer. I'm not so much interested in the riches and fame lifestyle, as I am in the performance aspect. I would have never admitted this when I was a preacher (simply for fear of being judged and punished by the brethren), but the reality is, there is an awesome feeling standing in front of an audience and "performing." While I certainly don't think preaching is a performance (or at least it shouldn't be), the fact is, it is. Don't act like you don't judge a preacher's performance, "That was a great sermon....I didn't care for that sermon.....He's an amazing preacher.....I don't really like his preaching", etc. Most of the preachers I have spoken to privately, you know "off the record", admit that it is a rush. Personally I don't think there is anything in the world wrong with that, so long as it doesn't become a performance to you and you don't do it because of the thrill of praise. Most people who do something they truly love get a good feeling from it (don't you imagine a surgeon who saves a life feels awesome when he's done, or a policeman who gets a bad guy off the street?). I would imagine teachers, actors, and musicians feel the same way a preacher does. It's the thrill of standing before an audience, having everyone's attention and imparting to them something you spent a great deal of time, energy and focus learning and developing. It's about connecting with the person listening. To me it's about a bond, that can even be shared between strangers. A "we're all in this together" connection. Sorry, I digress. I have zero musical ability or talent and frankly don't have the time/patience to cultivate it at this point in my life, which is why I'd like to have one to devote to it. I have a decent voice when I sing in my natural voice, which is mostly just in church. I have a hard time not trying to imitate the voice of the singer with music for pleasure, but in church songs I seem to be able to sing in my own voice. I'll never be a singer, but I'd like to know how to sing, like how use what you have properly. I can't help but think that it would be the height of amazing to write and perform your own song in front of a crowd. Along the same lines I'd like to be an actor too. I don't care anything about being famous, but I'd love to have the courage to just be in a play.
One last thing, I'd like to have a life to just be a nomad. I love the idea of home and all of the wonderful things about a fixated location that is home, but I am also drawn to drifting. I'm not saying I'd like to be alone, but I would love to spend a life just traveling the world and stopping to stay wherever I'd like for as long as I'd like. If you've ever seen the movie Into The Wild you know what I mean (minus the, SPOILER ALERT, dying alone of starvation in the Alaskan wilderness). Whenever I spend time with people from different cultures than me, I learn so much. I think it would be wonderful to spend a life doing that.
I guess that's enough for anyone. A lifetime devoted to reading, to cooking, to playing music and one to just drifting all over the world from place to place. I know none of that is possible, but what is possible is for me to experiment and learn and grow. Thanks to the internet I am learning and experimenting with all sorts of things in the kitchen. I have made a commitment to read everyday, and though I won't likely get all those things read, I will get a lot. I travel, both foreign and domestic and enjoy a good conversation with a stranger or a local to see what I can learn. I haven't learned an instrument, but I have written a couple of songs and I hope to one day have the courage to sing publicly or be in a play. I guess the point of all this rambling is just to encourage all of us to make sure we are living. Experience life. Experiment with new things. You just might realize that you aren't who you always saw yourself as. I'm trying, but my timidity keeps me close to the shore most of the time. (I have something I am experimenting with that I hope to share with you one day). I do, however, have a hero in all of this. She has learned to sew, started a jewelry company, started reading and started a book club, learned to paint and draw, opened a homemade candy store, and a dozen other things I just can't think of at the moment. She is always living and growing and exploring and she is my hero in that.
(Lest anyone fear that I'm having a midlife crisis or being consumed by wanderlust and will soon cast off all responsibility and disappear, just click on the link below. It pretty much sums it all up.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QT02wxiQXU
love this, brother!
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