IN TIME

"Time is all you have and you may find one day that you have less than you think."

Randy Pausch - The Last Lecture

Busyness, calendar congestion, time urgency!  Get one thing off the TO DO LIST and race on to the next activity. Sound familiar? 

I want to plan a trip to Colorado, to fly fish for trout. I want to pass timberline and visit a ghost town with creaky wooden sidewalks named St. Elmo.  I want to sleep under the stars by a mountain stream on a bed of moist cool moss and pine needles and breathe fresh clean air.  I want to find a cabin in a forest of rich, tall trees that was built by the large hands of a strong powerful man with love and dedication. Two coffee cups, two plates and no frills, homemade bread and peace.  Perhaps - in time. 

According to Pastor Rick Warren, "The barrier to spiritual growth is not lack of commitment, but over commitment to the wrong things."  I want to take this one step further...and suggest the barrier to life is not lack of commitments but over commitment to the wrong things. So it is no doubt that I question whether or not I am committed to the wrong things, or too many things, or dissatisfied with the pace I must keep and the lack of real, quality personal time I so desire. 

I enjoy the anticipation of this possibility - of a different life - and thunderstorms in the mountains.  But is it a fairy tale?  Is it possible?  Is it? These questions seem to be in locked rooms inside of me and in words and books not yet written or read.  I have no answers, only questions.  There is however a prayer deep inside my heart that rose to the surface this afternoon.

I guess I feel if life pushes me, I should push back.  But what purpose is that for any of us?  Staying stuck?  Staying in a mediocre job, unhappy, unfulfilling relationship,  existence, or life? I know some people that prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty.  Not this girl!  But what direction to take is the question.  Do I wait for the mountains and the cabin in a forest or live stuck.  Yes those of you who know me know that I like things fixed, figured out and nailed down, and yes most likely all those things accomplished yesterday!  But that can mean being nailed to a false and static existence.  The questions that arise scare me because they are like hammers prying up the nails. But then I look at the grandfather clock, so rich with history and memories, and see the seconds ticking away. 

None of us know if we even have tomorrow.  Ask our soldiers. So denying ourselves pleasure today is of what consequence? Pulling the reigns on our feelings, waiting for the right time, the right place is a slow death. So perhaps we need to get on with what really matters, cupping our ears to another's heart with love and compassion.  And yes paying homage to the honest communion that happens so seldom in this life when souls truly meet. 

So to satisfy the storm inside me, my answer is live life - take the risk- say a prayer and jump off the cliff.  And for me, well just perhaps, with God's grace someone will be there to catch me, as I fall into the moss and pine needles by the mountain stream, or in a forest, or in a beautiful tree studded piece of land, where the only sounds heard will be wind whispering through the trees, the birds clamoring from tree to tree, and the sounds of the end of the day, as the earth cools, night beckons, and there is an overwhelming sensation of being in exactly the right place and completely at peace. A place glittering like gemstones where horrible dark haunting places or shadows are nonexistent and life is peace.

In time! 

Perhaps in not too distant a future, without my even noticing, the answers will come.

Frozen in time.

In time.