Time

I can live through most goodbyes and I even enjoy stories where things do not end perfectly. (I prefer them most days actually.)But I hate watching things wear out. Beautiful buildings, favorite clothes, old art...I hate how beauty never seems to endure. Time is relentless and it races on at a breath taking rate.

I have caught myself searching, in every new place I go, for some sign that wherever I have arrived is outside of the weight and wear of time. I want so badly for the beauty to endure. I think this is what is meant when it is said that God has written eternity on the hearts of men. Outside of that explanation, the human race makes no sense. We want to hang onto so many things but we have never been told that anything will last. There is no evidence of anything that has lasted forever...but we have an understanding that there is such a thing as 'forever'. At least, we have a word for it.

I do not know what this means for my plan to find out what it means to be human. It looks like it means that we are doomed to long for what we do not know...even as we fear the unknown above all else. We are delicate, fragile, and temporary but we long for strength and immortality. And while we are so temporary, we are capable of so much. The strength of the human spirit is unmatched. There is an undeniable will to live even when there does not seem to be reason to. For me, this leads past wonder and makes me believe in the immortality of the human soul. Where else did this idea come from? Why can we talk about a forever none of us have ever known? Why do we look to eternity? Are we really so lost in delusions of hope? Maybe. But if the hope is real, it changes everything.

Mike and Lucky

This is homeless man named Mike and his dog, Lucky. I believe I mentioned him before. Over the course of several months I got to know him as I began to paint in the park that he frequented and more or less occupied. He was the among most encouraging people during that project. Mostly, he was lonely and I didn't mind letting him talk about art or the cops in the area or his homemade tattoo set. I don't really know why I liked talking to him so much, but I did. It always made the day better. He always provided very much needed perspective on everything from what a bad day is to what my faith is worth.

It is easy to get swept away in all sorts of theology and philosophy, especially in the culture I was living in at the time when I met Mike. He was a constant reminder that nothing that I believed mattered on a working and practical level if it could not offer him love and hope. That is important to remember as I think about what it means to be human. Whatever truth I find only has value if a life can be built on it. That is my presupposition, I guess. I believe that there is intrinsic value in life and living and just being. I guess I believe that because I believe that man is made and not abandoned.

Human

I am discovering something, or rather a lack of something: I do not actually know what it means to be human...and for myself, what it means to be a woman. What is more unsettling to me is that I do not think that this is just the age I am at or where I live or even just who I am right now. I do not think there is any rule that says, "You will eventually figure this out." As best as I can tell, we are too often a species content with not knowing. I really hate it when it is not comforting to not be alone.

I want to know. I do believe that I need to know if I am to build the sort of life that I want. I have a lot of cheap answers and maybe even some good ones but nothing has been sorted. This is not the kind of thing that will resolve itself without at least the small effort of seeking. And I am excited, at least, in part. It is my project for the summer. It may last longer, I can hardly hope to know that this will all be wrapped up beautifully at the end of the about 70 or so days I have left of summer before I am back into classes and routine and schedules.

People do not usually make sense, but I have long justified this by saying that I do not know enough about them...that I am merely reading them out of context. But now, I want to know what it is that we are...and what we should be...and if there is any hope of bridging whatever gap there may be.

I believe that people have the right to be themselves. As a whole, we are not honest enough or secure enough most days. Too many of us are who we think we should be without a clear idea of where these standards came from or why. But I think it is important to be different...not for different's sake, but for honesty and beauty and all the makings of art that somehow pour out of the souls and minds of men and women. There is a way to see our similarities without laying aside what makes us different and unique.

Doubtlessly, I am a product of Western society; but I hope that I am not so entrenched in culture so as to never meet with Truth. I am what I am, and I cannot pretend to be anything else. We will see what this search brings. As I said, I am excited. I am also a little be wary of finding what I do not want to know--but more than anything I am curious. There is a life that I am looking for, and I will give up so many things to have it; but how will I know it if I do not even know who it is I should be?