Autumn Leaves And Winter Rain

Autumn leaves and winter rain can tide over a sullen soul. To seek refuge from the bitterness of life, we fill our minds with images that relate. Autumn leaves fallen to the ground to be trod on by well meaning individuals. Cold, harsh rain beating ceaselessly against transparent glass. Always looking, but never finding. A lone raven sitting on a dead tree, not a single soul to keep him company. A worm crawling and slithering in the mud. Never able to look up. Chopped in half, and still crawling.

Sometimes we feel like a singer. Standing on a stage in front of hundreds of people. But our band has left us. Sometimes we feel like we just want to hang it all up and curl into a ball and cry until we're actually damp from lying in a pool of our own tears.

If every day was as sunny as the next, we wouldn't be human. Even as Christians, no one expects us to be happy all the time. Often my failure to live up to expectations pulls me down, and for a day or two I'll feel like the miserablest emo you can ever imagine. Then the next day, I feel like a hippie who's just got his hands on a shipload of LSD.

It doesn't last. We can't focus so much on the 'now' that we lose track of the future. And we can't focus so much on the past that we lose track of where we are now. And if we look too far ahead, we'll trip up purely because we aren't looking where we're going 'now.'

Words from the wise: Take each day as it comes.

Of Gazing and Gutters: A Shorter Exposition

Sometimes my very existence seems fragile. As though I'm somehow holding on by only a single thread, and the slightest gust of wind holds more than enough power to blow me over. At other times, I feel as though not even a hurricane could unseat me from where I stand on top of the world.

Occasionally when I'm on top of the world though, something will hit me right where it hurts. Sometimes something will stab right through my heart, and I will fall bleeding to the gutter. It is rarer for something to build me up from the ground just as quickly.

In my darker moments, I try to ask myself who I'm fooling. "It is trite but true that we are all lying in the gutter... But some of us are looking at stars," I say. "One never truly stands on top of the world. We're always rolling in the gutter, but sometimes our gaze slips skyward."

I pose an alternative suggestion for anyone who feels as I do often. Instead of focusing on the gutter, consider this: "We are all living in palaces. But sometimes, our gaze slips gutter-ward.''