Belief

I was walking through downtown from the library to TD Square to get something to eat, when a man about a quarter of a block ahead of me turns around, makes eye contact with me, stares me up and down, and keeps walking. I didn't think anything of it.

Since he was walking kind of slowly I quickly caught up with him, and was just about to pass him when he turned around so abruptly that I almost walked straight into him, and stared me in the face. He looked the same age as me, maybe a little older. He smiled and said, "Hi!"

I gave him a blank stare and said hi back, and tried to inch politely around him. But the lights on the other side of the street corner I was about to cross were already signalling a 'don't walk' sign.

Without missing a beat he asked me, "Have you ever heard of Jesus?"

"Uh... what?"

"Have you ever heard of Jesus?"

Restraining myself from rolling my eyes I smiled and said yes, in fact I had heard of him.

"Are you a Christian?" he asked.

I told him no, and in retrospect I probably shouldn't have laughed and grinned when I said it.

The light changed and I thanked God (or Buddha or something) and I crossed the street. I kept walking straight and he walked beside me. "You're heading this way? So am I, I'll walk with you," he said. "Do you mind if I tell you a story?"

"Go ahead," I said, now less annoyed and mildly interested.

"Well a couple years ago, I was on the street, I was into a whole bunch of stuff. Cocaine, heroine... I would puke my brains out every single morning. I used to steal from my mom and my friends, I was a horrible person. I mean, what kind of person steals from their mom? And then a little while later -"

"You found Jesus?" I interrupted cheerfully.

"Well, yeah."

"I've heard this story," I smiled at him.

I expected him to start ranting about how I should welcome Jesus into my life too if I didn't want to burn in hell, but he only looked amused.

He started talking to me about how he understood why the average person was so hostile towards Christians who preached their beliefs, because they so often present themselves as overbearing nutcases. He then said that by stopping me, a random person, on the street to talk about God, he probably seemed like he was borderline one himself. He went on to say that the only reason he had done that was because he felt such happiness and fulfillment in his life in the knowledge that he had purpose, and that he was going to heaven, and when he saw me he just wished that I would have that same happiness.

We walked for about three blocks just discussing faith and lack of faith. When he seemed confused at my explanation of why I didn't believe in God, I told him that I was just the kind of person that couldn't have faith in anything.

He said, "Sure you are! All you have to do is hear God speak to you and you can have faith."

"Well God doesn't speak to me," I laughed, "That's the problem."

His manner had been kind of humorous through our whole discussion, but at this point he said very seriously, "Have you ever really listened?"

I thought about that for a second. "No.. I guess I haven't."

He smiled brightly, and said "Listen."

"Maybe I'll try that."

Then he told me that he had to turn now, and he waved goodbye and walked away.

We hadn't even exchanged names.


I guess since the age of about 14 onward I had always looked at gung ho religious people, christians especially, with a sort of sympathetic tolerance. But the fact that they have somehow found, by digging through the dirt and grime of life, a way of seeing purpose and meaning in humanity where I can only see chaos, is a truly respectable thing, and it sort of makes me wonder who should be sympathetic to who.

They've found a way to be happy. In this sense, it almost doesn't even matter if they're delusional.

Ice

We walk on frozen ponds
And we pray to winter chills
To keep them solid long enough
To carry out our wills

We walk our watery paths
And we pray to golden Gods
That when the ice has melted
We'll still have somewhere to trod

And when the sun starts gleaming
Then we pray to looming clouds
To cover up it's sparkle
With the darkness of it's shrouds

But when the ground starts shifting
And our weight will hold no more
Then we leave our prayers behind us
As we swim towards the shore

This is what it's all about

I'm 18.

I'm healthy, able, and adaptable.

I'm young, innocent and impressionable.

I'm naive enough that the idea of life excites me, and the acknowledgement of it's oppurtunities thrills me.

I'm hopeful enough to love without boundaries, and I'm hopeless enough to live without them.

I know when to take time to smell the roses, and when to drive over them and never look back.

I'm educated enough to know the importance of knowledge, and uneducated enough to crave more.

I've learned how to take it when it comes and find it when it doesn't, how to love and make love to the paradoxes that bug me, how to open my eyes and my heart and my mouth.

I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders; I am the future.

I'm intelligent, witty, and egotistical; all doors are open to me.

I'm thoughtful enough to be insecure, and rash enough not to care.

I'm irresponsible, unreliable, and horribly directionless.

I have no clue what life's about, and I love it.

I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I have nothing to hide, and nothing to wait for.

Bring it on.

Dreams

The infinite possibilities each day holds should stagger the mind.

The sheer number of experiences I could have is uncountable, breathtaking, and I'm sitting here refreshing my inbox.

We live in trapped loops, reliving the same few days over and over, and envisioning only a handful of paths laid out ahead of us.

We see the same things each day, we respond the same way, we think the same thoughts, each day a slight variation on the last, every moment smoothly following the gentle curves of societal norms.

We act like if we just get through today, tomorrow our dreams will come back to us.

And no, I don't have all the answers.

I don't know how to jolt myself into seeing what each moment could become.

But I do know one thing: the answer doesn't involve watering down my every little idea and creative impulse for the sake of someday easing my fit into a mold.

It doesn't involve tempering my life to fit someone elses expectations.

It doesn't involve constantly holding things back for fear of shaking things up.