Pain

It hurts.

Mommy, please make it stop. It’s killing me! The thoughts race through his mind. The pain races through his arms, to his shoulders, merges in his back, and surges up into his head. The pulsing and tearing of each movement rips a new hole from his consciousness into a dark world of agony. Life has slowed down where a second is a week and each moment, instead of slipping by at the speed of time becomes an eternity in which to experience the excruciating suffering.

He’s grateful for the thousand beads of sweat running down his face because it hides the tears from the eyes of those watching. Somewhere, music is playing, if you could call it music. It was a jarring, ear-thrashing blend of sound that followed the drumbeats of a slave galley, forcing the rhythm into the souls of the condemned, those already dead but still moving with each doom, doom, doom, doom. It goes on forever. No end.

-Beepbeep –

It ends.

He raises the weighted bar one last time and sets it down on the forked rests. The clock tells him that two minutes have passed. The fire in his arms still rages but the pain is welcome now. The dross of weakness is being scraped off the surface and only steel will remain.

-beepbeepbeep-

He lies back down again, lifts the bar, and descends back into the depths of agony with a smile on his face.

The pain is his friend.

Pain

“Pain, is not the enemy. Pride, self-pity, self-righteousness, the bitterness in your heart, these are the enemy,” – My mother

“Pain is never a bad thing. Your pain, it teaches you a lesson. Your opponent’s pain, well that’s just good,” – Anonymous Wrestling Coach

“Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something,” – Wesley (disguised as the Dread Pirate Roberts) from The Princess Bride.

“Pain is weakness leaving the body,” – USMC


Pain, hurt, agony, ache, suffering, torment, anguish; we have many words for it and most of us know what someone means when they use the word ‘pain’. Many people live their whole lives in pain. Others live their whole lives running from it. Often, people will spend hours, years, or lifetimes, contemplating their pain. But how often do we stop and think about what it is?

Just what is pain?

Most people will say “well, pain is what hurts you.” But what does it mean to be ‘hurt’?

Merriam-Webster online describes it this way:

“a state of physical, emotional, or mental lack of well-being or physical, emotional, or mental uneasiness that ranges from mild discomfort or dull distress to acute often unbearable agony, may be generalized or localized, and is the consequence of being injured or hurt physically or mentally or of some derangement of or lack of equilibrium in the physical or mental functions (as through disease), and that usually produces a reaction of wanting to avoid, escape, or destroy the causative factor and its effects ” http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/pain

We have a couple words that we can draw from this definition:

Well-being (and the lacking of it)

and

Uneasiness

For the purposes of our discussion, I think that ‘well-being’ is the more profitable focus for our attention. Do not misunderstand me. I am not tossing aside information or a point of view simply because I deem it irrelevant. However, when each of us think of pain, I seriously doubt that the word ‘unease’ comes to mind (unless we are classifying fear as form of pain).

Lack of well-being

There are a host of questions that arise from this definition of pain. However, I would like to begin with one that is not readily apparent.

Is pain a bad thing?

Don’t answer right away. Let us ask some other questions but, as we do, hold that question in the back of your mind.

What is well-being (since the lacking of it is pain)? This is a question that delves into your very definition of life and how to live it. The simple answer is a physical one. We can start there and move on to a possible deeper meaning. Well-being, on the simplest level, is your physical health. If you have a cut, there is pain and a lack of full health. If you have the flu, you are in a different sort of pain.

Normally, I don’t do this, but I am going to disagree with the dictionary about this word.

You see, even on a physical level, ‘pain’ and a ‘lack of well-being’ are not the same. What about exercise? If done right, it is painful, but it is good for you. Is it not really pain? According to the dictionary, it is not. What about childbirth? Heralded as one of the most painful experiences of life (and I shall not dispute it) it is not (if all goes well) a detriment to the well-being of the mother. According to the dictionary, it is not pain. I think that you, my readers, will agree when I say that this is a poor definition for pain.

I would say that pain is the feeling associated with friction or hardship. I might even say “pain is the feeling of difficulty”.

Think about it. When you are sick, it is difficult and you feel it. When you cut yourself it’s the same story. When you work-out to the point of agony, it is a painful hardship. When a woman gives birth, it could very well be the hardest and most painful time of their lives. Let’s take it deeper. When your best friend betrays you, it is difficult to deal with and you feel it – deeply. When your long-term girlfriend or boyfriend leaves you, it is difficult to handle and definitely you feel pain in it. When your cousin dies, there is no doubt to either the hardship or pain.

Now, the point of it all: there is a point to it all.

There is a purpose to pain.

Can I prove such a crazy statement or is it simply the wishful thinking of an optimist that says “everything happens for a reason, look at the silver lining”? I shall assure you that I am no optimist by nature. Yet I do think that

Well, then what is the purpose?

Well there is the one that any people assume is the answer for pain: to make you stronger. While I do not think that this is the only reason for pain. I do think it is one of them. In a manner similar to exercising (where the muscles are torn and put back together, stronger) when a person is torn emotionally and put back together, they are stronger.

How are they put back together? By the doctors around us. Many times those are friends or family. Sometimes it is through faith in some great physician to do the healing. I don’t know how you deal with pain. However, as you are put back together, you must be careful. It is easy to become jaded, bitter, or resentful.

I once heard it described this way:

“When you are hurt, it is like being cut with a sharp knife, there may be a deep wound but it is clean and while there might be a scar, it will heal. Yet if you allow bitterness, self-pity, or self-righteousness into that wound it will become infected and become a poison to you. It will not heal and if it ever closes will leave a nasty scar.”

I tend to agree with that description. Pain can make you stronger through the very act of dealing with the pain. Whether you put yourself through it, or whether you are forced into it, you are placed into a position of hardship and your muscles or mind are stretched to the breaking point. The only question is ‘how will you be put back together’?

Yet I think that there is another purpose for pain.

Pain is a message.

Who sent it? I’ll leave that to you to discover. I have an idea but I do not want to spoil your own search for the answer.

Sometimes pain lets you know not to do something again. This is most often physical pain. Fire is HOT and will burn you, so putting your face in it is a bad idea. It can be emotional pain. For example if someone enters into a bad and ill-advised relationship for poor reasons, the resulting pain teaches a lesson. This is NOT to say that all pain in relationships means that they were a bad idea. ALL relationships involve pain, most of that is the kind that makes the members of the relationship (and often the relationship itself) stronger.

Sometimes pain is a way to draw you closer to others. It tells you that you cannot make it on your own. It is very hard (I might say impossible, since I have never seen it done) to heal yourself of hurt. When you have been wounded, either physically or emotionally, you need others around you to care for you and help you to clean and dress the wound. Some small wounds can be dealt with on your own, like a paper cut or an insensitive word from someone close to you that cut worse than they knew. Some can be shrugged off, like a stubbed toe or an insulting comment about your hair. Yet, when the pain is severe enough, it necessitates the invitation of others into our life in order to deal with it. It is a reminder that we were not made to live alone. Some of us are more solitary than others, yet we all need people close to us, in our lives and hearts.

So, is pain a bad thing (remember I asked that question before)? I hold that it is not. While it is not a pleasant feeling I think that pain and pleasure are far more than they seem to be and move simply from desirable and undesirable, or comfortable and uncomfortable, and become opportunities to grow.

Like Wesley said in that wonderful parody The Princess Bride, life is pain. Pain is life. If we go through life expecting no pain or avoiding pain, we avoid life altogether. Yet if we accept it, embrace it, and heal from it, we will grow and be able to look back on our pains as the chiseling of an artist carving out the person you were intended to be rather than the random striking of lightening.

So, how do you view pain? How do you deal with it?

Regret

It’s not who you are on the inside, but what you do that defines you” – Rachel Dawes, Batman Begins

My Dear Readers,

This post comes with a warning. If you are a casual reader (or are currently reading casually) do not read any further. This post is not for light reading or skimming for entertainment. I have taken a plunge into what I hope to be the deep end of the pool in order to draw out the import off this week's word as much as my feeble mind can. However, if your mind is prepared and your heart open, then please proceed...

The Letter

It was the hardest thing Mark had ever done. Yet, with a resolve that sprang from desperation, he pressed pen to paper. Maybe this letter would make the darkness go away. Maybe the dreams would stop. Maybe the inky hands that clawed at his soul would finally cease. The candle flickered shadows across the attic walls, yet they inspired no fear into the stricken young man hunched over the small writing desk. It took everything in him to write the words.

Dear Sir,

This letter may come as a surprise to you since I have been away for nearly ten years. I will not detail the places I have hidden. Suffice it to say, I did my best to run from you. I am, at present, in Chicago, America if you should wish to find me. I am tired of running. My strength is gone and my resolve to hide has vanished. You may pursue me and do with me as you see fit. In fact, it is my earnest desire that justice be meted out to me. I now understand my place and know I stand guilty before your judgment. I will confess my sins though you know them very well. My soul must know that each of them has been listed and perhaps then I shall sleep the sleep of the knowingly condemned.

I am the thief that stole your daughter's innocence. It was I and no other. I could claim it was passion but that would be a lie and I refuse to add dishonesty to my crimes. I took her for my own satisfaction of taking. I took her to know that I could and in that taking, I gave away my own innocence. I could claim that it was curiosity but that would only be another lie. It was nothing but the avarice of lust. I did this knowingly and willfully. I did this to your daughter. You, who have treated me like a son, who opened up your home to me and gave me food and shelter when I was but a beggar; you who watched my wooing of your daughter, Eliza, with a smile.

Eliza -

Mark's pen wobbled and an errant stroke tore a hole in the paper where a tear had damped it. His hand shook as he forced his hand to continue to write.

Were I able to return and marry her, I would do so. Word of her death in childbirth reached me when I was in Singapore. Her death and the death of her - our child was what shook me out of my self-pitying stupor. I knew that I had stolen your daughter's innocence from her but then I realized that I had stolen her from you.

I believe this letter to be as useless as a clod of earth with a postage stamp on it in the effort of reconciliation. In truth, I do not believe for an instant that an eternity of penance would rectify my wrong. This letter is to acknowledge to you my regret and sorrow. I know that the words "I am sorry" are ineffective, if not offensive but I must say them.

I am sorry. My regret has overcome me and sunk my life into a pit out of which I believe there to be no rescue. I am too much of a coward to take my own life, yet my own past removes my will to live. My hope now is that your vengeance will swiftly remove my unworthy life from this earth. I do not ask for impossible forgiveness. I ask only for death.

Regretfully yours,

Mark Anthony Neville

With the gait of a man on his way to the gallows, Mark, left his rented attic, and trudged slowly to the post office and mailed the letter, knowing as he did that he had just signed his life into the hands of a wronged and righteous man. That night, for the first time in years, he slept peacefully. But when he woke, the knots in the rotted wood of the ceiling only stared down at him in silent hatred. Sleep would not kill the regret.

Regret
verb (used with object)

1. To feel sorrow or remorse for (an act, fault, disappointment, etc.): He no sooner spoke than he regretted it.

2. to think of with a sense of loss: to regret one's vanished youth.

–noun

3. a sense of loss, disappointment, dissatisfaction, etc.

4. a feeling of sorrow or remorse for a fault, act, loss, disappointment, etc.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/regret

I think it safe to say that regret is something that we all have a bit of, some of us more than others. And, I believe, if we look deep enough that it is something that fills a dark corner of our hearts and never leaves us. That corner may be small, but it is there. If you live for any length of time on this world, odds are you will do something that you wish you hadn't or you will lose something irreplaceable. For some of you it will be something which might be considered minor and your sentiment is comprised of words like: "I wish I hadn't done that. It's going to be a bother later". Then there are those of us who truly have regrets, actions in our past that, if we could go back, we would give an arm or our very lives to prevent. If you are being honest with yourself, you are thinking back right now and, springing up in your mind is that action or event. It might be a wound that is still fresh and open or old and scabbed over. Yet, in a dark parody of reminiscence, certain things reopen that wound.

Dear readers, I want you to do something hard. I want you to turn your mind to that dark corner and place a finger on those old wounds.

Do you remember your first regret?

I remember mine clearly. My father had given me a balloon when I was young (I might not have been older than two years of age). I was outside and in my curiosity, I let go of it. As I watched it float away, I felt an absence grow in my heart. It was the first time I can remember that I had lost something irretrievable. I was devastated. (I have recovered since then.)

What was your greatest regret?

Is there something in your life that you would trade anything to take back? Perhaps it was something that you did or something that you gave away for a song or for a lie. Many things, once lost cannot be regained. Innocence comes to mind, innocence of mind and of body. My story will remain untold, but I assure you dear readers, there are action in my past that I would gladly go back in time and shoot myself to prevent. What is it that you have done? What is it that you gave away?

Now, how do you deal with that regret?

We all find some way of dealing with it. Which is yours? Do you forget about them? Do you deny their existence? Some turn to drink and other deceitful comforts. Others seek penance and try to erase their past actions.

Does your method of ‘dealing’ work?

Here is what I believe. There is no remedy for regret. What has been done cannot be undone. I believe what was said in the quote at the top of this post. What you do defines who you are. There is an old religious text that said it this way “out of the heart, the mouth speaks”. When you say the words, when you take that step (figurative or literal) you make a statement about who you are. Think long and hard right now. What do your words and actions say about who you are? It should be a sobering thought. When you were at your worse, when you were in that moment when you chose to do that thing that you have regretted ever since, that was you. That was part of who you are.

Can you live with that?

If you cannot, what should you do? To go on with life, you must find a way to either remove the regret (which I do not believe is possible) or overcome it. My own way of overcoming it is with hope. Now that is another word for another post but suffice to say that ‘hope’ is not a general, ethereal concept. I have home in specific things and people that I trust. I look forward to someday when I will no longer have regrets, when I will no longer make the mistakes that cause those scars in my life. I believe that there is hope to change and a door to a life beyond regret.

So, my dear readers, I will leave you with this thought: Have you found the door to the life beyond regret or is that dark corner still festering in your heart?

Awesome

If you've ever been in an isolation prison then you might understand it when I say that seeing the stars brought me to my knees, weeping. I spent fourteen long years in that box. Dim light. Gray walls. Gray mattress. Silver toilet bowl. Three paces wide four paces long. I only found out it was so long when I was released. They never told me why I was released. They never told me why I was put in in the first place. All I knew was that being out of that box was the best feeling I had ever felt.

The prison was underground and when I reached the surface, I was in a field of moonlit grass with a field of stars overhead. My knees buckled and the tears poured out. I hadn't seen those stars in fourteen years. I stripped off my shirt and kicked off my shoes and rolled around like a dog on the grass savoring the softness and even the itchiness.

I rolled on my side and looked over to see the largest full moon I had ever seen rising above the trees. It seemed like it was coming down to meet me. The sad face of the man in the moon stared down at me.

I gazed at it in wonder for hours as it ascended into the night sky.

It was awesome.



That was totally awesome!!!! - The little boy on the trike from Incredibles

"They need a hero Bolt, someone who, no matter what the odds, will do what's right. They need a hero to tell them that sometimes the impossible can become possible if you're awesome!" - Rhino, the hamster from 'Bolt'.

The word Awesome saturates the American use of the English language. It is used for everything. "Dude that bike was awesome!", "That movie was, like, totally awesome!", "Man, you are so awesome!" We throw it around as if it were a commonplace word and not possessing any significance .

Urban dictionary defines the word awesome as this: "A 'sticking plaster' word used by Americans to cover over the huge gaps in their vocabulary. It is one the three words which make up most American sentances." http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=awesome

I have to agree with Urban Dictionary on this one. This word has been abused and misused. I wish so very much that I could decry its abuse with a clean conscience but I too am guilty of this crime. And though I know that I condemn myself, I DO indeed call it a crime. It is battery against the word and the adulteration of its meaning. Awesome is a word indicating that something (a person, thing, or event) is awe-inspiring.

Have you, my dear readers, ever felt true awe?

Maybe you have stood atop a mountain and looked out upon a grand vista, or stood among the vista and looked up at the mountain and felt the smallness of yourself and the grandeur of the mountain? Maybe you have stood in the rain of a thunderstorm with the tearing wind threatening to knock you off your feet as lighting tears a rift in a fabric of the clouds and thunder deafens your ears? Have you stood on a bluff and looked out over the ocean? Have you seen the night sky from the wilderness or the open sea and beheld the myriads of stars? Few of you may have seen the pyramids of Egypt or the great wall of china. More off you have probably seen the Sears Tower or the Grand Canyon. All of these could be described as awesome and in fact should inspire awe in us.

Do they?

Upon choosing this word to write about and thinking about it (more than I usually did), I began to wonder if there has been a shift in our mind that corresponds to our shift in vocabulary. We toss out the word very easily do we also bestow the meaning of 'awesome' as easily? If so, we are faced with one of two options. Either we are like children, who are filled with wide-eyed wonder at everything or we have wonder at nothing. I tend to think that it is the latter. With all of our technology and especially our social networking technology, we have become very people-focused (and often self-focused). We are immersed in a culture of instant gratification and pleasures being offered to us right on our doorstep. We are so easily bored. I have seen teenagers looking across a gorgeous landscape for bare moments before returning to their text messaging. Children who normally would have stared in wonder out of the windows of an airplane now are engrossed in their portable video games. I'm not speaking out against technology but I would decry the sentence "that KO in Mortal Kombat was awesome!"

If something is truly awesome, then it should be something that causes our jaws to drop, our eyes to widen, and our hearts to race. Awe is an extreme state.

So, my dear readers, I ask: How do you use the word awesome? When you do use it, do you mean it with all the awe that it implies? What do you consider to be awesome?

Think about it.

Love

What is love?

The question has been asked by nearly everyone alive at one point or another. Haddaway wrote a song asking it. Artist Howard Jones asks the questions in a bit deeper way: "What is love anyway? Does anybody love anybody anyway?" Millions quite possibly billions of songs have been written about love from rap to ballads to religious songs. But just what is it?

Douglas Adams writes in one of his books: "The Encyclopedia Galactica, in its chapter on Love states that it is far too complicated to define. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of love: Avoid, if at all possible"

This is what Wikipedia says about love:

Love is any of a number of emotions related to a sense of strong affection and attachment. The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure ("I loved that meal") to intense interpersonal attraction ("I love my wife"). This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, even compared to other emotional states.

As an abstract concept, love usually refers to a deep, ineffable feeling of tenderly caring for another person. Even this limited conception of love, however, encompasses a wealth of different feelings, from the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love to the nonsexual emotional closeness of familial and platonic love to the profound oneness or devotion of religious love. Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts.

On the website 'Love Lessons' (a site which I do not frequent, only discovered in my research) I read this: "Psychology portrays love as a cognitive phenomenon with a social cause. It is said to have three components in the book of psychology: Intimacy, Commitment, and Passion," (read the rest of the excerpt here: http://www.love-sessions.com/whatislove.htm).

Very possibly the best work on the subject of love that I have ever read was by the author C.S. Lewis entitled 'The Four Loves'. I would type it up here in its entirety if that were legal. I encourage all of you my dear readers to acquire that book and read it many times.

My own thoughts on love have been greatly influenced by Lewis' but some of the thoughts are my own.

Here is what I think about love:

I think that there are at least two kinds of love that ought to be called love (at least as the word is commonly used today).

The first love is an emotion. It is something that we cannot fully (or even partially) control. I do not pretend to have even the slightest grasp of its intricacies. It is a pull from one person to another that leads to a desire for closeness. This is a VERY broad umbrella. It could include physical attraction, emotional attraction (some call it a ‘need’), or many other sorts. I am not going to try and sift through all of these. However, these are what someone might mean when they use the phrase ‘I am in love’.

Now, I believe, there is another aspect to love. In many instances it goes hand-in-hand with the romantic love. In fact, I do not believe that the romantic love can last without this sort of love. This is where I draw from my hero because it was from his work that I first read this thought: the opposite of love is not hate (as many people assume) but it is selfishness. So let us assume for a moment that the opposite of love is selfishness (and you may disagree with me here and disregard the rest of this argument if you like). So let us work back from that to what love is.

I think that we can all agree that selfishness is a form of taking. It is taking for yourself and denying to others. I think it is also entangled with pride, a putting others underneath yourself. A man cannot change his own standing in his own eyes only of those who are around him. So, to make himself seem higher and exalted, he does his best to place others underneath him. This leads to things like children keeping toys from their playmates or men hogging the remote (not to have power over his wife but because has lowered his wife’s preference of television show below his own).

So let us flip that on its head. That would mean love is a lifting of others above oneself, using your own abilities for the good of others rather than for yourself. Some people might call this ‘unselfishness’, but that is the negative of the concept. By definition ‘unselfishness’ would be not selfish (which would be the lack of selfish actions). Love is then the act which is the polar opposite of selfishness. C.S. Lewis (and many older people of the church) used the word ‘charity’ synonymously with love. I think this is very apt (I am not speaking of a condescending form of charity that springs from pity but from am honest desire to see another prosper).

This sort of love can be seen in many different ways. In a family, a father might work very hard to provide enough for his family to live well (harder than we must have worked for himself alone). A mother will spank her child when he is naughty even though she abhors the idea of causing him pain because she desires him to be raised well. On the battlefield a soldier might jump in front of a bullet for another infantryman. A man walking along the street might buy a beggar a sandwich. These would be displayed of love. The Christian Bible says: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (KJV). If laying down your life for someone is the greatest love, then laying down lesser things would same also to be love of lesser degrees.

This is seen in marriage most clearly I believe, where love of this sort is essential because two people are living in such closeness that if there is not love, there must be something else and anything besides love between two married people is disastrous. The man and the woman both must love the other, putting the other first and working for the good of the other (and the family as a whole if there are children). Marriages that are built on love of this sort, I have seen last for decades and beyond, “Till death do us part” was said and accomplished. I have observed many relationships and marriages and the ones that I have seen that were good and healthy were built on this sort of love.

So this is love, according to a Humble Writer.

P.S. I understand that is is a small bit of knowledge/opinion on a small portion of a much greater topic. Please take from it what you can and forgive my lack of further insight.

What do you think love is and how do you go about it?

Wind

Ruach
by a Humble Writer


How can a man be lonely with the Wind-God as his friend?
Who speaks in ceaseless whispers
to those who would be listeners.
A man cannot be lonely with the Wind-God as his friend.

How can a man be lonely as he walks among the trees?
and hears the leafy laughter
of autumn weather bluster.
A man cannot me lonely as he walks among the trees.

How can a man be lonely as he sails out on the sea?
He sees the Wind-Gods power
in white-capped waves that tower.
A man cannot be lonely as he sails upon the sea.

How can a man be lonely as he walks the city streets?
Though soulless grime enmeshes
the Wind-God's breeze refreshes.
A man cannot be lonely as he walks the city streets.

How can a man be lonely ever in his life at all?
He finds himself a closet
and locks himself inside it
and never hears the Wind-God's whisper in his ears at all.

A man cannot be lonely with the Wind-God as a friend.
If ears are kept to listening
the Wind-God's whispered whistling,
how can a man be lonely with the Wind-God as a friend?



Wind


We all have an idea what it is. It is that invisible force that moves trees and leaves and bits of paper around. It allows sailboats to move and kites to fly. It can be gentle as a kiss or fierce as a slap in the face. It is a knife on a cold day and a balm on a hot one. Wind carries scents to our noses from elsewhere (both good and bad). A wind is an blessing in a field of flowers and a a grim reminder on a battlefield.


Wikipedia says that: "wind is a flow of gasses on a large scale" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind)


I am not a fan of post-modernism but my question for you today my dear readers is this: "What is the wind to you?"


The wind to me is a person.


Yes, I am mad.


Now that sanity is no longer a factor, I shall explain. I have almost always thought of the wind as a person (or the words of a person who spoke the wind as words). I speak to the wind and when I can hear the wind or feel it on my skin, I have never been able to feel lonely. I love every sort of wind from the tiniest zephyr, to the roaring gusts that shake houses and rip limbs off trees. I have strained my ears to understand the language of the wind. I have not yet discerned what it is. Here is my theory: wind speaks in a language of the soul.


The ancient Hebrews had a word for wind: 'ruach'. It was also their word for the spirit of God (my inspiration for the poem). I think they had something going there. The wind speaks directly to the soul, not to the ears or eyes like verbal words or writing on paper.


The wind is a comforter to me when I am sad. It is a further joy when I am glad. It was refreshment and peace on a busy day, causing me to slow my haste and pause for a moment. It causes me to tremble in fear and excitement when it rages, tossing trees like grass. When it stings my face on an icy winter day, it reminds me that I am alive and happy to be so, bringing a light to my eyes. In these and many other ways, the wind speaks to my soul.


Does the wind speak to you?



Slightly Related Insert: "Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss is a superb fantasy book. I highly recommend it to all fans of fantasy literature. www.patrickrothfuss.com/content/index.asp



My dear readers,


I apologize for the lacking posts recently. I will endeavor to meet my goal of one post a week more diligently from now on. Until next time,


A Humble Writer

Sleep

Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord, my soul to keep
and if I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
- Old Children's Prayer -

"But in that sleep of death, what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause" - William Shakespeare, Hamlet.

I act so nonchalant
I want
to scream aloud, wait, no;
to go
and take a flying leap
to sleep
right on a garbage heap
This poem is to say
It’s been a long, hard day.
I want to go to sleep
-A Humble Writer-

Sleep.

We all need it (some of us more than others). Many of us are in love with it and are sleep gluttons. Some of us would rather do without it. Some of us need it but cannot get it and so have to suffice with caffeine.

What is sleep?

Well I could give you the medical and biological explanation but I think that you would be bored with it and I have confidence that if you have time to read my humble postings then you have time to use this wonderful internet to look it up yourself.

I will tell you what I think sleep is.

I think sleep is like life. Now many people think that sleep is like death. After all you are lying prone (or in some humorously odd position), not moving (generally) and not conscious. Isn't that a little like death? Well, physically speaking it is. I'll grant you that. However, I believe that sleep is like life, or rather that life is a sort of sleep. Have you ever felt that way? If you are an insomniac, or a vivid dreamer you may have confused 'real' life and dreams before. But have you ever felt that this life was all a dream and there was something more real that you would see when you would wake up? I certainly have.

The author of the chronicles of Narnia, Clive Staples Lewis, called this world the 'shadow lands' saying that there was a country more real and solid on the other side of the gateway of death. I agree with that (though I cannot say I have seen the other side of that gateway)

So that us what I claim. Sleep is not like a little death. Life is like a long night of sleep. Is there a way to wake up from this sleep? I think that there is. But I am not going to talk about it here. I might at some later time. We will see...

Anyways, I think also that sleep is a reminder to us. It reminds us that we are, by nature, weak. Human beings are weak. We have to rest, to lie prone and vulnerable for an extended period of time in order to be able to operate normally. We are not machines that can work all day and night so long as our power supply is fed (though we do need to feed). We have this weakness. It is a reminder that we are not invulnerable.

I will ask you, my dear readers, to ask yourselves: what is sleep to you?