Before This Mess

What floods over me is this: Watching "Black Arrow" and running around in the summertime dusk with my sister, banging our staffs together, wielding our bows and arrows, each of us wanting to be Black Arrow. Or racing on The Black, having just watched "The Black Stallion," feeling the thunderous hooves beneath us, carrying us around the track at night. Leaping into the air, knowing the ground couldn't hold us down if we really wanted to soar.

I've mentioned before how captivating the gloaming can be. As a child, that time of day brought every imaginary moment, every thrill and wonder from a great story, to life.

Just last night, out on the back deck, the moon a sliver, the clouds still tinged with pink, the air warm with the sound of children and birds—but a quiet warmth—I caught a glimpse of it as I sometimes do, adult that I am. That feeling of being so alive—more alive than during the dull day in the hot sun with the chores to do and the bills to pay, the work to be worked only for the sake of completing something or fixing something—so alive and ready to create, invent, adventure, discover; it came over me.


It was like a peek into the truth, the truth of how life is supposed to be. Like in the movie "Cocoon" when Brian Dennehy's character tugs slightly at the lower lid of his eye to reveal a bright shining light, a view of who he really is, which is this glowing and mysterious creature from somewhere else; I got that shiver of realization that all is not as it seems.

Something tells me that before, before all this mess of life where we are either getting hurt or trying to fix the hurt or recover from it; where we are either toiling away for the sake of survival or sitting around being comfortable—which really ends up meaning bored—before this we were ONLY creating, inventing, adventuring, discovering, loving and being loved.

And I get tingly with excitement knowing that God wants us in that reality again. It's as if I can see or hear the angels flying around smiling about it.