It is not good for man to wake up and wonder who he is, wonder who he has become, wonder if he can change his trajectory in life. But today I wake & absent-mindedly attend to my daily actions. My mind is elsewhere.
Truth is, I have arrived here because of the cumulative effect of my actions & reactions within my environment. As with the individual atoms in my morning coffee, the heat activating the atoms to interact with each other and raise gentle steam, so it is with individuals in my life. Am I aimlessly bouncing against the walls of my cup, while other people have an idea where they are going?
I don't know that. Regarding my breakfast of coffee & bagels: The bagels give me satisfaction through introspection in each savory whole wheat bite. The coffee is warm, but it stirs anxiety of my situation and bubbles questions from the backburner of my mind.
Breathe, be at peace. I need to reorient my mind on other things. When my mind is troubled with dreams & visions with which I do not identify, I distance myself from my mind. How do I escape myself when I do not like the contents of my mind? I unzip my backpack and happily discover that I packed the borrowed copy of G.K. Chesterton's Selected Essays. As I open the unjacketed red cover, I notice a slip from a previous University Library patron. It is dated December of 1994. Has it really been nineteen years since this book had been checked out?
I read four essays & smile. I admire Chesterton's writings & how he views his life as a continuing story which he shares with his readers. My father has told me that reading Chesterton is a peculiarity of mine, as he himself cannot always follow the layers of his perspective and writing. If it is truly so, I am grieved at the prospect of an inability to connect with others over discussion of the essays.
Chesterton has an interesting mind, a perspective spanning many analogies and unlikely connections between theological theories and practical applications. I find it fascinating & invigorating, distracting me from my anxieties to focus on the greater picture and possibilities. I reflect what I consume, and if I wish to command a healthy mind, I must exercise this into the pursuit of grand & wonderfilled writings. Chesterton has a joy and zest for life, finding glory in the everyday and is eloquent enough to convey it.
After the four essays, I set the red book aside. I have much to think about & do not want to be a glutton about good literature. I refill my coffee from the bagel shop's dispenser and open The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis. It is a relatively thin book, and I recall reading it two years ago. I was in the midst of appreciating George MacDonald's writing at the time (another excellent author, but one from which I have taken leave for a time.), and was delighted that he served as Lewis's literary Virgil through the fictional limbo described.
Now, revisiting the book shortly after reading Lewis's Four Loves, I realize that I had forgotten about the futility and vanity of the wispy spirits from hell visiting the solider plains. The inhabitants of the lighted meadows offer help & hope to the vacationers from the grey and infinitely-sprawling city of hell. But the spirits are indignant and disbelieving that they require salvation, choosing to ridicule the offer & offerers. These spirits and inhabitants knew each other in life, the relationship which should establish the bond of trust & allow them to be pulled up from hell is instead grounds for the skeptical spirits to question "Why are you better than me? Why do you live in here while I live in squalor?"
I look at the time. My class will be meeting within the hour, so I pack up my books, refill my coffee and walk back to campus. My mind is not where I would like it to be yet, but I believe it is on the path to recovery. I don't want to lose myself to vanity, but to find myself in my Savior.
"Stuff of earth competes for the allegiance I owe only to the giver of all good things.
So if I stand, let me stand on the promise You will pull me through.
And if I can't, let me fall on the grace that first brought me to You.
If I sing, let me sing for the joy that has born in me these songs.
And if I weep, let it be as a man who is longing for his home." - Rich Mullins "If I Stand."
