Squint your eyes and look closer

I've been dying to share this picture of pure, living joy. It is courtesy of photographer extraordinaire Tim Phillips. Enter this Monday afternoon/night with this imprint on your souls. Julius Were and two precious young angels...all their faces shimmering with God's blessings. Amen.

PREFACE: Today's entry requires a soundtrack. For an optimal reading experience, I advise listening to your favorite song of joy while reading this. Throw it on, share it in the comments, and dive in. The water's warm, and I'm swimming around with Ani DiFranco's "32 Flavors."

Those of you who know me well know that I ADORE passing along things people say, write, sing or impart that imprint my heart. I'm like a child who just learned the names of the planets or how photosynthesis works.

My fascination with things others do and say encourages me to be open to new ideas, and also guarantees that a good 99% of my front-end analysis will borrow from someone else's genius. (Spread the knowledge, dude. There's a lot in this world to wrap your head around.) For a thought or idea to become my own internalized creation, I've got to talk it out. About 20 minutes into a conversation, you'll probably start to get my take on something.

Today, I want to break down the pleasure of enjoying our journey through life.

I’ve been chewing on this topic for the last year or so, but it has become magnified in this decision to go to Kenya. I've consumed various sermons on the topic and mulled it over in discussions with virtually everyone important to me. I've talked it out backwards, forwards, withwards, around and through.

All this talk about really seeing the joy in things has gotten to be hard work.

In my intensity I get going so furiously after something that I forget to look around me and breathe. I've spent a lot of time in prayer asking for the impulse to squint my eyes a little harder and see journey unfolding around me. That's why this blog has been so fantastic and reflective…it forces me to slow down and unpack the process.

I had time to wind down over lunch today, so I read Ecclesiastes. It’s not exactly an easy read, but it came highly recommended, and I figured it would nicely compliment a study in wisdom that I’m undertaking in Proverbs.

So, I flopped my bible open, and dove in. After backstroking for awhile, I come to the realization that this book repeatedly says that everything on earth is meaningless. It goes as such:

"No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it." Ecclesiastes 8:17

After that soul-searching assertion, I was forced to wonder - who cares about the journey if the end means nothing? Any other day, I would have sort of despaired in that truth, but today, I noticed that hope followed:

"Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do." Ecclesiastes 9:7

In the midst of comparing these two verses, it smacked me: We are all on the same playing field. All of us sin EQUALLY. All of us love and hurt and understand nothing EQUALLY. We're all squinting to see the truth around us during the journey, but none of us can wrap our minds around truth, reason, or meaning completely, so this world IS meaningless...and that is beautiful!

You see, life is meaningless, but it is not pointless, and that is where the call to appreciate the journey comes in. THAT is why we are called to enjoy the journey, as the last verse says, to eat and drink what we are blessed with, and to appreciate the portion of our life we live. We are invited to revel in the process, the procuring of things, but we must let them slip through our lives as quickly as we own them. The possessions of this world are but wind, and we are lucky to even have them for a season.

Go forth, and own Ecclesiastes 9:7. That is my wishful prayer for you all today.

...and would it kill you to share the wine with your buddy Ally? :)