last night i just had to get out. i was sitting in my bed thinking about how much i just want to go home. but i kept telling myself... angela there is just nowhere to go. but around ten fifteen i just couldn't stay there any longer... i ran outside and the whole world was shaking... i got in my car and ended up driving to the revue. i just had to go home.

i ordered my camomile tea and sat in one of the back corner booths. the same one vicente likes to sit at while he's drawing pictures of my friend laura. i listened to jj heller and opened my bible... but i couldnt read... all i could do was listen.

"dont let your eyes get used to darkness
the light is coming soon
dont let your heart get used to sadness
put your hope in what is true
no matter how the wind may blow
it cannot shake the sun
lay your sorrows on the ground
its time to come back home."

and look. all i could see was the empty space across from me. there was no one there. but my mind started forming a person... i had never realized how strong my imagination was... but all of the sudden there were the hands lying on the table next to mine... there were the shoulders leaning forward and the ears turned attentively to my tears... and i could see the concern and confidence in his eyes. i reached my hand out and touched his... and instead of being angry this time... instead of asking God how much longer my imagination would be my only solace... all i felt was sorrow. and all i could do was sit there and look. well and cry. but that was a given.

so eventually my apparition of love faded away and i opened up my bible again. and you would not believe the first thing i read. i mean you would not believe it...

"Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,
while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."

that was one of those kind of moments that changes your life. 

maybe you get it... maybe you dont. it doesnt really matter. what matters is... that empty space was full of promise. not possibility... but promise. He was there. and the fact that I couldnt see Him was all the proof i need.

i was home.

angela

epiphany

we want to be alive. we want to cry and laugh and dance and sing. today i was watching csi on the internet... and i dont know of any of you follow the story... but at the end of the last season one of the main csi's was murdered. so the first episode of this season was all about finding his killer and mourning his death. the very last scene was the at the funeral, and grissom was giving the eulugy. he was all choked up and couldnt finish it... all he could say was "i am going to miss him alot." and i am just so enraptured by this scene that i dont even notice that i am totally crying. and then there was this split second moment in my brain where the sensation of the tears running down my cheeks must have somehow collided with the pictures that were being delivered to my mind and bang... i had it. an epiphany. i understood why i love to watch tv so much. because i want to be alive! i want to experience life to its fullness, good emotions and bad. the richness of life is so muted by all our... conveniences. we are all so muted. there are things that pull us out from the damp gray sea that we live in... if even for a moment. like music for example. sometimes when you listen to the right song what you feel is all the sudden amplified like a hundred times. colors seem brighter, the sky is bluer, and the scent on the wind is sweeter. it almost seems as if you have been pulled into a different reality. but what i am proposing is this... what if that is reality? what if the whole world is singing and we just arent listening? what if each of our lives are songs in themselves? what if we are so distracted by all the voices in our ears that we cant hear the music? and im not just talking about the songs that make you feel good but the sad ones too. the requiems and the dirges and the "nobody knows the trouble ive seen" kind of songs. true pain and pleasure seem to be lost in this instant gratification, living without consequences provides a life of no consequence. 

well i want to live. i want to feel it all. the bad and the good. the whole and the broken. the question and the answer. a life of mystery and adventure awaits the person who takes the unbeaten path. it takes work and patience but what i am starting to see is that its worth it. really living is really worth it. and thats the kind of life i want to offer to the people i love. because the music is always playing and we are all apart of the song. because the colors really are brighter than they seem. because we all want to be alive... even when we dont know what living is.