lost continent.

"We'd rather close our eyes,
sing soothing lullabies;
we'll soon be swallowed by the sea.

The water's rising now,
and we will surely drown
if we don't turn around."*

today is the last day of this roller coaster of a year known as 2008. we've seen a lot of new things emerge, and a lot of old things fall. 2009 will make us tremble even more; things need to be solved and they need to be solved swiftly. we must turn around. we must remember what our hearts and hands are for*. there are certainly more important things to worry about than miley cyrus's wardrobe.

"A child learns early there is a fashionable and an unfashionable in the world, an ugly and a pretty, a valued and an unvalued. Where this system comes from, God only knows, but it is rarely questioned, and though illogical and agreed upon by everyone as evil, it remains in play, commanding our emotions as a possession"
-- Donald Miller, Searching for God Knows What

but fashion doesn't exist. it's something we made up; yet another tool for comparison to the next person. there is beauty in everything. we are all of equal value. i want so badly to revolt against this system, yet i very frequently get caught in the machinery of it.

when 1/6 of the world is below the poverty line, and there are more slaves in the world now than there were during the civil war period... when many of those are bought by sex traffickers as young as four years old... when the aids pandemic is growing, when millions don't have access to simple clean water, something we throw away... when there are self-imposed genocides occurring within countries, when all of these souls as priceless as our very own are crying out to us every minute... we pay $20 for a meal we don't even eat, while we watch the hills or read a magazine updating us on which celebrity is in rehab- blatantly ignoring the raw suffering our equals are facing- their eyes, vacant; their hope, fleeting. bearing transcendent pain that we would crumble beneath within seconds, and we offer little. too worried about catching up to our neighbor. we are not this blind; we are opting to put blinders on. we are all in this lifeboat together. not just at the same time, but together. for each other, purposefully. "and we will surely drown, if we don't turn around."

look around you; there are ruins of wonder everywhere, destroyed by the “logic” that we claim to possess. what good is logic when our hearts are growing colder to the needs of others? i’ve said this before; i don’t want to be the generation that could have changed everything but didn’t make the effort. i don’t want to be the generation that let lives deteriorate by the masses, because we were too self-centered to take a stand and rescue them.



but, on a smaller scale, this year has personally been quite a.... learning experience, to put it gently. i'd never been outside of the circle before... i was pushed outside. but, i enjoyed the sun.

"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."
— Chris McCandless

i took the initiative, and i'm still on the journey to transformation; to surrender.
giving up on virtually everyone i had leaned on for my entire life- every dead end i had pursued with my entire heart- i learned that i could stand on my own two feet.
i looked at the sky more often.
i learned that you can learn from everyone.
i found that people say good-bye more often when they'll be back later, than when they are walking out of your life for good.
i now can carry the most amazing conversations i have ever had with me.
i've done silly things that made me feel like i was actually a teenager.
i learned about strangers' lives and aspirations, and i didn't even have to catch their name.
out of my years, i have had the nicest things said to me in this one.
it seems like the pros would drastically outweigh the cons.

my relationship with God was less than okay.
for all of the twelve months, i don't think i remember a day that i wasn't so distant, so cold i could see my breath.
in doing this, it's like i have misplaced my keys. my home. my continent. i lost a continent.

i have never been around people so often, and yet still i have never been so solitary.

"but grace can still be found within the gale.
with fear and reverence, raise your ragged sail."*

happy new year, tomorrow.

-c.


soundtrack: *thrice / dustin kensrue.