never.
While driving up the north shore of Oahu with friends last February, we came upon this. A crumbling, abandoned building with a foundation that was caving in on itself. Fragments of the walls lay on the grass in scores, with the roof completely gone, and warning tape marking off the perimeter. I couldn't get to it fast enough. I am drawn to such things. To old things. To cracked and broken things. To worn and deteriorating things. To the battered, weathered, and imperfect things. And why? Well, for a few reasons I suppose. They tell stories. They tell truth. This building wasn't always this way. It wasn't made in this manner. I imagine there was a day when the men who fashioned the structure stood with pride and accomplishment before it. But something has happened here. Something has split its sides and ruptured its foundation. Some force has lifted paint and plaster; entire parts of it are missing. But that is no reason to dismiss it. I share something with this stack of bent rebar and cement and worn wood. We're really not all that different. I relate to how I imagine it must feel at times. Like it's too hard to fight against the forces wearing us down. That regardless of our efforts, it's all just crumbling before us. And that can feel pretty awful sometimes because we want control everything. At least I do. I want things stable and secure. I want to keep it all together. But maybe not all destruction is destructive. Maybe some walls need to fall. Maybe the rubble is being cleared for something else. For something new. A dilapidated building showed me this. Oodles of green life was growing up inside of this cast of old. I shared a silent moment with a pile of rubble (yep, I do things like this), realizing that it's okay if some pieces fall to the ground. It’s okay if these walls lose their materiality. Because a new thing is being done. Here, in this decaying building in the middle of the Pacific. And in me. And in an infinite amount of places like us both. Behold. If you have ever lived in the prairies, or have visited a time or two, you know how soothing a sight an open field can be.
It's just a bunch of tall grass or crop. But the way in which it sways is graceful, elegant, nearly hypnotic at times. It's movement holds no real consistency, yet, if you look at it long enough, you'd swear someone was choreographing the whole thing. It's as if some hidden and gentle force is running it's fingers through this gathering of grassy strands. It is subtle. But powerful. I think truth sometimes passes between us human beings in a similar kind of way. And I believe the act produces something of equal beauty. I was sitting in a lecture tonight where a professor was offering little helpings of truth in such a manner. Softly. Subtly. Powerfully. If I think about it, much truth has met me like this. In the soft exchange of words in ordinary places. Here were the words I took to pass through the corridors, "Do not worry about what you do not know. Your ignorance is your greatest asset...if you confront it. Face your ignorance. Ask questions. If you don't, your ignorance will become arrogance. And if you become arrogant, well eventually, you'll become an asshole. And the world really doesn't need any more assholes. The world needs people asking questions." I pass to you, the truth that reigns in these words. May you ask the questions that burn in you. And may your seeking offer something good to the world. Just a few months ago our city looked something like this. Late into November we were still enjoying the spread of color above our heads. Each year I think new shades of burnt orange and fiery red must be born in those leaves. It was beautiful. It is always beautiful. Nearly everyone loves autumn. Perhaps not everyone loves what the season implies is on its way: winter. But I hardly think you could find a person in this city who doesn’t find themselves in awe of all the streets bursting out in color at some point in the fall season. And while most of the trees now look something like this, It is still beautiful. A different kind of beautiful. There are a good number of the season’s colored remnants still carpeting lawns and gathering in the gutter. Though many have been raked and bagged and taken away. Like those that fell on the front lawn of a sweet old man named Pete, who was still raking one day last week when I was passing by. I stopped and told him how much I had loved to play in the leaves when I was young. He told me how much he hated to rake them now. But the smirk on his face and his immaculate yard said otherwise. I imagine he was out there again yesterday, collecting those that the wind had blown from the neighbor’s yard into his. And for those that Pete didn’t get, the 7:00am street cleaner carried a number of them away this morning. But Pete cannot bag them all – and even the determined street cleaner cannot sweep us totally clean - and I’m happy for that. Happy that though winter has met us and we no longer have the abundance of fall colors to look upon, we still have these. And these, well, these are my favorites.
At first glance, they look ordinary. Perhaps boring, bland, as if they have lost their vibrancy. They’ve just enough color left to reveal that they haven’t died up there. They easily go unnoticed. But they’re up there and they're hanging on. You need only crank your head towards the sky every now and then and you'll see them. Their body is anything but perfect. Their edges are worn and tired, crumpling inward, and fatigued. For many, their stems have wilted under the weight of themselves – but tenaciously, they hold to their branch. Yes, these are my favorites. In a season that seems to say their time has passed, they hold strong. Fighting winds and temperatures that want to rob them of their place in this world, they appear broken and tattered, but they remain. I love them for this. I love them for what they speak. They remind us: Though the pretty may fall, the seemingly weak possess a strength that too often goes unseen. |
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July 2015
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