Too bad
Useless.
That's how I really feel sometimes. I can't do much; I can't enjoy much--it's as if there are always holes, missing pieces, that need to be filled up. For example, I know how to ride a bicycle (unlike my 19-year-old brother Ralph who never tries), but I couldn't ride it as fast as, say, the great Lance Armstrong--my namesake, by the way, who has won six Tour de France championships--or even my younger brother, Sean. I can manipulate the bike such that the motion I'm following is rectilinear; I couldn't, however, take a sharp turn. It's a disability.
My eyes are awefully myopic, too. The only thing I can see in the Snellen chart is the biggest E that's right at the top. I need eyeglasses; though I wear contacts, I find putting them on rather, er, incovenient. But wearing them feels like I have undergone a multi-million laser eye surgery.
Senseless.
That's what I am, too. Times would come when I'd tell nonsense things to everyone: the topics are far-fetched and often very unexpected. I myself do not know where these words coming out of my mouth have come from. When I had arrived from the airport, I asked my friends a question that truly has puzzled me: Why do they always--and I mean always--call the escalator that moves downward an escalator? To escalate means, or implies, something like going up. (Before I continue, the Nescafe commercial comes to my mind: Going up? All the way to the top!--A horrible dialogue; but there's a "good way coming up.")
My roommate, Jason, would testify to the fact that I laugh on my own (it's a creepy and often infectious laugh, too, since he also laughs with me whenever these moments of lunacy hit me), espcially at times when I feel sleepy. I asked my friends while we were eating dinner (or was it lunch?), "Is this insanity? Laughing alone?"
"Do you know why you laugh?," they intuitively ask me.
"Sure. When I think bloody funny thoughts."
"That's OK. As long as you know why you laugh. The fact that you've asked us this question is proof that you have a stable state of mind," they say.
The insane, I was told, laugh for no particular reason at all. Too bad for them.
I am laughing now, so hard that I feel my internal organs are going to be subjected to a horrid process known as disarrangement. My tummy is aching--not the ulcer type of pain. Maybe my diaphragm is exhausted now, too. Fact is, I don't know what I'm laughing at. Too bad for me.
That's how I really feel sometimes. I can't do much; I can't enjoy much--it's as if there are always holes, missing pieces, that need to be filled up. For example, I know how to ride a bicycle (unlike my 19-year-old brother Ralph who never tries), but I couldn't ride it as fast as, say, the great Lance Armstrong--my namesake, by the way, who has won six Tour de France championships--or even my younger brother, Sean. I can manipulate the bike such that the motion I'm following is rectilinear; I couldn't, however, take a sharp turn. It's a disability.
My eyes are awefully myopic, too. The only thing I can see in the Snellen chart is the biggest E that's right at the top. I need eyeglasses; though I wear contacts, I find putting them on rather, er, incovenient. But wearing them feels like I have undergone a multi-million laser eye surgery.
Senseless.
That's what I am, too. Times would come when I'd tell nonsense things to everyone: the topics are far-fetched and often very unexpected. I myself do not know where these words coming out of my mouth have come from. When I had arrived from the airport, I asked my friends a question that truly has puzzled me: Why do they always--and I mean always--call the escalator that moves downward an escalator? To escalate means, or implies, something like going up. (Before I continue, the Nescafe commercial comes to my mind: Going up? All the way to the top!--A horrible dialogue; but there's a "good way coming up.")
My roommate, Jason, would testify to the fact that I laugh on my own (it's a creepy and often infectious laugh, too, since he also laughs with me whenever these moments of lunacy hit me), espcially at times when I feel sleepy. I asked my friends while we were eating dinner (or was it lunch?), "Is this insanity? Laughing alone?"
"Do you know why you laugh?," they intuitively ask me.
"Sure. When I think bloody funny thoughts."
"That's OK. As long as you know why you laugh. The fact that you've asked us this question is proof that you have a stable state of mind," they say.
The insane, I was told, laugh for no particular reason at all. Too bad for them.
I am laughing now, so hard that I feel my internal organs are going to be subjected to a horrid process known as disarrangement. My tummy is aching--not the ulcer type of pain. Maybe my diaphragm is exhausted now, too. Fact is, I don't know what I'm laughing at. Too bad for me.
Labels: faith
posted on January 06, 2005
1 Comments:
I also experience the same troubles, brother. I know that your context regarding "usefulness" may be different, but let me just write my thoughts...USEFULNESS... I need to learn how it is only God and His power in us who makes us useful. Transform us into useful spirits. I can appear to be totally useful in the eyes of the world, even in the church as a part of the Body, but in reality still be utterly useless for His glory. It's like I'm a bubbling fountain, but when you run your hand through me you'll discover that I'm only a hologram. I learn that it is only those times when you're right with Him, with the Lord of the Universe, that you are useful. For the only real work is what He does in the world; history is His Story, and you are truly "working" if and only if you are aligned with what He is doing. Usefulness is first and foremost with reference to Him and is not primarily with what you do for society. You can be the most useful person on the planet even if you're just inside a little room, doing nothing whatsoever aside from being still and knowing that He is God... isn't that one of the hardest lessons we Christians need to learn...sigh
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