You have your choices

Today was simple. I arose to cranberry juice (coffee is out until the stomach can fathom it). After Greek vocabulary, pieces of exegesis (seeing all of the parts, and none of the whole), and further progress on an outline, I made for my auto so as to pick up my younger cousin from school. What a mind, honestly. I pray that he becomes a writer, because then I could bounce ideas off of him, and perhaps they will make it into one of his books. 

Then again, I could write one; though not while my stomach is in this state. How did Calvin do it (ulcers breed unwanted profanity in my thoughts, and surely spoil the appetite)?

Anyway, we read Lewis' The Great Divorce. He was inquisitive: "If the narrator honestly sees himself as a ghost, how can he possible grasp at the flower or the blade of grass?" or "How can they feel the pangs of hard grass, when they have no bodies?" These types of questions prompted great dialogue. And let me just say that the lad is eschatologically solid, which is encouraging. No pie-in-the-sky, "cloud-walkin' after I die," for this guy. He and Lewis would get along well. There are weighty matters milling about in his mind. Oh, to learn from a child.

Dinner tonight was at the home of our church's worship leader. His family is wonderful and very hospitable. Pizza was on, salad, the like, and variegated chatter on past life, hopes, and directions. The conversation climaxed in a full-on jam session – two guitars and a dobro. The latter was a true proficient, with much experience in the art of bluegrass. My favorite. So many possibilities, so much potential. Even in this heart, seemingly hard and numb of feeling as of late, there yet resides a spark for the innovative steel-string, the rhythm and blues, and a stalwart melody with which we sail the stars in strokes of harmony.

Decisions are never weightless. They don't float or meander in thin speculation or theory. They bear consequences, burdens, and sometimes children (no cause for alarm, 'tis merely for the literary effect). Life is a great gift, and we are a generation, bent on milking it for all its worth, without the least sense of gratitude... or responsibility. I stake my claim among the worst of these. I only regret the years of wasted choices... corporately. This is apparently what "makes man great, that gives him stature with the gods" (Steinbeck: Lee, in East of Eden; long before Mumford & Sons). It may also be his very own demise. Medieval man believed that the stars played an intricate part in providence (so, we thank the lucky ones). "Poppycock!" say we. But perhaps modern man sees too little in the stars (i.e. mere gases and chemicals) and too much in the mind: a fickle playground, indeed. Perhaps there are entire worlds, an otherness of sorts, that we neglect (I refer to Lewis' The Discarded Image for justification of these last few lines, which may be mere nostalgia; or perhaps something more).

You do have your choices. Make them, but remember to tread lightly upon the grounds of our collective conscience. We just might fool ourselves with our empirical magic and analytical sorcery, and perhaps we are more engrossed in a tradition than we like to admit.

But I cannot abide these thoughts long, for it is nearly bedtime. Books just came in the mail, and perhaps a Johnny Flynn vinyl... Huzzah!