Let me take you where I've been today:
Stepped out of the hazy sleep blanket into the sunshine between blinds, my mind a vortex sucking in reality, sickly under unreality, a wretched feeling in my stomach, and euphoria in my brain. For a while.
After tax returns and breakfast found my way wending down residential streets to the looming invisible globe, bubblelike in texture, full of air, full of hope and thin skinned rainbow promises; something like home, but not quite.
Down the street saw a woman cross, woman glance at me, woman walk wildly the other way, all dressed in uncertainty and the click clack footsteps of an educated fearmonger. Just for fun, caught up with the wavering frame and followed, just to the building, then uncertainty took a quick right, glancing furtively behind, fearful of a following; perhaps fear was disappointed. >pop<
Black framed in black, myself moving over blazing asphalt towards the cool interior, my office decked like a relic of some arcane knowledge, a map here, pictures there, and personal notes behind the storage bin, all this meaning nothing to anyone but me. Snoopy stares back from a card.
Breaking for caffeine and sugar later, saw several faces from the past --a friend's old crush, a philosophy student, a book cover once borrowed for the knowledge within, all the skeletons stare back now, dry bones that will be sucked no longer but for sentiment,i.e. the times were once good.
Even skeletons deceive.
And here, now, typing it all out, surrounded by papers from foreign hands, surrounded by voices over insulated walls, verses, pictures in mind of past smiles on faces now marked by care and laughter--the tales of our lives etched there where we can't hide them, a canvas stretched out for all the world to see.

A couple of things:

Moo
Today I was listening to Third Day and thinking about how Psalm 50:10 says God owns "the cattle on a thousand hills."
Then I had a strangely juxtaposed thought: the Masaai of East Africa traditionally believe(d) they were given all cattle in the world by the creator. A laughable thought right? Well, they are right, at least, about the initial ownership of the cattle. Beyond that -- well, two words: Manifest Destiny. Their belief, it seems, is not quite as comparatively primitive as one might be tempted to think.
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Gear Up
It seems in such ease I have taken up complacency as my diet and regimen, as many do; who, two years ago, lived in fear of planes or war in the United States prior to the current ongoings, allbethey contingencies at this point in time? Likewise, not fearing conflict or danger, I would gorge myself on the fat of the land, "putting my mind in neutral", as my dad used to put it to my brother's and my childhood chagrin. As it now stands I have a greater understanding of what he meant.
"All we have to do is decide what to do with the time we've been given." Something happened today which reminded me to check myself -- true war rages all around us, as I know you suspect deep within you; it's that billboard you'd rather not look at but at the same time feel compelled towards; it's that suicide wish that comes back whenever you fail; it's that horror at finding out that he's cheating on you; it's that dad that comes home and terrorizes his own family; it's that woman whose uncontrollable spending habits are pitting you against bankruptcy; it's that man whose uncontrollable desire for you inexplicably makes you feel worth less with each touch after ecstasy's embrace; it's waking up in the morning, any morning, and realizing just how little control you have; it's that car accident, that irrational fear, that hospital bed, that illness, that death, that dissatisfaction, that hunger. No matter how many books you read, no matter how many shows you watch, no matter who you're with, there's something...not completely right.
I know an answer, which does not make things right, but at least gives direction, explanation. And with that knowledge, I know enough to gear up. Because when it comes my way, as inevitably it will, there will be no time (Matthew 24).