Behind Dark Eyes

It's a problem, see, the idea that life can somehow encompass everything that's important, everything that's supposed to complete or fulfill us. The face of existence is dark and uninviting. What we are is not determined by our simply being here.

No, it's a whole lot more than that. It requires things of us, sometimes things we can't comprehend; things like faith and committment and endurance.Winning the good race revolves around more than being the fastest.

No, being the fastest isn't even in the running. Finishing is infinitely more important than how fast we can go. Neither is accumulation all that important. We might put on the miles, run, walk, crawl when necessary, but the ultimate goal is where we end up and not how we get there.

All I can keep hearing in my head are the words of Job as he laments how, seemingly, God's heavy hand drags groans from him. If God would only consider for a minute Job's plight and Job's faithfulness, certainly he'd be vindicated. Certainly he'd be proven right. Certainly.

But then the truth of the matter rears itself as the Almighty's still small voice roars out of the whirlwind.

Who are you? Where you been? Seen the snow before it falls? Seen the stars before they shone? Did you put them in their place, ever expanding and somehow always looking like they're in the same place? What about those dinosaurs and sea serpents people are always tripping about? Seen them lately? He has.

What about those towers you build? What the heck holds 'em up? No reason they should stand, at least none that you can explain.I know. I beg the obvious. But, somehow the obvious just gets lumped into the mundane and gets ignored, along with too many of our fellow travelers.

Just what is it with those homeless mugs that hold signs that say "God Bless" as they panhandle yet another dollar or coin so's to buy a pint of something to erase their fear and anxieties of walking another day on the wrong side of Paradise?

And while we wander, what's up with people hating so much what they don't understand, condemning others forever to the trash heap of unreasoning prejudice? What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?

When we wake up in the morning and everything is as it appears, what happens later to turn it all into some sort of cruel burlesque? It's not the way it was created. What happens between that new birth of a new day and that undefinable second when it all seems to go south?I know. I ramble incessantly, especially after dark.

Doesn't mean I don't really want to know. Just means that, in the quiet of the night, when there's no turning back the twisted laments of the day, everything seems at peace again. No, not like that morning solitude and breath-giving newness. More like a sigh of relief and, yes, gratitude for having steered through another weird one.