Getting Away--Good for the Mind, Body, and Soul

Everybody needs to get away sometimes.

Away from work, from home, from stress, and just the dailiness of life. Whatever you do, you need a break every once in a while. It doesn't mean you are lazy, or not committed. It means you get tired, worn out, used up, and need a break. It means you are human.

I really don't like to travel.

Yep. I'm one of those people. A homebody, stick-in-the-mud, boring, stay-cation kind of guy. To me a great vacation means staying at home with nothing planned. That does not mean nothing to do, it just means nothing I have to do. I really enjoy doing projects around the house and yard, as long as I don't have to do them. I enjoy mowing the lawn, but I would enjoy volunteering to mow your lawn more than my own because I don't have to do it. You see, I like freedom, downtime. I like to decide what I'm going to do, and when. Even if it's nothing at all.

But (the inevitable but), there is a big world out there that my wife, children, and (as much as I hate to admit it) I need to experience. I live in a quiet, rural (meaning middle of nowhere), small town. I live in the same county I was born in, and truth be told, I have no intention of ever moving. I like it here. I have often said, when speaking of traveling, that if there were some other place I thought I'd like better than here, I'd go live there. But there isn't that other place (other than heaven). This is where I want to be.

Still, I realize broadening my horizons is a good thing.

As I said above, there is a big world out there and we all need to get a taste of something different every now and then. That does not have to mean traveling the world, although for some it very well may. But it does mean going outside our comfort zones every once in a while. It's important that we stretch ourselves, get out there and do something new, see new things, even (gasp!) meet new people and new kinds of people.

It's always good to come back home.

Getting out is good for me, but secretly, coming home is always the best. I know a lot of people count the days, hours, even minutes of their vacation, dreading that time when they will have to return home. Not me. I've never enjoyed another place so much that I didn't want to leave and come home. Part of that is contentment, and part of it is knowing that nowhere on this earth is paradise--every place has it's downside. Besides--I'm not going to live here forever. I'm just visiting. My true home is a place where once I go, I'll never leave. 

And that will be the greatest homecoming of them all.

What Story Will You Write?

There is no title, no table of contents, no introduction or acknowledgement. No copyright, imprint, or watermark. It's blank.

It is the book of life.

We all have one, handed to us, in some form, on the day of our birth. We fill the first pages with scribbles and blobs, stick figures and misspelled words, disproportionate cartoons of our idealistic misunderstanding of the world as seen through the eyes of a child. Simplistic. Naive. Innocent.

Years pass and the pages fill. Childish scrawl becomes more fluid, regimented, organized. Disjointed pictographs give way to properly framed depictions of reality. A true book begins to emerge. The book of our life.

Writing a book is not that hard. Hammer away long enough, and you can produce the 75-100,000 words necessary to qualify a work as a book. But a book is a story no more than a pile of bricks a house. A dictionary is a book, but a story it is not. There is no plot, no setting, no characters. No life.

Therein lies the art, and the heart, of writing.

So it is in our book of life. It is easy enough to fill our books with randomness and idle chatter, meaningless dialogue and cardboard characters. The pages fill, the word count tallies, but a story it is not. Not a real story, a story worth reading. That takes work. That takes heart. Courage. Perseverance.

Writing a story worth reading is hard. Hours, days, weeks go into each chapter. Words are agonized over, dissected, defined, replaced. Story lines are pursued, abandoned, retraced and recovered. Characters spring to life, only to fall spectacularly to their deaths or slowly sink beneath the page in a slow spiral of decay. Long hours pass when the words will not come. Sleepless nights are spent feverishly when the words will not stop. There is ebb and flow, rise and fall.

And so it is in life. A life worthy of being written happens no more easily than does a story worth reading. Every action, thought, word, and deed matter. Understand there will be mistakes, missteps, wrong paths taken. Characters will appear who seem to be on the side of right and good, but later reveal themselves antithetical to the purpose of the hero. And who is the hero of your story? Why, you, of course. Who else could it be?

So it is up to you to make corrections. While you cannot edit out lines already written, you can write anew. Start a new chapter. Create a new storyline. Bring in new characters. Everyone loves a redemption story, a nobody who becomes somebody, a villain turned hero. Maybe that's you.

I don't know your story, and I cannot write it for you. No one can. It's up to you.

What will your story be?

It's a Slippery World Out There!

Those darn banana peels!

They'll get you every time! You're just walking along, minding your own business, then . . . Wham! You're flat on you back, arms and legs waving in the air like an overturned turtle, unsure how you got there. You've just fallen victim to a banana peel. And trust me--they're everywhere!

How does one slip on a banana peel? Well, it's quite easy, actually. All it takes is a little carelessness, a moment of inattention. One wrong step and you're down. And I've found the older I get, the harder I fall. And the harder it is to get up.

Who left it laying around?

A banana peel is a piece of garbage. Trash. Refuse. It shouldn't be left laying around. Someone could get hurt. Like me. So whose fault is it?

Probably mine.

You see, I leave trash laying around all the time. Not real trash--my two older sisters broke me of that early! But that other kind of trash. That stuff in my life that really isn't worth anything and should be thrown away or recycled. You know what I mean. Grudges. Guilt. Anger. Sin.

Banana peels. Mine.

Where do they belong?

I've left a lot of stuff laying around over the years that I end up finding in the most unfortunate way. Unresolved anger at some person who then shows back up in my life. Slip and fall! Guilt over some petty offense that I never let go. Crash and burn! Envy of some person, some thing. Mayday--Going down!

If you, or I, leave that stuff laying around, it's going to come back and bite us. Hard. There has to be a better answer. And there is.

Maybe you need to forgive someone who offended you, or yourself for offending someone else. Maybe you need to deal with envy, or jealousy. It could be anger or sorrow. Perhaps pride or lust. I don't know your particular trash--I only know mine. But I do know this--we all have some. And if we don't take care of it . . . Let's just say, it's going to show up when you least expect it.

Watch your step.

We all have garbage laying around that we need to clean up. So watch your step, and when you find something along the path of life, take the time to deal with it.

And remember, it's a slippery world out there!