Perfect Timing

1 There is a time for everything, 
       and a season for every activity under heaven:

 2 a time to be born and a time to die, 
       a time to plant and a time to uproot,

 3 a time to kill and a time to heal, 
       a time to tear down and a time to build,

 4 a time to weep and a time to laugh, 
       a time to mourn and a time to dance,

 5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, 
       a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

 6 a time to search and a time to give up, 
       a time to keep and a time to throw away,

 7 a time to tear and a time to mend, 
       a time to be silent and a time to speak,

 8 a time to love and a time to hate, 
       a time for war and a time for peace.

 9 What does the worker gain from his toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on men. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. 13 That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-14

Homeward Bound

"There are two ways of getting HOME; and one of them is to stay there. The other is to walk round the whole world till we come back to the same place."

~ G.K. Chesterton

Finding Stillness

For the past six months this has been my desk, my waiting room, my view point, my place of meeting, my quite coffee shop corner, my couch, my bench in the park, my classroom, and my tree that I day dream under. I feel like half of my time here has been spent getting to train stations, waiting for trains, crying about missing trains, sitting on trains, reading on trains, listening to music on trains, thinking till my mind hurts and my thoughts are blurred on trains, and walking back home from trains. My thoughts go through my head about as fast as the train cars speed down the track, the same scenes burned into my memory turning over in my mind like a silent movie, and somehow I don't think that even if I tried I could find words that could adequately describe to anyone the pictures I see. Sometimes this feels like my prison. I don't really enjoy the inescapable reminders of things I would rather forget or ignore that follow me in these times of lonely transport. But somehow inside I know that I need this. I need the silence, the stillness. I need to fight it out, me and God, my thoughts like small informal prayers. Maybe there really was a reason why I was so scared of empty silence all this time. It is where where we face our giants, we stare down our past, where we keep our eyes right on ahead to contemplate the unknown, and where we tear apart the places of our hearts and souls that go unnoticed or are conveniently not addressed. When I think about meeting with God I think about sitting on a train. I am alone, there is silence, out the window things pass quickly by me, but I am still. This doesn't happen often, maybe not many times before in my life. I have avoided it, but here it finds me. I have a feeling that if for no other reason, God wanted me here so I would sit on trains, so I would find stillness that I could not avoid, so I could find Him. 

Different Names For the Same Thing

"Alone on a train aimless in wonder 

An outdated map crumpled in my pocket 

But I didn't care where I was going 

They're all different names for the same place 

Your ghost just appeared with the scenes from the summer 

I have no words to share with anyone 

The boundary of language quietly coos 

All the different names for the same thing 

There are different names for the same things 

There are different names for the same things...

-Death Cab for Cutie