There’s something about falling asleep on the road and waking up to find yourself in a different state—unfamiliar with your surroundings but attempting to place yourself somewhere, to have reference of something—anything—to connect where you are to who you are in that given moment.
Today I am a traveler, a journeyer. Today I am a daughter, sitting alongside my father as we traverse the great Midwest to the oceans of the east, where my brother awaits his chariot that we are driving. At first read, I make this sound much more poetic than it likely actually is. However, there is something deep inside of me that searches for and wants to wring out any possible significance in most moments. It’s part of why I volunteered to join this drive, because, are there really that many chances to take a road trip with my dad for three days, just the two of us? As I looked to the future (which I cannot predict), my reasoning told me no, so it compelled me to say yes in the here and now. I don’t want to miss the opportunity for significant moments, even if there are many insignificant moments in between. Yet, the saying of yes to one thing also means the saying of no to another, and this sense of gravity between every decision seems to be the push and pull between possibility or remaining steady, of risk or reservation, of exploration or present satisfaction.
I realize this sense of gravity to be true within my own heart as well. A friend from college wrote a year ago that life is full of both joy and sorrow, often simultaneously. Each of those has a force of its own, and by our disposition, we often choose one element to focus on and the other to negate, instead of letting them each be just what they are—for without sorrow, we would not fully understand the weightlessness of joy, and without joy, we would not understand the weight of sorrow. I’m a sober-minded person. This means I often try to place myself in the optimal position in a situation, in reference to what is going on to connect how I should feel and think in that given moment, while remembering the big picture of this life on earth and ultimately eternity that awaits after. Yet, for many reasons over the last couple of years, I’ve had a hard time letting the weightlessness of joy fully seep into my being. I brace myself for the possible sorrow to come in an effort to preserve myself for when it does—and in the process, the opportunities to fully partake in joy seem to wash right by, diluted of their potency because I let the water keep running rather than stepping up to fill and drink.
Lately I’ve known the Lord as God of comfort, God of salvation and sovereignty, but not the God and giver of joy. I feel and know his strength to hold when the things of this world grow weighty, but I have easily forgotten his strength to also be able to make me weightless, to be awash and fully swept up in the weightlessness of joy.
This fact alone makes it interesting that if I could be any animal, it would be a bird. Not a specific one necessarily, but one that you see gliding in the sky with just the subtle flap of the wings to stay afloat, mainly letting the current of the wind carry the flight—feeling it fully and adjusting to the breezes as it comes—and seemingly weightless in every way. There is a trust in the birds that the winds hold, and when the winds cease, that their wings will sustain. One way or another, they will be able to stay in flight. They will remain above, sometimes seemingly disconnected but really, with a perspective many are unable to attain on the ground. They see the whole that is afforded within the reaches of their sight, even though it is still a fraction of a silver of the whole that fully exists.
I don’t know if it’s the process of removing oneself from daily surroundings that exclusively enables the wider perspective like being a bird in flight affords, but for me in this season, it is my reality. To disengage to understand how to reengage—or reengaging in something else entirely different from the normal reality. For though I cannot be a bird, I’ve been able to be on the road. The whole of my life is full of significant moments in a car, journeying, exploring and releasing. In Brooklyn, with the absence of a car, my feet take me deeper into the intricacies of my surroundings. At six miles an hour instead of 80, I go at a slower pace, but there is much more in the six miles in Brooklyn than the 80 in Oklahoma. I am thankful to live in a vibrant city and thankful to observe and attempt to understand the larger dynamics of our world that play out in an international and diverse melting pot. However, I would not be telling you the truth if I said I engaged it well beyond the observing and doing of a daily life there. It feels much—it is much. And with much means it is compiled of moments, people, and circumstances playing out before me that bear so much potency in what they reveal about the human condition and our world. In my sober-mindedness, I see that the successes of mankind often also come at the cost of mankind. I see that often someone’s joy comes at the expense of producing another’s sorrow or weight upon their shoulders. I wonder if we all desperately desire to say, at least to some degree, “to each their own,” because it seems far easier to venture out on our own search for self-sufficiency and autonomity rather than confront the interconnectedness of this world. To engage with the interconnectedness means embracing what it is, while working to make it better. The gospel compels us to do so—and moreso, the gospel enables us to do so. But we focus on our lack within ourselves and delve deeper into autonomity as our way of coping, as if we think the world will only bring us suffering and pain rather than seeing and believing how the Lord can work through it—and through us.
And with the weight of sorrow so heavily upon our shoulders, we may be able to empathize more, but our eyes remain fixed upon where our feet currently reside, rather than looking up at the promise of hope—maybe not given in the present moment, but promised and delivered nonetheless. If we only fix our eyes upon where our feet are, the others who venture into our lives look first at our feet. They see our present circumstances, the weight of them, and may or may not be able to compel us to look up yet again—to look to the author of our hope, the giver of our joy.
I know I need to look up more to see these opportunities of joy, to receive from the fount the full potency of them. A week ago provided a full drink of joy that I had not experienced in some time. My best friend from my childhood, the one I have known since I was 11 years old, got married in an intimate setting 10,500 feet above sea level in the heart of the mountains. She herself is a huge part of the story of my life and a means of God’s grace to me, and her family is as well. To be with them last week—fully known and accepted, with the richness of memories behind and the surety of friendship ahead—was a healing balm to my soul. To look upon her face as she looked into the eyes of her groom, bearing perfect peace and pure joy reminded me yet again that God is good.
Bring what sorrows this world may and will—to fix our eyes upon Him and both the realities and possibilities of what He does and can do in this world lifts my eyes from where I am to what He is instead. To lift my eyes from where I am to look around and see the portion of this journey before me, Him beside me, places myself firmly in His grasp. It gives me reference of the potency of hope that connects me with where I am to who I am in this given moment—this is to know that I am loved, and through Him, able to bear more than I know now not just in the sorrows, but ultimately in His joy.