Beauty Bathing

I'm sitting in front of you blogger with so much to say and nothing is coming out.  The last few days it seems like my mind turns on right when I'm driving to work.  Unfortunately in the 20 mins that it takes me to get from the fairgrounds to the airport I can't really blog my thoughts...safely...and so I sit here, lights turned off and headphones on, trying to recreate my drive in my head hoping that it would unlock some sort of portal to my thoughts of days past.  There is this one thing...

So yesterday I'm driving to work and right about the time that I turned onto Highway 63, Train's Drops of Jupiter comes on the radio.  Now usually I don't listen to the radio cause I normally opt for my iPod but on this day the soft rock music station was playing and this is what happened... unexplainable joy.

So somewhere between the lyrics "plain old jane told a story about a man that was too afraid to fall so he never did land." flashes of people and circumstances in my life flashed in seconds like a super fast slideshow.  In this instance there was this beauty and appreciation for people and what they had contributed to my life here in Minnesota.  All the junk and anger and hurt that I had sorta buried deep inside disappeared and there was...ready for this....grace.

Now the word grace that I'm talking about is the grace that is synonymous with mercy.  Defined by Merriam Webster as compassion or forbearance shown especially to an offender and with this grace came peace, and that peace made me so incredibly happy that I just had to laugh.  Laughed so hard that I cried.  Good belly laughs are the best but really unsafe while going 70 mph down an icy highway.  Don't worry everyone, I didn't die.  From about the underpass of the 52 ,crossing over the 63, to the parking lot of Rochester International Airport I was drunk with happiness and my serotonin and dopamine levels sky rocketed leaving me in a joyous high that lasted for hours and tapered off by the time the overnight flight parked and deplaned.  The cool thing about this kind of high is that when you come down you just feel good.  Sure you want more, but you don't have the shakes or the shits.  Graphic picture, I'm sorry, but it's true.

So now it's about the part in the song that goes "the best soy latte that you ever had and me" and I'm just singing really loud and thanking God and loving all of you, yeah you, and gagging?  Gagging? Dry heaving.  So bare with me non-christian/atheist/agnostic friends...I'm laughing, singing and trying not to throw up and I realized that something bigger is going on... it has to be?  Right?  'Cause in my human nature I really hate people.  Well maybe not hate...but really dislike you all.  And me too, don't get me wrong...I suck bad.  We're mean and selfish and rude, arrogant, and needy and pissed off all the time...we're lazy and apathetic about most things and when we don't get our way we whine or scream or slam things and pout.  We gossip and say hurtful things that apologies can't always erase.  And even those who are good about forgiving have emotional scars that will most likely surface the next time someone wrongs them.  We usually blame everyone else for our problems and get defensive with the implication that maybe everything is f'd up because of something we did.  Ok, if this isn't you then I'm speaking for myself.  All these things are true of me anyway.  Maybe it makes me feel better to think that you're all jerks like me... some of you, lets be honest... are.  But then all of sudden this veil is raised off of my face and I see you all and myself (thank God) with this clearness and purity.  Sorta like that Claritin commercial where the attractive blond that's watching her puppy lab run across the meadow says "Now it's clear...Claritin clear."  Is that what it says?  I hate commercials.

So ok...where was I...oh...veil lifted...purity...yeah!  Beauty really.  You're all beautiful disasters.  And then I start to see the good in all of you, the gold as Pastor Rod would say.  And I see you all as this mosaic or stained glass window.  All broken and put together so intricately to create this amazing piece of art that depending on what side your on will let in amazing and colorful light.  And all of you are uniquely designed and put together differently.  Some more fragile then others. And some stained glass windows tell stories, and you all have a story that excuses all the flaws mentioned in the above paragraph and the stories aren't even important, well they are, but they're not. Because whether or not you read the plaque on the wall next to the window that explains the picture, you can still stand back and enjoy the art in front of you without much thought of why it was ever created.  I'm thankful that there was an Artist out there that took the time to piece together so many amazing windows for light to shine through and that's what happened yesterday...on my drive to work...you all became stained glass windows.

So excuse me if I stare or stand to close.  I might just be appreciating your beauty or bathing in your light.