silent reverie

Today is exactly one week from Christmas, and my beloved cold and angry city has been transformed into a life-sized snow globe of happiness and cheer.  I am honestly not a huge "Christmas person" in the commercialized sense, but the holiday spirit crept up on me this year and made itself evident in the multiple trees and lights that have sprung up in my living room despite my best efforts to keep my cool.  As I reflected on my newfound yuletide cheer, I think I felt this way because I needed to celebrate something.  I needed to feel a gentle wave of peace wash over me every time I walk into my home, surrounded by the warm glow of stringed lights.  I needed to remind myself that there was so much beauty in this year, in spite of the darkness and in spite of the cold. I've learned a lot of things this year.  I've learned that hope can be one of the most painful feelings because it lies so close to despair.  Each time I grasped for hope, I could feel myself ...

Sitting in front of this blank screen with my eyes closed, I reach back into my memories for moments of beauty to crystallize with words and share with my small online world.  I have recently discovered that the intentional remembrance of small wonders in daily living can help me endure the monotony of routine, the pangs of loneliness, and the crush of disappointment that sometimes meet me along my way.  This meditative thought-gathering starts in my mind, travels through my heart, and settles into my soul, which in turn reminds me that it is well.  All is well - this life brilliant in its beauty and pain - and my God is good through it all. One of my clients is a teenage girl who sits in my office every other week and declares, with equal parts conviction and despair, that this world - and in turn her whole life and future - is boring.  She loses herself in novels and movies, and is deeply afraid of turning her attention back to reality for fear that the bleakness...

A while ago, my therapist asked me if it was difficult for me to "own my negative feelings".  I had no idea what she was talking about. Negative feelings aren't for me to own, but to throw away as quickly as possible!  They're the messy remnants of relational friction, the ugly parts of an immature heart. Isn't a whole and happy person someone who refuses to accept anger, sadness, disappointment, but one who rises above them, casts them off, and continues sailing through life with a smile? I believed that negative feelings, although natural and unavoidable, were to be dealt with as swiftly as possible, either through prayer or sheer force of mental willpower.  "You don't have to be in a bad mood", or "you can change your emotions", I would say to myself.  And when I couldn't, I would pretend that I did. One of the earliest compliments I can remember receiving on a consistent basis was in Chinese, and often said to me by my relatives....

"Think of something beautiful you saw today, and write about it", he said.  I looked at him, thinking through my ordinary day and feeling skeptical about the beauty in editing a presentation for class or a routine trip to the local HomeGoods.  "The sunrise was beautiful this morning..." I admitted, knowing that it was a typical answer but not having anything else come to mind.  "Yeah, it was really beautiful" he agreed, drifting off to sleep.  I sat there for a moment, and then began to write on the erasable board we keep near our bed. A timid, pale yellow creeps up from the horizon, softening the shadows and warming the edges of the austere concrete shapes of the freeway overpass.  The yellow is trailed by a bolder orange and a brightening of the skies that brings out the colors of the trees and passing cars. And finally, like a beautiful woman entering a room, comes the brilliant red, heralding the sun's arrival and the start of a new day. ...