The Beauty of a Cannonball...

It's been too long. I've missed writing, but then writing needs a clearer head than I've had for the past month or so. A quick update, on a personal note- my surgeries went well and there seems to be some good improvements. The only drawback came about a week and a half back; I woke up with a swollen jaw and it didn't go away. Turned out to be an impacted wisdom tooth that decided to abcess... But last week it too went away, and after a couple days recovery I'm none the worse for wear...

I was hit this morning with a thought that I really felt worth sharing. So often we focus on things, we prioritize our "things" in our lives that really aren't important, and end up squeezing out those things that are important. The thought I had was that "things" are so unimportant in the larger scheme yet we lose focus as we concentrate on our convoluted sense of what we seem to think is important. What is really important is people, is relationships. After all, when it's all said and done what can "things" do for us that can ever compare with what we get from a well-developed relationship? How important is that promotion, that new car, the nice house full of all the latest gadgets, if we are alone, if we have no one to share with? We were designed for fellowship, for community, and too often we've lost that focus as we try to accumulate wealth, as we stockpile "things".

Nothing is more important than relationships. Is it better to have a clean house, or a best friend? Is that promomotion, and all the extra hours of work worth the cost of the marital relationship? Is there really any "thing" that can compare to the value of a true friend, a confidant? What can compare to the comfort of knowing that there is someone who is always in your corner, no matter what stupid thing you might do or say? That is a friend. Yet we steadfastly work away from developing such friendships, such bonds. Why? Bescause we've become a society of people who play in the shallow end of the pool. We fear the deep end, because in the deep end we are vulnerable, there is risk, there is danger that we could get hurt, so we find contentment in the shallow end where there is no risk, but no depth either.

When we decide to plum the depths of the deep end of life, of relationships, we find ourselves facing the possibility of hurt, of rejection, of disappointment, but the rewards are so much more satisfying. We experience depths to our relationships, in our giving, and receiving, that far outweigh our fears of failure. We will find disappointments, but just one true friend is worth a pool full of shallow-enders. The deep end is life, the shallow end is existence. But to live life we must be willing to be vulnerable, we must be willing to invest in others so that they in turn will learn to invest in us. Someone has to be willing to jump in first, to test the waters, so others might follow. I pray that I am brave enough to be willing to do that first cannonball, and who knows, one day we might just bump into each other somewhere in the deep end...