Pakistan I

The world never ceases to amaze me. One can never have eyes big enough nor ears large enough. How can we really come to understand it all. I do not intend to sound like those of us who need to be in the hustle and bustle at all times, with the fear of missing out irking them so. No. I mean, instead, that life is like the lotus- unfolding, slowly offering unto us the ability to become something more beautiful, more whole, more pure.

I am now sitting in Lahore, Pakistan- a place that only a few years ago, never thought I’d ever see. Before leaving, I remember the eyes widen at the words that fell from my lips: I’m spending Christmas holidays in Pakistan. Eyes ogled. I could see brains twist up like the spin of a cat stretching. W H Y ? 

Why not?

Family members were nervous that headlines would dictate my experience. I’ve realized just how much people live in fear of others, content to idle through life, head down and content if no one bumps shoulders with their gray-scale world on sidewalks.

My visit has given color to wireframe stories that headlines of newspapers and my friend told me. It is difficult to understand a world that is not our own. It is even more difficult to understand if we do not try. It is not only with seeing it ourselves, for I would hate to say that we must all me Doubting Thomases, but rather, being open to what we do not understand.

At One Third Interval

And to think I have only been on this amazing planet 21 years seven months and some number of days. To know life is to know beauty. To know grace. There are some things that words cannot understand though the heart does. Our souls work in mysterious ways, knowing more than they will ever let on. And our heart holds all this pain and wonder and curiosity and courage and love. We hold it inside ourselves. It is pent up, only waiting to be let forth.

I sometimes forget what wonder the world holds wrapped behind mountain walls and tree ribbons. A present to the peoples. I have seen this secret that the world holds in tight embrace between kisses and smiles. Under smiling eyes. In between the toes of others’ feet. Treading upon the earth.

Words cannot fathom what we can know. Or what we can do.

We have too much to give, we have too much space to hold.

What I know is that life is precious and can all too easily slip away. There are moments and feelings and creations by our own hands which remind us that this is so. They help us to remember what is important. They draw us back close to the beginning, our calm, our center like the singing of a grandfather clock. They wake with us in the night to stand under light of stars. They dream with us in purple tired eyes. They give us purpose, meaning.

All that I know is that I should not wish to squander life. I wish to wring ever drop out of this one. And maybe I will find another place in which I will find this feeling again. To be reminded of love and one’s love for life is special, and sometimes needed.

It’s been awhile that I have written. I think I was just waiting to understand my thoughts. I was holding my breath until I could catch it. Until I could catch up.

Inspired by Olivier Messian’s Louange a l’Eternite de Jesus and the past semester.