Discontentable

Author’s note:  I haven’t had a chance to blog lately.  This summer has been wild and wooly.  Even now I sit by my front door with my backpack ready, waiting for my ride to take me to the mountains of New Hampshire.  By the end of this trip, I’ll have walked the state from side to side.  Only took a half dozen years to complete!

So this blog is from the deep archives.  The 3 year old boy mentioned in this is now a 12 year old boy, and two more have joined him.  The dog mentioned in it is resting in his grave.  I miss him.  We never made it to full time work in Africa, but ended up spending our life in our true calling.  The man mentioned in it still struggles with being discontentable, but not without growth.  He still is learning to enjoy the journey.  This last year has been a journey that had neither mountains nor seas.  But it did have family.  It did have a loving wife, and some beautiful children.  It had friends that have grown to be family, and family who have been true friends.  This year has been a time of love between a God and His child.  I can ask for no better. This year I struggled with my fear of the future, but this year, I’ve been content.

So in the next two weeks, I will stand on the top of majestic mountains, and I will dip my toes in frothy ocean waves.  I will spend late nights talking with friends, sitting with my wife, and playing with my children.  I will meet new friends that one day may become old friends.  I can ask for nothing more.

Maybe I will always be a little discontentable ( a word I coined, btw) and maybe that’s not a bad thing, as long as I never forget that that 3 year old boy will too soon become 12, and then 18 and then a man with his own family.  Let us never be so discontentable that we can never be content with what we have been given now.

Enjoy.  Gotta go.  My ride is here to take me to the mountains.

“You give me miles and miles of mountains, and I ask for the sea.”   -Damien Rice  “Volcano”

I complain a lot.  There I said it.  I do it and it’s almost as if I can’t stop myself.  I watch myself engage in this verbal vomit and I hate myself for it, but it’s like it comes out on it’s own.  It bypasses my brain, and my will and just does whatever it wants.  I don’t like or even fully understand what I’ve become.

“So why don’t you just stop?”, I ask myself.  “Why don’t you change?”

Easier said than done!

The problem is not in the action, but the motivation.  The problem is not that I like the sound of my own voice (I do), or that I’m awkward in the company of others and can’t find anything else to say (I can’t).  It’s not even that my base being is experimenting with the notion of the lowest common denominator (I don’t even know what that means).  No, the problem isn’t my action, it’s much, much deeper.  The problem is that this is who I am.  This is the sickness of my soul …

…I’m discontent.

I’m not sure if this is what I’ve become, or what I’ve always been.  Maybe it’s something that has hopped and skipped throughout the decades of my life in various forms, like a mischievous gremlin.  Here it is in the form of a distraction, a dream, a hope or an object always with one goal in mind, to remove my vision from the now; to distract me from the here.

I chase it, I seek it and follow hard focusing on the end as the means slip by day to day until I look back, and thirty-three years lie in my wake.  Sometimes it takes the form of evil desire, sometimes as noble pursuit.  Does the form matter?

I sometimes sit in the field of Morialta, a little out of time, and watch my life in dread.  I’ve been so distracted looking out for my life to be meaningful, that I’m missing what is right there.  Every morning, I wake up to a beautiful wife, walk a faithful friend and then rush to prepare a perfect little boy for school.  For a moment, here or there, I get a flash of insight, like a prickle at the back of my neck…

“He won’t be three forever”

Then the day progresses.

The last few years have been hard.  I’ve sought after purpose, I’ve sought after hope and I’ve tried to fulfill all the promises I felt I was owed.  Now I’m thirty-three and feel farther away from all of that then ever before.  I’m not in Africa.  I’m not even close.  Plus I have no earthy idea how to get closer.  I’m not doing great works, or simple works.  Worse, I’m discouraged.  Even the “until then” opportunities crumble under the slightest gust.  And, as symptom follows sickness, out of the heart, the mouth speaks.

I am rarely “still” these days, and when I am, my mind goes to it’s comfortable pity-party.  But every now and then I catch a breeze of something else, like a whisper from the past or a breath from another world…

“You have been blessed with much.  Just… look”

I want the sea.  I dream of the sea.  I dream of the adventure of living life to the fullest.  But here I am, stuck in these miles and miles of mountains.  Mountains as far as the eye can see.  Nothing but mountains.

“You ever notice how beautiful these mountains are?”

I have been running over the past few months.  I’m at the point of doing 5 k a few days a week.  Maybe for some of you, that’s a laughable distance, but for me, it’s a real accomplishment.  During the run, I’ve noticed a few things about myself.

I start of great.  I feel like I can run forever.  My head swims with pride and arrogances.  This all quickly fades after the first kilometer.

The second kilometer ushers in the first of the resistance.  I’m not winded, but my joints and muscles start to make their presence known and my breath must be controlled.  I begin to think, “What have I gotten myself into?”

For a while I can observe in my head as my body moves forward.  My mind can wander from time to time, and I can “wake up” further down the road.  However, there is a point, usually around the end of the third mile where a discouragement sets in.  “Your not going to make it.  You have sooooo far to go, and you ankles are getting weaker.  You can walk, you know.  No one would know.  Just stop and walk home.  Not a problem.”

I dig deep.  I find a will inside of me and press on.  Finally around the beginning of the final kilometer, when my ankles throb and my breath is under constant force, I think, “Hey, I’m going to make it.”  It’s not easy, but I know I will.

I press on, the goal fixed firmly in my mind, close to being winded, I turn the last corner, and there it is….

…The tree of life.

Well, in truth that’s my nickname for a big ol’ oak tree that covers the street like a mother hen’s wing.  A beautiful sight to me of hope and accomplishment…  It’s my goal.

So with my head thrown back, and my heart pumping in my ear, I let my feet carry me on the winds to the goal that lay before me.  Pushing forward until finally, they come to a stop under that precious tree.

I am sweaty, I am winded, I am beyond tire and I am….

I am content.

I am content because I’ve reached the goal.  Of course.  However, it’s more than that.  Yes, I think so.  It wasn’t just the end, but it was also the beginning back when I was fresh and arrogant.  It was the beautiful neighborhood where my mind went from my physical state to my deeper thoughts.  It was the time when hope faded and will pushed on, the breeze on my face as hope returned and I first started to really believe.  Then, I saw the end and I pushed towards it.  I realize something…. I really was always content.  I was content why?

Well, I was content simply just to be there.