Kites, strings and tails - Life in harmony

As I type this I’m listening to the melodic sounds of my sons at play. They are singing, laughing and being children. There is a wonderful beauty in their freedom that brings a smile to my face; an innocence and freshness in their banter and frolic.

I feel that inside. Most of the time I’m wanting to run around like a fool, but on the outside, I am getting old. My bones creek and my joints hurt and my hair is getting gray, yet I don't feel old inside. Worse yet, my mind is feeling old. It beckons me toward maturity and responsibility. It tells me I should be acting my age.

I say my mind, because that is where I process what I think. I don’t think it is my mind as much as the expectations I perceive. My heart still wants to run free. And I think God wants me to also.

Some people are just born old. From the moment they start talking, they are just old. I don’t mean that in a bad sense. I am just saying that their propensity for stability and foundation and rootedness is ingrained early on. We need people like. But that’s not me.

I am bouncy, energetic and have a hard time sitting still. I have always been that way. School was literally painful for me. Sitting that long in class hurt. I barely graduated from seminary. I was not made for the classroom. Even church is hard for me. I would rather be pacing the platform preaching rather than sitting in the seat staring at the stage. At church I rarely sit.

Is it possible that God made some people more energetic for a purpose? Some people are contemplative and enjoy deep meditation. Some people are methodical and deliberate in their movement. Others are poetic and fluent as they glide. Me, I’m more like a jack rabbit or Jack Russell terrier. Don’t pin me down. I gotta keep movin’.

If I am a kite, the other group of people are the string. The kite could not fly without a string to give it tension. And the string would never soar without the kite. The poetics would be the tail that keeps balance and adds a sweeping beauty.

I think we need all of them. If we were all like me, there would be no stability in the world and we would keep flopping in the wind. Change would be a four letter word because it would happen all of the time. If everyone was contemplative, nothing would change and life would be always on the ground. If we were all poetics everything would be pretty and nothing would be useful or practical.

The balance comes when we value each others bents. My wife likes her circle of friends and her favorite restaurants. I like new people and discovering new places to eat. Without someone challenging her to try new things she would not have meet the friends she has or found the restaurants she now enjoys. Without her influence, I would not have deep friendships and an appreciation for regular local establishments.

Now I don’t mean to over generalize. I do like some things to never change. I love my wife. We have been married for 20 years. I told her that she is not allowed to die. Ever. I like what we have. I don’t ever want to reenter the dating scene again or have to get to know someone new. We have enough change in our relationship to keep me happy. She still surprises me almost everyday with something new about who she is. She is all I need. And she likes to be challenged. She is not an old soul, she just likes familiarity.

I have an incredible group of people around me that are about as diverse as the colors of the rainbow. They are energetics, methodics, poetics and more. I am engaged with the challenge of creating a place where they all can thrive; even more where they can thrive together. I echo the words of Martin Luther King Jr. “I have a dream” where white, black, energetic and poetic, liberal and conservative will be able to sit down together, work side by side together and fight back to back together for the common good of all.

Some might call it a pipe dream. Others may say that I have been smoking a pipe to even dream it. Still others would say I’m dreamin’ to think it could even happen. But then again naysayers will never change the world and, call me a cock eyed optimist, I think the world could us some change and I think it can happen. I would rather go out fighting for it, rather than wishing it would, and never doing anything about it.