Through the Window

For most of my life, I have always had the sensation of being on the outside looking in. In every friend group, in every relationship (minus one), in every family situation, I've always felt like I was outside of it, excluded from it, denied it.

Now, this could lead to a pity party and an overly emotional, dramatic event, but that is the opposite way this should go. Because, the question is, why? Why would I feel like that? Is the friend groups I choose, or the relationships I build, or the situations I find myself? Is it my personality to always feel excluded, some martyr tendency that builds a divide between myself and the world? Is it just life situations: am I in a different place than every other person I know and therefore suffer loneliness for it?

I don't know. But I do know that the only relationship that isn't like this is the one with my wife. She's the only constant and my true best friend. Times may be tough, difficult, interesting, great, joyful, or sorrowful. But she's all I want at the end of the day.

Yet, I still desire the companionship I once had with others. I don't think it can all be chalked up to "growing up." That's not okay with me. There must be something else, something more, something deeper to this desire that goes unfulfilled. Otherwise, why would it pain me to see life like an outsider looking in?

Through the window is a world full of drama, frustration, irritation, and many other emotions. Yet, it's a world full of laughter, joy, tears, and pain. It's a world of community. Maybe that's what I want and just cannot seem to find. Community.

Other Worlds

I've always had an overactive imagination. Seriously, always. As a kid, when most people were out playing war or playing ball, I was imagining worlds and friends. I saw the woods around me as portals to other worlds. I would cease to be a boy and become a prince, a pirate, a wizard, a dragon-keeper... and anything else I could imagine myself as. My friends became those I could create around me. Every waking moment was spent building a world around me that I wanted to be in. Anyone but this one.


And I'm doing it again.

I've taken upon myself to write a novel set in a world I've been creating since I was a teenager. A world filled with magic, nature, adventure, and, hopefully, depth. It's a world where trees are governed by Masters, the rich have magical guardians, and a brother sets out to avenge his parents' deaths.

It's a world I want to be in, but it's all in my head. And I lose myself to it.

I work in a call center. And as I go on autopilot answering questions with formulated answers, my mind wanders down the paths that I created, forming new places, peoples, and whatever else I can come up with as the day moves on. And then, at night, I find myself constantly finding new things or deepening old things. It's all I can think about sometimes. But, I guess that's the way of it.

One loses oneself to one's art. So I lose myself in the story.

Art of the Sabbath

The Sabbath. The In-Between. The Day in which the world waits with baited-breath for something else, something different, something new. A Day of rest, comfort, solitude, meditation, and, often, worry. It is the Day that leaves us wanting so much more than we can ever have and realize how little we have.

This is where we live. We live in the Sabbath twixt the Comings.

I read an article today about how art moves us, as humans, to recognize the pain of what we lost on Friday to the joy of what is gained on Sunday. Yet, art only means something when it's on Saturday, the Sabbath. This article goes into detail about different forms of art, music, movies, books, etc. and how they can focus on the suffering darkness of Friday. These forms of art reveal the depth of human immorality, depravity, and the Fall. Other forms of art (used here to express the above-mentioned list) can focus on Sunday, often leaving a sense of faux-joy and a longing for the inexpressible. But it is on Saturday that art moves us past the suffering of Friday into the joy of Sunday. It is on this day that we move beyond this mortal life and slip past the veil into a realm unknown.

This is the purpose of art: to call out of us that longing for the other side of the veil of life. It, unlike what Oscar Wilde may believe, does not exist for its own sake. To believe this is paramount to saying a tree grows for its own sake. A tree grows because that's what trees do. They grow. And in doing so, they provide shade, oxygen, shelter, wood, and a billion other things for which they were designed. Art is the same: it exists to call out of the soul the very thing that causes us to long for the life we know is ours right beyond the veil of this existence.

Just in case you didn't catch it, I'm a little obsessed with this idea of the Veil. That's because I believe that all that separates us from the next life is a Veil. A Veil cloaks our vision so that we don't see the Realm of Spirit. A Veil keeps us interested in this life and its trappings. A Veil keeps us focused on ourselves. To move past the Veil is to recognize that there is another Place that is more Real than this one. It is to focus on Truth and Life, following the Way and living in Hope. To live beyond the Veil is to live Life like it was meant to be lived. To live beyond the Veil is to see past ourselves and see He Who Made Us.

Art moves us past the Veil. For a sweet, eternal moment, art moves us to a place that we can see that there is Something more Real and inexpressible than we could ever dream.

Art of the Sabbath moves us from Friday to Sunday. It is our companion on this long Day's journey. And it makes the walk so much more bearable than we could ever know.

Thanks be to God, for He is the Artist.
Amen.