Awakenings

It’s over.  My life has come screeching to a stop once more.  Tires still spinning, eyes racing, activity over.  And it’s just me.  Just me and the sky.  Just me and my soul.  Heart still races from all the activity I’ve just come from.  Sweat still glistens as my life has been poured out over the last 8 months.  I look around frantically and see that I am in a field – a field with just myself.  The class of 2012 has graduated and left over the horizon, their journeys forever woven into ours.  The campus is eerily quiet, getting us all to question if the last school year actually did just happen.  And summer is rising upon us all – a reminder that time is charging on, being a friend or foe – it’s entirely up to us.  With this halt of scheduled activity, I am reminded once again that activity loves to mask itself as purpose…but it is not.  As I catch my breath I have a choice – to keep feeding my activity-driven world, or to allow myself to stop and look … and be.  To mourn, to remember, to sleep, to laugh.  To be still and know… and to remind myself once more of all the things that truly matter – things that cannot be bought or sold or faked.  Even though it still feels a bit foreign, I choose to stop and look…and breathe.  I invite you to do the same.  This rendition of Coldplay’s song really helped to give me that permission tonight.