you can't always get what you want
2003-10-17 : 4:13 p.m.

I wonder if this is what it�s like to grow up. I feel less certain about a lot of things, but more comfortable with ambiguity. Less responsible for other people�s feelings, but more concerned with the integrity of my own actions. More aware of the shortness of time, but less desperate to cram every moment with distraction. I know that some people will never like me. The hottest guys might not be interested. My opinions will make some people mad. Republicans will be elected to high office. Older cars need regular oil changes. You can�t always get what you want.

And it�s really okay.

Every once in a while I have these little spells of...what? Kindness? Openness...moments in which I smile, and mean it with all my heart. When I don�t care if they smile back. When I can show compassion without concern for what comes back to me. Real agape, not my more usual variants of eros.

These moments are nothing spectacular, but for someone who has been as mired in fear and selfishness and I have been, they seem momentous. Like Magellan realizing that he really might not fall off the edge of the world. It�s quite something to take off one�s long-familiar armor and realize that one won�t be struck dead. To crawl out of the basement shelter after years of hiding, only to find that the world didn�t end at all.

I wonder if this is what the Kingdom of God is like: a revolution at the level of experience, slowly and secretly breaking into the world. A kingdom of clarity. A nation of the non-anxious. I think Christ new about this kind of unworried, unresentful attention. I think the Buddha knew, too.

I believe that these moments are an answer to longstanding prayers. I have prayed to be able to love without fear. I have prayed to be an empty vessel for God�s will in my world. I have prayed to have love drive out fear and jealousy and hunger. I have prayed these prayers for a long, long time. Ever since I set the bottles and the baggies aside and set out to see if I could live by my own unclouded lights, I have prayed these things.

And now I pray: more...only more. Fill my life with this.

Consumption Junction:

21 cigarettes
1.9 pots of coffee
2 slices 7-grain toast
20 milligrams Lexapro (Escitalipram Oxilate)
1 Target brand multivitamin
1 Florentine Chicken plate (the special @ Candlelight Coffeehouse)
1 Side-salad with house dressing
3 Chocolate-dipped almond cookies

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