Winters come, and my love, the winters go
And time stacks up in piles like winter snow
And everything you love and hold so dear
Won't really matter when we disappear

Oh, one day you will go away from this
Oh, one day you will know we're men of snow, we melt one day

Ingrid Michaelson, "Men of Snow"

The rooftops of London were cold and gray the morning of January 30, 1969. As it is no surprise that the rooftops in London might be cold and gray, I only mention this as it applies to four men standing in a stairwell. While their career had been founded on the message of peace and love, there had been little between them for several years. Like prisoners in a cue to walk the plank, they hesitated at the door. They almost walked away. Suddenly, John opened the door and disappeared - a silhouette into the blinding white. With a glance, the other three followed. This would be the last live performance of the Beatles.

It has been said by fans and critics that this unannounced show atop the frigid Apple Corps building was among the finest of their career - that it best exemplified their dichotomy as a group. There is something very tight, yet very loose, to this performance. Confident and uncertain. Polished and raw. Gregarious and reserved. It was their differences that revealed and, at times, amplified their character. These differences drove, pushed and challenged them as each album raised the bar of innovation and collaborative genius. Sadly, these differences also became their end. You cannot blame one person for the transpiring events of 1969. The Beatles ended the Beatles - and that was that.

I will also say that I find it quite fitting that the chaotic, indistinguishable (and brilliantly beautiful) fuzz during the final moments of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" - recorded later that summer - also makes up the final moments of the very last studio recording that featured all four band members in the same room.

Men will die. They will absolutely die. Their creations will wither with the falling leaves. Their greatest endeavors will erode before them as their pedestals collapse beneath their feet. Their shouts will end in silence. Towers and sphinxes crumble. Mona Lisa's fade. Memories will betray and return to dust. The narratives of the defeated will twist with the historic account of the victorious. And then we'll do it all again.

We can happily distract ourselves with reality shows and Twitter feeds, but one ordinary day will come along and a clogged artery or a patch of wet pavement will suddenly remind us that all we've accumulated, assembled and polished during our brief moment on earth will be reduced to a box of dust six feet under - or an anthology.

Yeah, it's overwhelming, but what else can we do
Get jobs in offices, and wake up for the morning commute

We'll choke on our vomit and that will be the end
We were fated to pretend

MGMT, "Time to Pretend"

So then - what's the point? Why create, fight, grow, toil, love, or pray? Why should we work all day just to afford to do it all again tomorrow? Is the act of creating really nothing more than twiddling our thumbs? Are we racing in place upon a line of treadmills? Were we truly born in a hospice?

For the sake of a visual, allow me to allude to a familiar scene from a beloved - however exhausted - film. We are presented with two pills: one is blue, one is red.

One is called despair. The other is hope.

Who knew that freedom wasn't the falling of shackles, but the choice that followed? The choice to cling to sinking weights or to let them go. The choice to serve our desires or those of others. The choice to place the burden of our sins upon the chest of the one least deserving so that we may know the peace we were created to enjoy. The choice to choose hope.

The point of prayer isn't to change the mind of God. God doesn't change. We change. Our hearts break. Our eyes open. Could it be that our work, our creations - our lives - could share the same purpose? As if all those years spent plowing the fields weren't merely designed to soften the earth, but also our hearts. Or that those nights spent before the canvas were designed to quiet our mind and slow our hands. Or that those hours in traffic were designed for the nurturing of our patience. Or that those moments spent amidst a thick fog were designed to show us the details of a bead of dew rather than a panoramic mountain range.

This will all fade. And no, friends, your creations won't last either. They, like your body, will be enjoyed for a few short years before inevitably eroding away with the rest of the earth.

So make them damn good.

You heard me. Make them so beautiful that the eyes of those around you shine with wonder. May your stories be so raw and captivating that audiences will weep. May your songs resonate from your chest so violently that crowds cannot deny your life was worth the blood in your veins. May your one-thousandth menial report be as thorough and thankless as the first. May your daily interactions be more than idle pleasantries and nods. May your words be few and good. May your actions be bold, out of love. And may your humility point to God.

And there it is. The point is for it all to reveal something bigger than you. To something that the dust could never take to the grave. The point is to point to God - not merely in message, but in earth-shattering brilliance.

Born with eternity written on our hearts, we were meant to outlive this fragile state. This shell of a body, so frail and easily pleased. We were born a glimpse of His image, of His character. While what we create and what we do will never last, the hearts that we touch do. Eternity isn't something we wait for. Eternity is now. The relationships that form and the stories that develop, like prayers, change hearts. Friends, store your treasures in the hearts of others. Don't waist your time and energy trying to preserve your best efforts. Let the parts that mattered be written upon our chests.

And let the rest return to dust.

I will leave you with a plea from Steven Pressfield's "The War of Art":

If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don't do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet. You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God. Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It's a gift to the world and every being in it. Don't cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you've got.

Give us what you've got.

Walked in the corner of the room
A junk yard fool with eyes of gloom
I asked him time again
Take me in and dry the rain
Take me in and dry the rain
Take me in and dry the rain
Take me in and dry the rain
The rain the rain the rain now

If there's something inside that you wanna say
Say it out loud it'll be okay
I will be your light
I will be your light
I will be your light
I will be your light
- The Beta Band, "Dry the Rain"

I like the idea and the practice of covers. You know, in terms of music. I like the same words and melodies with another voice - a reminder the song doesn't belong to anyone. Once it is written and escapes its author's tongue, it's shared. These are songs of brokenness. Of bitterness, joy and love. The truest stories are told not by the winner, but the loser - the outcast and downtrodden. The lowly. As J.W. Baz so confidently concludes, "we don't always have the best endings, but we do have the best stories." I guess I just like the idea of Hendrix listening to Dylan. Or Denver listening to McCartney. Or Buckley listening to Cohen. You see, for me, the importance lies not in the recording, but the proof that they spent hours in the evening and early morning absorbing the angst of another, because it resonated within a space deeper than their chest.

We're all struggling. We're all lost. We're all beating the sand with our fists and thrashing at the waves - a sandstorm set loose across the shore. We're all finding peace and chasing joy. Music may be the most personal of all human creations, but somehow it finds its way to be the most communal. And then the bitter meets the sweet amongst depths of sweeping harmony.

There's something to that - the shared love. The joined perspective of viewing a mountain from both sides simultaneously. I have gradually been realizing the depth of my love for storytelling. Film, music, photography, literature, fine art, poetry, stand-up comedy, dance - perspectives on perspective. Signs of life, exposed by time. A song without the passage of time is less than silence - it is the void in which a note once existed. A painting without time is not even an empty canvas. A soul without time precedes the dirt and dust left behind. The promise these absences point to are what we so frivolously refer to as "life."

You see, it's not so much about the destination as it is the journey.

 

As children, we chose "change over time" upon multiple choice tests and assumed it to be merely an equation...only to find it to be a skeleton supporting the expressive, lively flesh surrounding it. A formula beneath its organic form. An ever expansive universe of innumerable atoms. A masterful metaphor. The grandest of perspectives. How miraculous that we not only walk and gaze amongst such a wonderful spectacle, but that we cherish, sing, write, paint observe, work, play, laugh, cry, shout, scream, shiver, bask, eat, run, jump, swim, fall, fly, fuck, sleep, drink, talk, gaze, sit, sacrifice and love amongst it. How beautiful you are. How beautiful we are. May our eyes finally widen to see each other this way. To see life in the heartbreaking condition it thrives. Growing, changing, breathing with its seasons - filled with countless moments witnessed, recorded, forgotten and missed.

If only God would open my eyes to His gaze - if only for a moment - my calloused, hardened heart would finally beat for the first time as it explodes within my cavernous chest in an overdose of the very breath of God - not so that I may feel, but so that my heart, like a shot in the dark, may echo across these broken lands to find you, so that you might hear His love for you and how it has changed my life.

I wonder if the bright white light the dying claim to see in their escaping breaths is not unlike the numbing, tingling sensation of stepping in from the cold - a few moments pass and then, at last...you're home. And you realize what that is and has always been.

The moment I find myself finally at peace, I immediately begin analyzing it, ruining the very moment I'd been chasing. Not unlike the photographer who just can't lower the lens, even for a moment, to take in the life around them, I fail to experience that which I pursue. The moment is captured, but the memory is lost. Perhaps I fear what I chase, knowing it could never fully satisfy my craving. So I forever hide behind my lens and focus on composition rather than subject.



It's called a "changeover." The movie goes on and nobody in the audience has any idea.

One year later...

Not since my last post (although you might convince me otherwise), but since the leap of faith. Last March I hopped a plane to Seattle without plan nor purpose. For those of you just tuning in, I have since chosen to live amongst these eclectic hills, for the time being, absorbing culture and nature to the best of my ability. More importantly, I'm learning to yearn for life rather than existence. The beautiful abandonment of letting go. The liberating release. Of all that I thought I wanted. Of who I thought I was. Of what is expected and planned. I'm not saying I've arrived, but that my eyes are continuing to widen as my heart continues to grow.

As I've often written, it's the changing of seasons that makes life so bitter and, at the same time, so very sweet. I love the seasons written into the earth's emotions and how they reflect the deeper currents of Truth. It is important, however, that we realize creation is not the Truth, but merely reflects it and guides our eyes in His direction. You see, life is far sweeter than what the seasons have to offer. A year is only mildly bitter and moderately sweet as the annual cycle promises another spring, summer, fall and winter. How much more would we cherish the falling spectacle of leaves if we knew it would never happen again - only to be witnessed, observed, experienced and cherished once? Or if the frosted landscape and shimmering, frozen trees would never again be formed by a trillion uniquely-ornamented, crystalized miracles? Or if the blossoming life of spring would never return after its withering death. Or if the warming, life-surging sun of summer would never again rise above the longing horizon?

How much more would we cherish these miracles if we realized them to always be once-in-a-lifetime? Such is the case of the seasons of life and the moments that pass amongst them. These instances are far more bitter, and therefore, sweeter, than the seasons' example. If only we could remember the length of a mile walked or the cold of a winter's day or the anticipation of a lover's touch. Then, maybe then, we could begin to glimpse the life God had intended for us. Embracing the bitter alongside the sweet. Watching an animal lose its life so that our family may be fed. How much more would our families appreciate God's providence if it was in the face of death? Might we then reconsider the frequency and ephemeral nature of our eating habits, and therefore, our daily lives? Life would be celebrated as it was cherished. And I think that may be the point.

Cause there's only four seasons and I'm looking for something more.
- Joe Purdy, "Four Seasons"