April 30, 2012
Greetings from the crucible,
Early Sunday morning, I was running the roads in the first
dawn, my breath bookmarking the chilled air around me in white puffs. The sun showed up late, vaulting over the tree
line behind me, chasing me west down the country roads, creating shallow
shadows in the empty fields around me.
Farmers had already cut furrows in the dirt, and the land
looked like someone had laid a giant pair of wrinkled corduroys there. But there was no sign of anything growing, and
it seemed to me, as I ran past miles of the crop not yet to be, as though
nature was holding its breath.
Somewhere between the sun’s rays and the soil’s nutrients
and the inspiration of the rain, the seeds that lay beneath the dirt can
fulfill their destiny to become something else.
But for this morning it was, at a glance, just well-ordered dirt.
One word came to me, vibrated in me all day.
I ran for over two hours, the word caroming around in my
head. It led me to a whole list of
words, the fullness of what humans have in them. It made me think of people in my life, and
what they all have in common, the element that is given to us all in some
fashion at our creation.
I ran through the list last night and thought about these
gifts we are given that lead us to what we are capable of.
Curiosity. The
instigator of inventions, of discoveries, the niggling thought, the sense that
good enough cannot be left alone, that discoveries await. Cat killer, perhaps. But it is a bit of human drive that leads us
past the obvious.
The capacity to be amazed.
I realize with every year that passes this gift becomes rusty. As children, everything is amazing. Experience fades that. Technology makes being ‘astonished’ as
ordinary as sneezing. This past week I
sat with a friend who was seeing things for the first time that I had long
since labeled mundane. Just thinking now
of his excitement over the simplest things reminded me to rub my eyes once in a
while and look again.
Courage. The strength to say what we
mean, to be what the people we are born to be.
To sacrifice the short term convenience for the long term dream. The perseverance that is needed to push past
detours, the resolve to survive and learn from setbacks. The determination
to begin again. And again.
Creativity. Here
is where I often see the seed appear in full bloom. Through some thinking, some from this part of
the brain, some from that side, some from stimulus, some from memory, and the
outcome is unparalleled. Recently I read
this: “The hand is where the mind meets the world.” I see creativity, whatever its origin or
theme, extend from the hands, into the words, on the canvas, plucked on the
strings of the guitar, sewn in the fabric.
Reason. The
ability to think, to examine, to remember and compare, to learn and
discern. To make choices that align with
our deeper thinking, using judgement and not just instinct. To make best use of our intellect.
Passion. Difficult
to define, but you know it when you see it.
The energy that boils out of someone who is acting on what they strongly
believe. Fired by enthusiasm, the
passion forms the attitude, the spark that keeps courage from becoming
panic. It is passion that feeds compassion,
and the range of emotions from friendship to deep love.
I ran by wide swaths of furrowed dirt and thought of the
people in my life who succeed, those who struggle, those who have lived their
dream, those who have been thwarted by challenges big and small. I thought of their day today and all of the
days to come, filled with opportunity and difficulty, and what they might make
of any of it armed with the gifts we are all given, and I let that one word
roll around in my head until I could feel it wearing a groove in me.
The word was: ‘potential’.
When I think of people in my life, look at what they are
and what they are becoming, or could become, and I am inspired to look harder
at what lies inside me, waiting to burst out of the dirt.
Our lives, what we bring and what happens to us, chaos
and plans, and melted in with it the passion and creativity and courage and all
the rest, and from this alloy we shape the potential that each of us has
waiting to be forged.
“If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but
for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and
ardent, sees the possible ....”- Soren Kierkegaard
Hope this finds you living up to yours,
David
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