Unwritten, Yet Known

Part of my Lent this year is writing more about my contemplation. Trying to work it out with words and not just thoughts. Maybe my thoughts will have a fighting chance of making it to deeds if they are processed. So…there will be some more meanderings into the inner workings of my brain this month.

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that said, “I came here with nothing and I have most of it left.” It’s funny. It’s clever. It made me laugh. It reminded me of a song a dear friend of mine wrote. It is my favorite of his songs. It is simple, beautiful, and profound. Always making me a little uncomfortable, but inspired. These are the lyrics:

I have nothing.
And this is beautiful to me.
Came here naked, screaming, and penniless
We cannot take the money with
When we go.
So baby, let go.

I am no one.
And this is beautiful to me.
Came here nameless, no one of consequence
With only so much innocence
And then it’s gone.
So baby, hold on.

My friend is an exceptional songwriter. He has a rapier wit, an astounding capacity for empathy, and an extraordinary mind. The first time I met him, I thought he was a bit odd. The second time I met him, I was convinced he was odd. I think he became friends with me because I listened to him. He has a unique way of communicating. And by unique, I mean that the meter of his conversation is usually adagio. He doesn’t really work in allegro. Most people get lost in the pauses and miss the melody. But one time, in one place, I remembered what he said and it made me think and I talked about it with many people for the next week. After I told him he made me think, our friendship began. I think his speech is interrupted with pauses because he is deliberate with his words. And don’t think I am not completely envious of that quality. He takes the time to let his poetry work itself out before revealing it. Or he is just odd. No one knows for sure. The perils of being an introvert in an expressionist’ body. But his process comes with pacing and many, many head bobs. This paragraph is not necessarily germane to the rest of the blog post. More of a “Hey, I said nice and funny things about you. So I hope you don’t mind that I published your lyrics on the interwebs without paying into ASCAP” kind of thing. He might and this entry will promptly be deleted.

The thing I love about this song is it’s juxtaposing of two conflicting ideas. Two choices that if held in tension with one another and exercised simultaneously either make you a contortionist, an over thinker, or potentially indecisive. Since I am usually two out of the three anyway and probably capable of the third, this song makes a whole lot of sense to me. I love contradictory ideas in theory. In practice, I find that my usually complex mind becomes very simple and demanding of simplicity.

I have been trying to wrap my head around a particularly contradictory concept for years. Often, it idles as my default song. The song I don’t notice is on repeat in the background. It has from time to time cloaked itself in counterpoint to whatever song is playing. But it is eventually unmasked and I return to the quest of trying to sort it out.

The concept is this: My future is unwritten, yet known. I have a great deal of difficulty reconciling that things are known yet unwritten. If my future is unwritten, then I have quite a few options. But if my choices are known, then there is an ideal or most beneficial one to choose. If it is known, why isn’t it ordained? And if it is not ordained, how is it known? And if it is known and I don’t choose it was it actually the ideal? This whole theological chicken and the egg thing makes me go cross-eyed most of the time.

I can’t believe that my future is unwritten and unknown. That would be to believe there is not a loving and gracious creator that is involved in my life. And I have seen too much and know too much to play that game.

I equally can’t believe that it is written and known. That would be to believe that this loving creator made me to be an automaton. I believe that I have the will, the choice, and the power to choose my own life in a manner that is unencumbered by some sort of predestination. I am not a passenger on the train of my life. I am the train. I am the track. I am the engineer. Toot! Toot!

I am working in concert with my creator. I am neither rogue nor slave.

By the same token, others around me are empowered with the same. And their choices influence and impact my course, my decisions, my life. And this confounds me and frustrates the bejankins out of me. Because I want to believe there is some sort of simplicity of doing the right thing and choosing the right course and things just work out. I want to live in a universe where I ask in faith what to do, do it, and something lovely is created. More often than not I feel like I came here with nothing and have most of it left. Like everything I try to build is a house of cards that just collapses. And if it all collapses, I must not have been the house I was supposed to build. Faulty logic, but real emotion.

I have a really hard time wrapping my head around all this. I mean a REALLY hard time. I struggle with the choices I have made. I feel foolish for the ones that have led to nothing. I struggle with the choices others have made. I feel foolish for hoping they were going to make different ones. And most of all, I struggle with the crushing sense that I am inadequate to make the right choices, choose the right road, and come out the other side in tact. And I struggle with the fact that there is no “right” road at all. There is only choosing how you walk. And my obsession with finding the right road has dramatically affected my gait. The questions just lead to more questions. And the answers lead to more questions. I’m hoping that the questions just keep leading to an answer I can understand.

These two conflicting notions of unwritten yet known are bound to live in harmony with one another somewhere. I am trying to learn how to let go and hold on at the same time so maybe I will get there.