Footsteps on the ceiling

There are moments that cling to the edge of consciousness. Moments that brush against your mind like the tender wisps of a feather, teasing you to grab ahold of them, and laughing softly when you miss. Sometimes when I sit at my computer and try to write I get lost in moments like that. Moments when I don't even feel like I am grounded in my own body. Instead I hover just outside of myself and I pulse with each breath I take.
When that happens I usually realize that I have become so calm that I can look at myself as though I am someone else. What I see, well, what do any of us see when we look at ourselves that way? Like looking in a mirror, I see things that I am proud of and things that I am very much ashamed of. But I think the point is that I see them. Our generation is often described as being selfish, or self-centered, and I am not denying that, or even saying that it is a good thing. But I think that when people become self-centered they forget to be self-aware, and being self-aware is a good thing. Seeing yourself like someone else would see you is being self-aware. Taking a deep breath and really evaluating the parts of your character that you are proud of alongside the choices and character flows you wish you could hide in the deepest darkest depths of an ocean, that is a good thing, because out of that can come the change. Change into becoming the person you really want to be, and staying there; but not only staying there, but growing there.
One of my favorite authors you all will soon see, is J.R.R. Tolkien. His character of Treebeard in the Lord of the Rings is a character that is kind of half human, half tree. I like this character for a lot of reasons, one of which is that I think humans grow a lot like trees. We grow slowly, and we are shaped by what we grow towards. Trees always grow towards the light, and sometimes that can result in beautiful trees that shoot straight up, tapering into tall graceful elms and pines. Other time the trees have to fight and slowly twist around and around in order to get at the sunlight. This forms them into crazy, convoluted shapes. The thing is, they grew so slowly that if trees had a conscience, they probably wouldn't have noticed that they were growing into such a crazy shape, they were just following the light.
A Christians, we have the responsibility to look at ourselves and notice the kind of shapes we are growing into. Have to look at the kind of light we are aiming towards, and what it is turning us into. The good thing about slow change is that it can be guided.
Da pacem domine in diebus nostris. Qui a non est allius, qui pugnet pronobis. Nisi tu Deus noster.