"It's Complicated"

Ahh, the difficult web of relationships.

Tonight I went to see the film "500 Days of Summer." The movie is relatable on many levels for so many young adults: not doing what you're really passionate about because you don't think you can get there, dreaming big dreams that it seems might never come to pass, feeling lonely and longing for love as a cure for that loneliness.

Young and naive, we wander our way into adulthood, without a true manual showing us which way points north. Sure, our parents have done this, and stumbled through along the way. But, the world today is a different place, and while human nature is much the same, there are new complications. We must decide for ourselves whether the dreams of our youth were mere figments of imagination, whether things like true love and fate really exist, or if it's all mere chance. Nobody can really tell us how to do it until we live it and (by living it) know it for ourselves.

Meandering into a kaleidescope of visual stimuli and a delicious selection of folksy indie rock, mixed with a few Brit rock classics here and there, I found myself entranced in the imagery, along with the plot. The film's main character is trained as an architect, and yet he finds himself making greeting cards for a living. He reads Alain de Botton for fun and dreams of redesigning cities, but can't quite seem to understand that his path could involve becoming an architect. As he wanders along the course of life trying to find himself, he falls into a relationship (of sorts) with an intriguing young woman. Her mind and her personality stimulate him, and she's not bad on the eyes either, and so his interest grows rather quickly. Before even knowing her middle name (perhaps), he knows she's the one; of course. Boy with aimless ambition, but full of idealism, suddenly hitches his humble wagon to her sparkling star.

Plot thickens. Meanwhile, female lead says she doesn't want a commitment and doesn't need a man. She builds walls and barriers to keep said male from getting as close as he might like. The conversation's good, they like similar things, he engages some of her deepest longings...but something's always missing. She can't quite put her finger on it, until one day... Before revealing the plot, i'll stop.

What this film reminds me of as a young woman full of dreams and hopes, few of them realized, is that all is not lost. A secretly hopeless romantic still at heart-although I like to hide it even from myself (partly to shield myself from inner hurt and turmoil, and also partly to prevent a resurfacing of wounds from the past)-, I long for the day when I can truly say "this makes sense." Right now, it doesn't make sense. Almost everything is complicated, and I feel like an oyster without a shell. I'm tired of complicated relationships, i'm tired of putting effort into projects and ideas with seemingly little outcome, and i'm tired of always feeling like my deepest hopes will never come to pass. There's nothing worse than false hope: placing your heart's desires in something that doesn't pan out. Sometimes it's a relationship. Other times, it's a career path that doesn't quite work out. Mostly, it's holding life's circumstances to expectations that are probably a bit unrealistic. However, every now and then those deepest passions get stirred and our inner selves, often quenched by the world of adults and responsibility, reemerge-choking, gasping, begging for air.

As 500 Days' narrator weaves his tale, he shows us that those things longed for are worthwhile, they're just often misplaced. We live in a universe of infinite grandeur, with finite minds and bodies trying to comprehend it all. Sometimes, it all feels just a little too complicated for our liking and we just want to give up. We might like fun and games for a while, but eventually we tire of the daily grind, or even passing pleasures. Longing, most deeply, for something permanent, something real, something lasting, we ache for meaning. Sometimes the comprehension feels like grasping and groping along a muddied floor; other times glimmers of sunshine pierce through the rafters. This film, albeit melancholy, provides one of those glimmers for the hopeless romantic in us all.

pre-Easter meditations on life and creation

my eye is my camera
i see beauty, a crispness that is unmistakable
i see things that are not always as they should be
and i am left wanting more

my computer is my paper
i write words that somehow portray what life encapsulates
sometimes they are words of disenchantment
sometimes words of hope, and there is hope, a great hope for this world i live in
a hope that is mine, and founded upon the gospel of jesus christ
which has set me free to love this world, often in spite of itself, always because it is god's creation

my book is the world
i hear hurt, fear, sadness
i perceive lost hearts that crave something more
what we settle for is often astonishing...
i know that there is something more
i read this world every day and i want to speak into it
i want to love it passionately
i want to move in it in a way that is enriching, renewing, inspiring
i crave what i alone cannot achieve
and i alone won't achieve it
but that is the gospel, in its essence
because of the message of the gospel i have learned that i wasn't meant to live in my own strength

my heart is alive
and i want to engage what stands before me
because i have been set free from the bonds of sin
i live as one who is no longer dying
but awaiting the fulfillment of a story instated at the beginning of creation
i look ahead to my resurrection, as i look back at him who was resurrected on the third day
he died on the cross for my sins, and rose from the dead pointing towards a new life
he sits now, already, at the right hand of god, interceding on my behalf
i have a great savior, i have a great god
i live because of this
eternally
i will live forever because of this
i press on because of this
i have hope because of this
and life makes sense because of this
the truth has set me free

"So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed" -John 8:36