Choose your own adventure...

When I was a kid, I loved to read. The convent kind of got me out of the habit (strangely enough), but back then I read a lot. I went through certain "literary" phases before I decided to fall in love with classical literature. So I went from Berenstain Bears, to Boxcar Children, to those abbreviated classics, though I can't remember what the series was called. All of these, of course, I would read aloud to my grey miniature poodle, Pepper. One of my favorites (though, unfortunately, Pepper 's participation was a bit more limited because of the "language barrier") were the "choose your own adventure" books. Remember them? At a certain point the protagonist has to make a decision, and the reader gets to make it for him, so he turns to a certain page based on that choice and the story continues with more decisions until it reaches the end. I would read them, then go back and re-read them changing the decisions until I had read every possible story... or the second time around I would just read cover-to-cover to see what could have happened to my protagonist.

Many times we uses stories, books, as a metaphor for our own lives. But is seems that most of us differ in our opinions of how the story is actually written. As men and women of faith, we know that the Author of life is One, but what does he actually do with all that authoring? I personally, though I love writing, would get pretty bored or fed up if I had to invent billions of stories every day, and to fit each 80-or-so year long story into a millenniar time-line... that's a bit much. So we all know that our Author is infinite and almighty, and it's pretty easy for him, but cut me some slack because I'm just trying to make this a little more dramatic!

Still, it really is mind-boggling to think of how the life-stories are written, how life-stories - all of them, even the most tragic - are meant to be stories of joy and hope, how each one is meant to have a happy ending. Above all, the most staggering truth is that each and every story is meant to be a love story. So maybe they all aren't so sappy and romantic. I know mine isn't even though I myself am a pretty sappy romantic kind of person. 

I used to think that God having a plan for our lives meant that we had only two choices: the story He writes for me or the story I write for myself. I've come to realize that this is false. We do have two choices: the story that we write together, or the story that I write without Him. He didn't already write it, like an instruction manual and consign it to me at birth, or baptism, or confirmation or whatnot. This is the ultimate "choose your own adventure" story, because when we get to the point of, choose this and turn to page 25, choose that and turn to page 45, we can freely choose either one and the story continues it's marvelous and unique unfolding.

When we write the story together, sometimes he takes the pen, sometimes he gives it to us, somtimes he dictates how he wants it to proceed, sometimes he is silent and allows the creativity of his creature to flow. Most of the time, we have to talk about how we want the story to go. I tell him "Wouldn't it be cool if..." and he tells me "Yeah, that's pretty cool. But what about this...".

It's marvellous and unique. It's a real choose your own adventure. When we choose the adventure of love, the adventure of truth, the adventure of fidelity to ourselves and to our Creator, the adventure that is ultimately a living conversation with Him, then a kaleidoscopic explosion is bound to make this story the ultimate adventure.

BTW: Days spent reading to dogs may help avoid decline of reading skills.

New sandals

 

So, I know that one of my characteristics that others might find annoying or odd is that I like to read into ordinary circumstances and pull out some conclusions that give them a deeper meaning. Silly, right? Well that's how I am put together, so if you think it's wierd then go read someone else's blog.

I've had a 50 euro bill in my pocket for a couple of weeks. It had been a principium destined for a much needed pair of sandals. My old ones were killing my back and feet (and legs and ankles.... maybe it's just old-age starting to arrive!), but since my minutes of the day are usually counted and I had no idea which shop to go to I just carried the money around waiting for the shoe-store with the sandals I wanted right in the display case, to just appear from out of thin air. Today I decided that this isn't likely to happen, so I began my search. I started at Termini station where every one in two stores is a shoe store. Only junk. So a go down Via Nazionale, more shoestores, more expensive junk. Then, "Oooh, those are them! - no, too expensive", and again. So I gave up. I resigned myself to the fact that Rome does not have the right shoes for me at the right price, and I dreamed of the Carousel Center where I would certainly be able to find whatever shoe or sandal I wanted (which isn't even true, because a few years ago I went on a wild-goose chase even there while looking for sandals).

So I decided to just go eat lunch and for the moment just put up with my poorly-fitting, flat-soled, flipity-flopity footwear. In the mean time, I took the "back route" to return and there was a nice little shoe store, a little more modest than the others, but much more welcoming. They didn't have many styles, but they had just what I was looking for. So I tried them on and bought them, and hope to live happily ever after (at least for a year or two... if I'm lucky, even longer).

So after my sandal story, everyone already got bored and stopped reading this entry. If you are still with me, that's great because now I'm going to get at what I've been getting at.

Some points in our lives are just like my sandal search. First we wait for the right thing to just fall out of thin-air. That period can be more or less long, depending on the kind of person we are. Some people never get past it, but they will most likely die waiting. Others know that it is completely unproductive but, like me and my sandals, they just don't make time to do anything about the issue. So they go about being busy with many things, trying to forget that their shoes don't fit the way they are supposed to.

When and if it sets in that it is actually necessary to go shopping to find the right "shoes", normally we have no idea where to start. It might be easy, we ask someone who has the shoes we want where he or she found them, and we go get a pair for ourselves. Or we could take the easy road and just buy any old shoes - like them or not - and simply make do. When the "shoes" are life decisions, the first scenario is acceptable but not very exciting and not always guaranteed to work out. The second situation is just plain sad, tragic really. I would catagorize it as giving up on life, ceasing to fight and search, relinquishing the right to desire. I might dare to say that every loss of liberty comes precisely from this - from a "that's just how it is" attitude.

Then it happens that some just look, and look, and look. They are window shoppers, and aren't actually looking to buy anything. They want to keep their options open, don't want to buy anything because then they are stuck with it, and they may discover to not like it. Or another problem, like in my shoe-search, they honestly don't find the right style, fit and price.

This last possibility is most likely the most frightening, because it doesn't depend entirely on us. If I don't find the right sandals, my life will continue, but if I don't find the right path in life then much more is at stake than just my back. If I've searched and tried, gone at it and taken risks and I still find that my toes are pinched, maybe I'm going about it all wrong?

Lastly, just like in my sandal-search, comes the time to surrender and remember that I am a child of the Almighty. He has created me while at the same time creating the perfect pair of sandals for me. They might take a while to dig up, they may need breaking in, they will probably need fixing a few times in my life, they may even need to be changed at some point. The fact is, there are the right sandals out there and they just might turn up when it seems like all is lost.  

At this point, He is the only answer. He can be the only hope and the only promise of true life.

"You will show me the path of life, fulness of joy in your presence. At your right hand happiness forever"