Threshold

There is a saying that when a door closes another one opens, and I believe this is true. But I've also pinpointed a sad truth about this as well; there might be some lag time before the second door opens, or your eyes might be so fixed on what you've lost, as is very understandable, and you can't see that something new has opened up.

It feels so unfair that the threshold between watching something evaporate, a possibility or a love die, an opportunity lost or never received, and realizing that something new and different has presented itself should be so hard. It's the threshold that gets us--that space between the old and new, the lost and the found that's the hardest transition.

I've found that talking and writing about my emotions helps. The sad part is the relief that comes with talking doesn't always last, but eventually, as time takes away from us, it also grants us peace.

I love communication. I love the way it can heal hearts, inspire, start revolutions, end conflicts, and most importantly explain one person to another; as sentient and individual beings, we are not intrinsically in tune with one another. But somehow, when we were in the caves, learning about fire and tool-making, we started using our vocal cords to make ever more complex sounds because we were destined for more complex things. We figured out that besides sex, we could communicate emotions and ideas. Vocal sounds stretched into phonetic alphabets which lead to words which lead to Plato and Gautama's teachings and Shakespeare and Lincoln and Susan B. Anthony and Ida B Wells and Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Lisa Carey and so many more.

I worship words. The book of John starts "In the beginning there was the word...."

I write all of this because I promise to dedicate myself to words no matter what happens in my life. Perhaps this is why I've never believed in fighting as a way to end conflict, no matter how hot a cat fight might seem to some.

But no matter how important words are it is at the threshold that they serve to merely sustain us. I feel as though we might need something more, like the hand of God to lead us through such rough waters. In the end we only have ourselves and our faith and the community of people we've built. And words unite all of these things.