It would have been better with you here.

"I know about art and love if only because I long for it with every fiber of my being."

Tonight had one of those sunsets that you just want to disappear into. To melt in. All burning orange and pink—the kind you cant help but stare at even though you are fairly certain that you are burning your retinas out and at the very least will need a different contact prescription afterwards. It was worth it though. I thought about taking a picture, but it wouldn’t have done justice. And a painting would seem cheap.

Every night, there is this amazing work of art, this indescribable Technicolor masterpiece above our heads, and how often do we take the time to look up? I know I don’t often enough. I heard it said (in a Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen movie…) that it is better to see one painting and really see it, than to go by a thousand in a blur. This is what my life has become. A blur. The details are gone, the images distorted and warped, I have made myself think that I am too busy to stop. But I am busy with the most pointless of things. I am busy with checking my email and drinking juicebags and watching reruns of The Office. You know, really important things.

I think I am going to try to stop every now and then and just look around some more. I used to read outside a lot, and go for walks around Clayton to feed the ugly ducks Jenny and I named that look like some badly beaten burn patients but acted like dogs—wagging their tail feathers when they saw you and eating from your hand. Ethel was such a ho, leaving Frank like she did. Soon I wont have long to be outside here, it will be winter, and that disheartening fact has gotten me thinking about it I suppose.

I went over to Yellow Springs yesterday and bought myself a juice and an orange and sat in the middle of Kings Yard and just was. I watched the hippies and the would-be hippies, and the old women and kids carrying skateboards walk by. Some of them said hello. That’s my favorite thing about that town. There is always someone willing to talk to you. It was good. It was sort of a recharge. I’ve been feeling kind of down lately.

I finished Blue Like Jazz today, and in it Donald Miller is talking about communities, and people. He tells the story of how he lived in the woods with a bunch of hippie liberals and loved it. He felt more loved and accepted there than anywhere else—than in his church. It was because they just loved him as he was, as a person, regardless of what he believed or thought or did. But more often than not the Church only loves people who agree with them. It’s (our) love is more often conditional than unconditional. It (we) only loves people if they don’t doubt, if they don’t question, if they behave properly and adhere to a set of unwritten standards that it (we) holds them to. Love is like money; it is given to those we deem worthy, but withheld from those who we don’t.

I do that. When I read about that it hit me. It is one of those things that we all live with and subconsciously know exits but never really realize—never think about. Or maybe that was just me. I don’t like that I do that. I don’t like that I also know what he’s talking about when he says he enjoys being around the people that the Church has typically condemned or had some underlying hostility towards better than being around “church people”. Its sad, its unfortunate, we are not doing our job as Christians, we are not living love.

How do we change that?

How do I change that in myself?

I think I am going to start by liking me. I have thought about this before, I even did a little devotion on it I believe, but it was reaffirmed while reading that book. I am going to start with not hating myself. The Bible says to love your neighbor like yourself, but I don’t really love myself, and I hardly like myself most of the time, so how can I love anyone else, I mean, really? I cant. So that’s where I begin. Kind of cheesy sounding I know, but I think it just might work.

Just some thoughts that have been in my head today.