I'm livin' in the wasteland...

"Wasteland"

by NeedToBreathe

 

I am the first one in line to die
When the cavalry comes
Yeah it feels like the great divide
has already come
Yeah im wastin' my way through days
losing youth along the way

 

Oh if God, is on my side
Oh if God, is on my side
Oh if God, is on my side
Who could be against me?

 

There was a greatness I felt for a while
But somehow it changed
Some kind of blindness I used to protect me
From all of my stains
Yeah I wish this was vertigo
It just feels like I'm fallin' slow

 Oh if God, is on my side
Then who can be against me?

 

Yeah in this wasteland
Where I'm livin'
There is a crack in the door filled with light
And it's all that
I need to get by

Yeah in this wasteland
Where I'm livin'
There is a crack in the door filled with light
And it's all that
I need to shine

 

All of these people I meet
It seems like they're fine
Yeah in some ways I hope that they're not
And their hearts are like mine
Yeah its wrong when it seems like work
To belong, All I feel is hurt

 

Oh if God, is on my side
Yeah if God, is on my side
Oh if God, is on my side
Who could be against me?

 

 

I. LOVE. THIS. SONG.

 

I cannot begin to say how much I connect with the lyrics. I've always loved NEEDTOBREATHE. But when I turned this on last week I instantly felt at home. I know reading the lyrics one might feel depressed...hopeless in a fog...but for me, it's actually quite the opposite.

 

You see...I'm living in the wasteland.

 

It's a weird, dry, dusty place this wasteland. It's fraught with frailty, pain, blisters, vulnerability, weakness, and really bad character. But on the other side it's wrapped in joy, fulfillment, authenticity, realization, and love. It's strange, exhausting, and liberating.

 

Walking through the wasteland is stripping me of my pedestal, my "I'm not one of you", my strength, my judgements, my borders, my filter...and swapping those with what I thought I was not capable of... (good and bad) for what I am indeed capable of...

 

I've find this period of my life to be the most physically challenging of all seasons within my life.

 

I'm toast. Which means I'm filter less. Raw. Unable to hold back the darkness within my own heart or the light that shows through the cracks. It's unnerving. Because when you're stripped bare, you can't fake. You can't wrap your cardigan tighter and make others believe you're still warm and cozy...because you are so obviously standing there shivering...appalled at your own nakedness but there's not a stitch of clothing in sight...so you remain...for all to see...including yourself...and it's unnerving...

 

I've come to the realization in the last 4 months that I am capable. Capable of many things. Good. Bad. In between. But the most revealing...I'm capable of being JUST LIKE everyone else. Those I've judged. Those I've admired. Those I've scorned in years gone by. Those I've wanted to emulate. Those I thought I was above...It's by far the most confusing place I've walked. And yet...it is confirmation of the soul.

 

The wrong choices. The right choices. The skint knees. The beautiful sprint. The love. The brutality. The failure. The endurance. They all confirm what I truly never really grasped about myself: I AM HUMAN. I AM FLESH AND BONE. And flesh and bone is a messy, scary, glorious, no road map thing to be.

 

For as long as I can remember I've rallied under the belief that I am STRONG. Impenetrable. And to be transparent...a level above the norm. How infinitely funny that seems now and ridiculously Pharisee - ical. I never believed I was capable of scraping bottom and top at the same time. Living in glorious bliss while making daily mundane choices that I looked at others and thought to be "less than." Boy was I ever so wrong. I'm human. SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS!!! IIIIIIII AAAAMMMMMM HUMMMMANNNNN!!!!!

 

When you are living raw and devoid of rest...you enter a place where you cannot hide. You cry more. You cuss more. You appreciate the kindness of those who love you more. You appreciate others in the bull pen with you that are making the same mistakes and victories because it teaches you what you never really knew...YOU. ARE. CAPABLE.

 

Capable of love and lust. Capable of generosity and stinginess. Capable of holiness and paganism. Capable of joy and angst. Capable of feast and famine. Capable of sainthood and sin. It is a dichotomy at it's best; Capability.

 

You find yourself living on scraps of God and realizing that for now it's enough. You swim out too far then you swim back to the shore. You become glutinous on pleasures swelling with idolatry then you begin running the long marathon of the spiritual soul again...gasping for air because you are SO FREAKIN' TIRED...yet something within you screams one more mile...one more stride...

 

Interestingly enough, this place is not a bad one..It's a revelatory one. When I can no longer tell myself that I am not any different from those I've judged, avoided, turned away from, or clung too...I am free to love. Free to accept. Free to realize that we are ALL IN THIS TOGETHER. One screwed up, floundering school of humanity, that day in, day out will need a Savior.

 

We're swimming some days in shallow pools, others in deep oceans. Treading water sometimes, back stroking the next. We fall below the surface and see God's glorious beauty some days, then others sink to the bottom of murky waters where we cannot see our hand in front of our face. This. This is life.

 

This is what Glennon Doyle refers to as the "Brutiful" life. Life is a big ol' beautiful, brutal mess. And the quicker we realize there are no "classes" of humanity...that we are all capable of the exact same sins and sophistications...we become one. It's the only way.

 

Every day I get up I am happy. And downright sick of living this way. I am in love with my life. And I hate many moments of it. Dichotomy. We will ALWAYS live in the in between and anyone that tells you differently is a complete, bold, face liar.

 

But I'm finding it is the living in between that takes away our toys and trophies and hands us our trajectories...our God spoken trajectories...again...it is the only way...

 

If we are to be authentic and dependent...We have to live capable. Plain and simple.

 

Capable of mayhem and majesty. Capable of greatness and guile. Capable of beauty and brutality.

 

Capable.

 

Grace n Peace,

 

A ~