#24

i hang my coat up in the first bar
there is no peace that i`ve found so far
the laughter penetrates my silence
as drunken men find flaws in science



this past sunday, i attended what was probably the best church service i've been to so far.
the testimonials of seven individuals were presented to me, and by the time the hour was up i could barely breathe.
a room full of people came together that day, and we were all united in prayer for these seven people.
how can cancer possibly be a gift?
how can drugs and debt teach you to be a better person?
how can a person plagued with jaundice begin to overcome a lifetime of self-consciousness?

as these seven people stood before me, i couldn't help but ask some questions about myself.
how is it that i have never been able to accept my body for what it is, but a woman who has been afflicted with jaundice is able to smile into the camera and tell us that she feels blessed by her disease?
how is it that i have a hard time saying goodbye to my best friends for a week, and a man is able to draw the strength to say goodbye to his family till they meet again in heaven?
how can anyone be strong enough to accept their disease as a blessing and not a curse?

with each person that spoke, i could feel my throat constrict. where did these people draw their strength from? how can anyone locate a firm ground to stand on when their world is being yanked from beneath their feet?

while my head still swims with questions, everyday i can feel myself growing into the answers.
looking back at my journey these past few months, i've already found more than i ever expected to find.
to me, god had always been a foreign concept. an idea that weak people clung to when they weren't strong enough to face day to day situations alone.
for me, it was easier to say that i didn't believe than put in the effort to open up my heart and accept what was right infront of me.
science explained it all, right? we are simply the result of multiple chemical reactions co existing at an unidentified position in a space-time continuum.
i'm not sure at what point i started to think otherwise.
maybe i was just sick of denying to myself something that had always been inside of me,
or perhaps it was purely out of educational interest.
maybe it was the car ride with S.
either way, i feel like i'm on to something.
it's neither concrete nor tangible, it cannot be explain by functions, lines, numbers, or endless pages of text.
but i can feel it,
and everyday it's wonderful.