So I'm sitting in Starbucks and it's humid. When you step outside you feel the heaviness of the air and the sweat just starts to curl your hair every which way. Though I really don't mind the curls. Don't mind the heat, I'm used to it. It's the heaviness. Like the air has a burden of its own, like the windows fog up just to give an even blurrier picture of the world.
I'm on the inside. Sitting in my Starbucks chair, journaling, lost in thought. Just had a brief conversation with Brandon where I got to laugh. Then my thoughts were caught in their heaviness again and I'm processing, running through things in my head and wondering what the world is coming to.
I went to a funeral 4 days earlier for my boss's mother. I didn't know her, though I would've liked to. But the only time I got a little choked up was when one of the daughters talked about how she thought she and her mother would be raptured to heaven together. And it struck me that the daughter was genuinely surprised her mother had died, rather than simply disappearing. I wonder if my mother will die or be raptured. I hope I'm raptured. I don't really know why I thought of that moment at the funeral home right then in Starbucks; maybe because I genuinely want Jesus to come back.
There are storm clouds and random shots of sunshine. The air conditioning causes the condensation to fog the windows and the people are blurry, except for the ones sitting in the cafe tables directly outside the store. They're smoking cigarettes and playing dominoes. Ben E. King is playing in the background. "Stand by Me." I danced to that song at a ball in West Point, NY. A long time ago. Seems like another lifetime, another world, another Ellen. I'm temporarily drifting back to the classic romantic notions I used to have of being in love and realize none of those thoughts really occupy my time anymore. Is that sad? Should I wish for the colors and the beauty again? The companionship? But really, it was all just an extrinsic show; the grandeur, and everything I wanted the love affiar to be was an illusion in the end.
Back to reality. One of the baristas is mopping the floor. Mental note to not slip as I throw my empty cup in the trash. I'm just the slightest bit cold. Safely back to my seat. I'm biting my pen and pouring my heart and soul onto the paper. My God, this is good. This is therapeutic and relieving, like a musician who sits at the piano and plays for hours, forgetting everything but the sound of the keys and the notes entwined. They don't even have to make sense, they just have to be there and he can claim them as an escape from reality. That's what writing can be, and in that moment, that's exactly what the words become. Therapy. I'm fervently writing, thinking, trying to catch my hand up to what my brain is saying and letting the last pieces fall out without having to make any sense whatsoever.
There are newspapers everywhere in Starbucks. Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post. DADT repeal. A right-wing extremist behind the Oslo attacks. Thanks, man. Lets give terrorists one more reason to hate us. A shooting in Austin. A shooting in China. The United States government standing by and allowing the country to default. Joblessness and increasingly bleak economic pictures. People call me at work and ask if we're hiring all the time. And I'm supposed to look forward to the future, to what God has planned? I wouldn't be surprised if I'm going to be alive when being a Christian in America is dangerous. This thought stops me mid-sentence and I look out the window.
I must be glaring. One of the men who was smoking has come inside and looks dead at me. "Are you alright, miss?"
Oops. Caught me.
Well sir, I'm currently sitting here wondering if the country I love and the freedoms I hold dear will exist in the next 50 years. Actually, I'm seriously doubting it. I want to one day be a mother and live out that biblical family modeled in the Bible, but wondering if it's even the best idea to bring children into the world anymore. I belong to a God who is coming again soon, but I'd be ok if it's in the next 5 minutes. People everywhere are dying and going to hell; celebrities, supposedly our role models, are OD'ing, our media is tearing apart the idea of the plutonic, biblical family, porn turns men into boys and women into sluts, extremists are committing acts of terror in the name of "god," kids are told to have sex for fun and not become emotionally involved with anyone, no one knows how to grow up and lead anymore, and our country is accepting every lie imaginable. The one truth that does exist is taboo; tolerate anything except the Bible. So no sir, things are not alright.
"Yes, I'm fine, thank you. I just have a lot on my mind."
"Alright. You look like someone's out to kill you or something."
Great.
Keep journaling. Keep praying. Keep processing. The air is heavy and the entire world is in need of a Savior. Mankind is racing to the finish line as fast as they possibly can, and they'll use the technology, the cars, the politics, the sex, the drugs and alcohol, and any other shallow, unfulfilling lie to do it.
Breath, child.
There is Truth. There is a God who loved this wicked, sick world so much that He laid every perversion on His perfect Son. And that Sacrifice paid the debt for all the evil we can ever become and lives, committed to making those who believe more like Him.
Less like this dark world. It's not my home.
