The Gift

What a man child. With His head in the clouds. Chasing the wild dreams of a purple sky and a golden ocean. You know how children color outside the lines? He’s never submitted to what colors are. He paints the world the way He perceives it. It is never aligned with what you and I see.

And that’s why I can’t stop thinking about Him. You know when you fall in love because someone is so magnetic that you feel like you’re floating and falling at the same time? This isn’t like that. This feels serene. It feels like watching a lake while a flock of geese take flight in slow motion. It feels like vibrant fruit freshly picked from a tree. It feels like the sun presenting you with a brand new day. It feels like hope.

What amazes me is that He doesn’t force His imagination on you. He sends you an invitation. To a private party.

Speaking of party. He’s hosting a party tonight at His Gatsby-esque painting mansion. That’s right. He’s not a starving artist holed away in a windowless studio filled with toxic fumes that make you see more of the unseen. He chose to house His body in a mansion. Where tension cannot flourish. And He makes the unseen manifest. Where lust is made plainly as desire and fear evaporates upon entrance. A trance.

I’m sure you could never decline an invitation to a party where all suspicions are suspended and reality is revised. At least that’s what everyone says. And I can’t wait to tell you what happened the night He handed me the box that changed my world.

I walked up to His mansion's massive double doors. There was a giant hieroglyphic cat-eye door-knocker right in the middle. It was reminiscent of an ancient time. I heard His voice coming from behind a wall. He stepped out of from the side of the wrapped porch and greeted me.

“Welcome home,” He said as He waved His hand in front of the cat-eye and the door clicked open.

“It’s awfully quiet. Where is everyone?” I inquired.

“We’re here already,” He responded as He walked in.

“It’s just me?” I asked.

“It is a private party, is it not?” He said.

I followed Him confidently to the center of His home as He motioned for me to take a seat.

He walked gracefully over to a cabinet and flung the doors wide open revealing quite a large box. It was inconspicuously wrapped in brown paper. He walked over and attentively handed it to me. Suspicious. It didn’t seem His normal route. Not ostentatious enough.

The box was as light as a feather, but massive. It could house a wild animal.

“There is no reason to be so suspicious. There is no reason to be scared. This isn’t lighter fluid and I am not the match,” He said plainly.

It’s almost like He could read my my mind.

“But how can I trust you?” I said.

“You will only trust me as much as you can trust yourself," He said.

I looked at Him quizzically.

“Your suspicion is your perception of the world. The more you are skeptical of it, the more skeptical it is of you. I dare you to change your perception,” He stated.

“You are really confident,” I said.

“You could also just put it down and not know what’s inside. You are free to breach the unknown or to remain in the known,” He said.

He says I have control, but my hand feels drawn. Guided to ripping the brown paper off and tearing the box wide open. I dug my long nails down the middle and tore through the paper. The more I tore, the more calm I felt. Suspicion subsided.

And the box unfolded like a present.

It was dust. Dust. The box was filled with dust. Suddenly, it beamed in all directions like a solar flare and it blanketed us. Everywhere my eyes darted the dust became a layer, a canvas. His furniture to the tip of my nose.

I couldn’t speak. I could only laugh. I cackled. I giggled. I laughed like a horse neighs. Naturally, I became a child. Entering a world-made wonderland. I was home. The feeling of re-entering the womb. Reenacting the embrace of a mother, the dust housed me.

The more I laughed, the more the dust danced. It was laughing with me in it’s own way. It twirled around me and whispered the most soothing words I’ve ever heard in my life.

So many times in life we allow the disturbances in our suspicions in our own selves to permeate to the characters of those in our story. Our only resolve is to tend to more grace.

What does it mean if we assume only generosity and not self-loathing? What would our world be like if we saw the twinkle in each other's eyes and not a veil of fear? What about the softness in a person’s pain and not the anger caught in their throats?

See yourself in space and suspend all belief in a world that follows rules designed to keep you housed on Earth. Take flight and assume that wings will appear.

After what felt like a lifetime, all the dust quietly and orderly recollected itself into the box and closed its flaps. And I just sat there. I sat in belief. You’d think I'd say disbelief. Oh, it was gloriously quite the opposite.

I looked up to meet His eyes and I could see for the first time. The twinkle in His eyes, the softness in His pain. His greatest ambition is in world-making. And I knew then, so was mine. From then on, I always chose the box, choosing to dance with the unknown, entering calmly into the dark with the gift of insight.

So, I ask you now, what will you choose?