So I totally could have died...

'Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.'
- Martin Luther

Now I don't really agree with everything Luther said and did but here I find he was spot on. I remember these words the first time as they were expelled from within the wise beard of my father to a perplexed youth who would not really understand what they would mean for many years. Oh I feel so old!

I don't actually know what Martin Luther implied but I know what I would like to think he implied though he may not have.

I was overtaking on a dark, wet motorway at 70mph when it hit me. The bonnet of my car. It unexpectedly flipped up smashing my sunroof all over me severely denting the roof and broke my windscreen caving it in. This is not ideal for an overtaking scenario as a driving instructor could probably concur but one must make do with what one has and the soothing sermon of Tim Keller that was seeping from my headphones kept me calm enough for me to navigate the timcar past a lorry and into a lonely hard shoulder.

I wasn't best pleased but then if I had panicked I could have quite easily hit either the car beside me, the truck behind me, the crash barrier, or all of them in one big metal crunching hug. All I had was a cut hand, dare I say thanks to a bit of divine inspiration on the whole calmness front. I mean I went to see let the right one in last week (incredible by the way) and was jumping every time this little girl ate someone but then when everything around you seems to smash instantaneously and you cant see where you're going it, you know... its to be expected.

Looking at some blood on my headphones a day later got me pondering. That could be the blood of a dead Tim. All that's left of a lucky boy who had so much and gave so little. He had his go at life and finished it up, done, the end, a faulty bonnet and the book is closed. When faced with this reality things somewhat loose their significance. Walking through town the next day made me think...

'just what am I doin' On this road I'm walkin',
on this trail I'm turnin'
On this curve I'm hanging
On this pathway I'm strolling,
in the space I'm taking In this air I'm inhaling'
(Bob Dylan - Last thoughts on Woody Gutherie)

Bang! A bonnet catch fails. Your dead! What the hell are you doing?
'Ahhh it won't be me, I'll wait a while, ah i'll do it tommorow.'
Life ain't that long 'pal'.

'But you try with your whole soul best
Never to think these thoughts and never to let
Them kind of thoughts gain ground
Or make yer heart pound
But then again you know why they're around
Just waiting for a chance to slip and drop down'
(old Bob again - Legend)

What we do now... every choice we make... every work that we do... what we think... how we act... it all has great significance. We can can choose good that will go towards the new inevitable creation or we can choose evil that will be burned up. The good that we do will be apart of the new heavens and the new earth. The tree we plant will be there, we don't know how but we know it will. Corinthians 15 talks about how we will be resurrected like Jesus the first fruits THEREFORE 'be steadfast immovable always abounding in the work of the Lord knowing that in Christ your work is not in vain.'

Jesus' kingdom has started now and we Christians are his temple - the place where God meets on earth - we have Christ in us through the holy spirit - the hope of Glory. God will come back and put all the pieces we have been working on into that glorious new creation, we are part of it and he is doing it through us, as he always has! (read Surprised By Hope by NT Wright)

Your bonnet might flip up on the motorway so plant a tree!

She was a genius

She was there, she had it,
Why did he win? Why did you let him?
She faught, she bled, the spectrum faded, she knew but you wouldn't let her.
You promised but she never saw it.
He destroyed her. You watched, you weeped.
I see the surface, and the surface is broken, its ugly. I hate the surface!

She saw the spectrum, she saw your blood. She held it.
Chopin running off her fingers – she was different. The stream could not contain this one.

Not the idiosyncratic wannabe hair dyed tattooed self deprecating cliché's striving for purposeless shock. Irrelevance and rebellion seeping from their pores, they don't get out enough. They think they have seen it all. Their arrogance is destructive, elitists that cleak and despise each other. Perpetually seeking vain ignorance and looking everywhere but the obvious.

She had dreams. She had opportunities. Opportunity that you would put in front of her, taunting and mocking her, anticlimactic failure determined before the gun fires go.
Things went wrong. They always went wrong. She had truth yet they looked at her with contempt, as a mad woman, a fool. Her freak accidents ate up her time like a sand timer but this was no game she was playing. No smiles and laughter echoed from her path.
Oh the potential, the potential. Despised and rejected. Never seen for what she was. A genius that never reached what was promised of her. Her blood cried out to him as she died weak and defenceless.

with faith.

Oh and the days were like an eternity...

Eyes

I can't look at him.
He stares.
He looks right in,
not through as if there is something more important on the other side,
no he stares right in and sees every cog turning,
each little desire flinching and responding to his every command.

He speaks so eloquent,
he knows the words that can push us over as we struggle to regain our posture on the oil soaked tiles.
His camouflaged insults left hanging in the air work away on me, picking at the ageing mortar.
Intellect and logic fill his sober arguments,
well thought through and strategic answers filled with the reason of the greats disarm my probing questions.
Names and names pour out, philosophies.

It must be something greater than your elementary foolishness.
Evidence and reason is everything.
Tangible, measurable figures,
logical steps to complex conclusions,
progression overlords the operation.
The future lies in our fingertips.

Immortality lies in our grasp if we just reach out and grab it,
flicking the switches,
we are evolving, we are moving towards the absolute,
towards the truth,
towards the justice.
What is your philosophy but a mere fairy tale.

Nonsense, outdated, brainwashed upbringing,
control methods, barbaric.
Don't think that I have not looked,
do not think that I am ignorant.
I have searched and I am becoming what I had set out to become.
Its in my grasp.