Life Is Beautiful

I'm listening to Explosions In The Sky, and this chord is all wrong. But somehow it makes the rest of the world feel right.

I haven't been sleeping lately, and for nearly a week now I've been attributing my insomnia to stress. But as I sit in my room now, thoroughly enjoying the sounds of silence, I realized that I'm awake not because I am stressed but because life is too beautiful to sleep away.

I can't be convinced that perfection does not exist, because I'm experiencing it right now. Here in my room, alone with my thoughts and my words, ambient guitar - devoid of rhythm but full of purpose - playing through my speakers, and the rest of the world falling into peaceful Saturday night sleep. There is peace in this moment, and there is perfection in this peace.

I fold my hands and I am aware of each nerve ending in my fingers as they intertwine with one another. There is a certain sense of awe that comes with being aware that you are aware of such a thing. How many things do my fingers touch throughout the day, yet I'm never aware of the sensation of actually feeling something? Countless times. How many times do I speak, yet am completely unaware of what I am saying? Far too many. And how many noises enter my ears, yet I am too distracted to take the time to hear the beauty of a phrase or the rhythm of a voice? Many times, unfortunately. But as I spend this time with no one but myself, I become blissfully aware of what an awesome creature God has made me to be. And I say that with no sense of pride or inflation - we have all been made in His image, and we are all awesome. We can smell, see, hear, touch, taste, listen, understand, comprehend, analyze, create. But so often we're too distracted to realize just how much we are capable of.

I may have told a bit of a lie. I said that my insomnia was not due to stress, but this is only true now. The past two weeks have been stressful and tiresome and I've stayed up worrying about anything I could find to worry about. But today I was reminded of a beautiful truth. That worry and stress are by-products of not trusting in God. If I truly believe as I say I do, then I should trust that God created my life and will work everything out in His own perfect time if only I will let him. Worry and stress have no place in the Christian life. In fact, they are reflections of "practical atheism".

So I am finished with worry and doubt. I'm letting my stress drift away with each note of the melody - present only for a moment, then lost into nothing, never to be repeated. Where does sound go when it leaves our ears? The same place that stress goes when it leaves our minds. Can it just disappear into nothingness? Is it possible that in music (and in stress) we have created something from nothing, and then we can turn this something into nothing once more? I have to believe so.

There are explosions in the sky. Do you see them, the sun and the stars? (You were right about the stars, each one is a setting sun.)