Reading that McCarthy quote, after sitting at my desk for so long that morning and evening blurred into one another, I could not ignore it and continue. There are several other reasons that went into my decision, but just over two weeks ago, I walked into my boss's office and told him that I was resigning, effective May 31. I received a great deal of support from my family, my friends, and even my boss, who agreed that I needed to pursue my greater passions. Two days from now, I will work my last day at Gardner-Webb and I don't think I could be more excited. Not to be free of any kind of arduous labor, but simply to be free. To have a schedule that I set. Taking time, making time for the things that I find to be important or meaningful. It is a glad occasion, but thinking about it actually leaves me a bit sad. I cannot believe that I allowed so much of my time, so much of my life, to be dictated by the whims of others. Accomplishing tasks on their behalf that I have no passion for. And I am not just talking about my soon-to-be-former job. Among school, friends, and those everyday responsibilities that come with living, I allow so much of my time to be dictated for me.
This past Monday, Memorial Day, I woke up on my own at 9:30 (the time I usually report to the office) and did the usual making breakfast, coffee, waking up, etc. But then I did something unusual - I took my Eno hammock out in the back yard which my current bedroom faces. With only one sizable tree out there, I spent the better part of an hour climbing about its canopy, seeking a spot to hook up the two slap straps where there would be enough tension to actually sit in the hammock. I finally succeeded and rappelled down the tree to fetch a backpack full of books and notebooks. Twenty feet off the ground, swinging there in the open air, I read Donald Miller's A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and just sat there. Suspended somewhere on the edge of time and space. Because I wanted to.
A wise man named Rob Bell points out in a book I used a good bit in my thesis called Drops Like Stars, that there is a fine distinction between ownership and possession. He uses the analogy of a guitar. Bell can play the guitar decently, but when it is in the hands of his friend who is a professional musician, sounds are evoked from the wood and strings that the author simply cannot create. Technically Rob Bell owns the guitar, but his friend possesses it in a way that Bell cannot. I have friends who own books and have read them, but I also have friends who possess those same books in ways that other do not. They swim in the words and drink them in, marinating until the truth of them seeps from their pores.
It is like this with life, I think. Each of us has a life, as long we are breathing and all of that. We are owners of life. But do we possess life? Do we evoke beauty from life that only we can conjure? Are we enough in tune with our own precise existence that its unique quality comes out? Given the brevity of life, it seems illogical to live any differently.
May you and I never be lemmings, spending our days slaving for the passions of others. May your days and my days be possessed, seized, lived like a song. Such is a life lived honestly.
