Regarding Lilies

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin.

Matthew 6:28

It’s autumn now. The leaves are turning and so are the pages. For me though, it’s the end of a long winter. I count it a blessing akin to miracles; simply to wake up in the morning, go to breakfast and then to class. When that’s over, I have a nice dorm room to go home to. I couldn’t possibly be happier.

Let me tell you what happened when I erased all of that. Imagine having nothing, if you can. The privilege you have to be here, imagine losing that. Financial support of every kind, imagine losing that. The roof over your head, your food, your very sanity itself: imagine all of that vanishing. That’s basically what happened to me.

I decided to question everything. I was bored with the humdrum ho-hum of busying myself everyday for a silly little grade on paper. I was sick of zombies that don’t talk in class. I was tired of dorm life. I wanted a life of my very own, so I set off to make one. I dropped out of everything and started from zero. I believed in the American Dream. I set off for the big big city, with an open mind and a heart full of zeal. I was prepared to work for everything. I wanted so much to work for something real and not some grade.

You don’t need to be reminded that the economy is terrible, or maybe you do. Nobody is hiring anyone it seems. Competition is fierce. You have to think fast, act faster, and strive to be perfect because — believe me — you are replaceable. Well, the work that you do is replaceable. Most people don’t talk like there’s much difference. The work that I did was replaced. I found myself unemployed, miserable, and worse

A degree would have helped. Let me tell you what I saw out there. Nobody cares what your calling is. No one can be bothered to concern themselves with the harmony of work and spirit. Nobody cares what you’re thinking. Nobody cares whether you’re thinking. There is no outlet for your opinions. You will get frustrated. Should you try to express your frustration anyway, you will meet with deaf ears. Everyone is out to help themselves, and your education will mark you as unlike them. You will struggle just to have the audience it would take for your education to be of any value to the general good. You will have to fight to get a job. You will learn what people mean by the word fight. You will not have the time to think, or to try about your actions, you will be expected to act, and act now, and to act as if time is money. Your degree says you’re willing to work at a different kind of life, willing and working enough to deserve a different life.

Now I’m on the other side of the universe from the horrible state I was in. I’m preparing to be able to never have to go back there again. Its because all of these wonderful people, all of them good people, great people, and all of them a thousand times more intelligent and capable than I could ever be, they look at me, and they like what they see. They see me for MORE than I am, and they want to help me be that. I’m baffled. It’s so hard to look at myself like that. It was difficult enough just to get back here. I struggled with everything I had to: the poverty, the scrounging, the begging for jobs, and the endless need for humility, all of it. I put up with all of it so long as I could bear in mind the possibility of better times and an education to come. I was like that pathetic little engine that could, dwelling and dwelling and dwelling on one possibility, needing it to happen, breathing it.

This autumn’s return to school is nothing less than a blessing. Finally, I have something of substance to dwell on.