The Large Man Chronicles

The Large Man Chronicles

5-15-2010 

This Chronicle is not intended to challenge anyone’s faith. It is not intended in any way to dismiss or argue your closely held beliefs. I have GREAT respect for your faith, your religion, and all the things that your heart tells you. Your truth is yours – please keep it… hold on to it. Honor it!  Share it with others if you wish, and know that at least one person, (a person wearing a XXL t-shirt perhaps) respects your position and your right to share it.

Me on the other hand, I always wonder. I think I was born to wonder. I always wonder how the God that I was taught about as a child would let the things happen that I have seen happen in this world. I still believe, but I wonder.

I don’t wonder if, I wonder how. I just wonder how it all really works.

I’m not sure everything I was taught, or everything written is the whole truth and nothing BUT the truth. Sometimes, I think there may have been an agenda, maybe a flaw in mankind’s interpretation here and there. Maybe certain people, in certain positions of power could have manipulated the facts to serve other purposes. I am not proclaiming, I am pondering.

Ultimately, I believe that true understanding is greater than the human mind can comprehend anyway. Whether it’s God, or Buddha, Zeus, or the Universe…whatever It is, I think It’s bigger, and more complex, or possibly it’s even simpler than we expect. That’s what I think.

But I DO believe.  How could someone not believe?

I have friends that don’t believe, but I don’t get the “whys” behind it. Generally the people I talk to who think there is nothing after this life, and nothing bigger than what we have here on Earth, are people who are smarter than everybody else…just ask them. May God (or the Universe) help me if I am ever that person.  I ain’t smarter than nobody. It’s all science and facts and proof with these people. Some things defy science…many things defy science. You could ask a bunch of scientists and many of them would tell you the same thing.

Maybe there’s a little science involved. Maybe there’s higher power involved too. Maybe there’s a little bit of both. It’s all pretty complex to me. You may have it figured out. I do not.

If you ever get a chance, look at the portrait that is my Facebook profile picture… a little black and white number of my children. The artist is a seemingly ordinary chick named Margi Fisher.  She’s pretty and everything and she doesn’t look like she’s aged a day in 30 years, but other than that she seems to be of this world. But how does she take her human hands, and her human eyes, and create that beauty? It’s not beautiful because it’s my kids – anybody would look at this work of art and say, “Wow.” I look at it, and I believe that there is something bigger than a few years of art class working through Margi. Most people can’t do that. I think God has a hand in that.

I wish God would help me with ending sentences in a preposition, or with a prepositional phrase. I find it EXTREMELY annoying, but sometimes the sentence only works that way. He or She may be occupied with other things, and I’m not complaining, I’m just sayin.

When I hear Chet Adkins, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Doc Watson, Wayne Henderson, Joe Satriani, and countless others play a guitar, I believe. I have a couple of guitars, I have played the guitar most of my life – but I can’t do what they do. Not even a little bit.

Listen to Martina McBride’s voice, Bonnie Raitt, Trisha Yearwood, and Patty Griffin… listen to Eva Cassidy sing Over the Rainbow, listen to Etta James sing At Last, listen to Aretha Franklin sing anything, and try NOT to believe. I don’t see how someone couldn’t believe.

I’m writing this from a room overlooking the ocean; I’m listening to the surf pound against the shore over and over and over – it’s so big and relentless, it’s scary. Next time you get a chance, just look at it and feel small – close your eyes and listen to it and feel small. If you can’t feel it, I feel sorry for you. It’s still one of the most magical things I’ve ever witnessed, and I have seen some magic in my day.  I could be here every day and still feel it. When I stand in front of the ocean I feel the power.

I thank God or the Universe, (hmmm…maybe both) that They gave my children the same awe. I watched them play with reckless abandon at the edge of their world today. This was their first trip to the beach when a hand did not have to be held. They were afraid, and thrilled, and fascinated, and awed by the power and the beauty. They couldn’t stay in because it was too much, they couldn’t stay out because…because it was too much.

“It just goes forever dad! It never stops!”

Yep, pretty much. They said it better than I could. It’s pretty simple.

Things like the ocean, music, art, and good friends like you, make me think the Universe is a little more complex than carbon based matter evolving. Or, maybe it’s simpler. I don’t know, and I always wonder, but I surely believe.

Until next time, go look for something that makes you believe.

Thanks for reading.