| Sunny Side Up Oct. 26, 2005 �2005, Kathleen Gibson Listening to the alien being within No matter how much flesh houses it, the walls in a human soul are thin, like shawls of mist that stretch over the haunts of morning. If you listen closely enough you'll hear good-byes through hellos, and greetings on the backside of farewells. You've likely seen smiles shine through tears, which also glisten through laughter. And many times I've noticed the morning light of a soul flickering through the cracks of its darkest nights. Our souls are wondrous things. But sometimes something inside me pokes at those thin soul walls, testing them as though searching for a weak spot through which to bust out and holler "Boo!" Sometimes it does, and it scares me to death. It stirs whenever I get too comfortable. When for days on end there's not so much as a teardrop or challenge or ripple or crisis of any sort to jot in my journal. It prods when I decide to rip up my list of 'Fifty Things to Do before I Die', or when I contemplate quitting freelancing to get a job that regularly pays - in dollars. And it thrashes about a good deal when I look at old photos of myself at three and a half feet tall. (Isn't it strange how the height of one's dreams shrink in inverse proportion to the height of one's body?) Some days my thoughts positively tango. They whirl around notions that I could, just maybe, write fiction when I know very well I can't. Wear chartreuse though navy is far and away my best color. Go into politics. Adopt a child from another country in my fiftieth year. Take a white water rafting trip with my son. Fling aside everything comfortable, kidnap my husband and spirit him away to live with me in India or somewhere we could really be used. (I've not done those things, mind you, except I regularly wear chartreuse.) Perhaps there's an alien being inside me, I think on those days. I like it, and I want to keep it. Why? Because, no matter how unnerving, those prods keep me from stodgy staidness. From becoming forever content with my momentary and minute successes in life, or stalled by my dismal failures. They prevent me from forgetting my dreams. They punch windows in my walls through which I can see 'beyond'. I hate the view sometimes, but I've learned to pay attention to those prods. But for those pokes in the thin walls of my soul, this Prairie Chicken would still be pecking about on the ground, eyes downcast. Instead, I'm learning to fly - resting, even in turbulence, securely on God's great hand - the God whose will it is for all his obedient children to rise above their own narrow vision and limitations and learn to trust his - which are non-existent. There is indeed an alien* within me, in a manner of speaking. Our God, who prods all his kids to go further, dig deeper, fly higher, press harder, trust him more. Are you listening? Respond Home alien: (adj) 1. Owing political allegiance to another country or government; foreign: alien residents. 2. Belonging to, characteristic of, or constituting another and very different place, society, or person; strange. . 3. Dissimilar, inconsistent, or opposed, as in nature: emotions alien to her temperament. --------------------------------------------------------- Excerpted from American Heritage Talking Dictionary Copyright � 1997 The Learning Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
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