Listen to The Stoke
If you and I want to contribute to making the world a better place, a more beautiful place, then we must learn to give up our self. This is a requirement of beauty—the kind of beauty we understand and see with the eyes of the heart.
But beauty doesn’t seem to be on the minds of the public right now. It seems like the thing people love to do at the moment is to tell others who to vote for or how much of a bad person they are if they hold to certain views or embrace certain values. We enjoy shouting one another down.
I remember, as a young boy, my dad telling me that the kids who fight the most are the ones most in need of a friend. And I seem to remember some grunge lyric from back in the day saying that the empty can rattles the most.
Our culture sounds like a host of rattling cans.
“But Tim,” you say, “Isn’t it a reduction of the problem to suggest that all we need to do is befriend someone as we did in grade school? I meant aren’t our social problems much deeper and more nuanced than that? We need real systemic change, don’t we? We need to understand cultural tropes and engage with new ideologies and so on and so forth.”
“Ah yes,” I reply. “I did not mean to reduce our social ills to such a simple solution. I mean, far be it from me to suggest that beneath the yelling and the name-calling, beneath the pious virtue signaling is really just a person who needs someone else to give of themselves and be a friend to someone even if they don’t know they need it. You’re right. I suppose that kind of giving up of the self is simply too easy. We should move on.”
But the truth is, friendship is not easy. And the giving up of one’s self is difficult. At the heart of everyone human being is really the desire to be called son or daughter. Welcomed in and loved for who we are right at that moment. Not for what we’ve been or done or for what we might become but for who we are underneath it all.
The world feels so big at moments. Too big most times. How can there be any room for me, my needs, my pain? This is what despair whispers to us.
Happiness, the so-called dream of the west, isn’t the goal of life. We’re just too hurt to admit it. It’s acceptance. It’s being told, “Come in, sit for a while. Tell me your story.”
It’s being told, “You don’t need to run anymore.”
It’s being told, “It’s not your fault.”
It’s being told, “I saw what you did—I’m proud of you.”
Meanwhile, the quiet suffering of the lonely plays on. It forms in our mouths as bitterness and anger and no amount of running away or shouting down brings us any closer to the place we want to be … which is with someone.
Being needed by someone.
Needing someone to listen to us, to hold us up, to bear the burden.
Think about this …
What if our hearts broke for one another?
What if we embraced each other like when a brother or sister returns from war?
What if my shoulder was yours for whatever and whenever? What if your hand was mine when I needed it most?
What if we never let the moment escape—the moment to say, “I love you …” or “I’m there for you …” or “I’ve missed you …” or “I forgive you …”
I remember what forgiveness feels like. It feels like being called, son.
I remember what being missed feels like. It feels like your hand in mine.
I remember what love feels like. It feels like your embrace … an embrace just because.
Well dear friends, here is my promise to you …
I won’t let you forget. That you’re a son. That you’re a daughter. That you don’t need to run. That I’m proud of you. That I need you. That you’re home.
Stay stoked my friends.
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