A Part To Play

It has been said that "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." So it seems fit to say that each of us has a part to play and that throughout our lives, we shape that part into our own personal character. No two characters exactly alike, but each based on a pattern that the play in which we live shapes for us.

How then is it that I have played every part? It seems as if I have in my comparatively short years played each role as if each were but a passing dream only to take up a new role in the morning. I've been the anchor that gives hope, the conscience that advises, the light that helps others find themselves, the mirror that allows others to see their true beauty, the easy-goer that seeks only to live, the seeker of thrills that lives life with no sense of consequences, the philosopher that seeks an answer for everything, the funny one that makes light of grave situations, the rebel that seeks to break away, the conformer that tries follow everything......and even with all these parts in my repertoire, one question looms unanswered in my mind:

Who am I?

The anchor tells me I am a rock that will not be moved, the philosopher tells me that I am the one who will find the answers, the rebel tells me I am the one that will enjoy life to its fullest, the light tells me that I am someone who will always be focused on others... It is as if my whole life has been one huge production, a play of epic proportions in which I am forced to play the parts that suit the scenes I find myself in, but I fear that when it is over, I will not be able to point to one in particular and say "You see that one, that character...that's what I'm really like, that's me."

At one moment, I find something that I can put my finger on, but then the scene changes and I'm something else entirely. It's as if my life is surrounded by fun-house mirrors contorting me one way and then another to the point where I wouldn't know my true reflection if I saw it.

Who am I?

A Face, A Thought, A Dream

by: Eric Fulmer

A face seen from a distance;
A face seen from an arm's length away.
Time slows just a bit
As my mind immortalizes the moment.
For that second, nothing else matters.
All is well.

A thought in a troubling time;
A thought like a life raft.
In it, my mind drifts away
To the refuge it holds.
In that moment, other cares float away.
Relief is found.

A dream that stays with me;
A dream bearing hope.
It waits for me
As a glint of what might be.
For its reckoning, I wait with patience.
Time will tell.

Life at the Moment

So, I've always been the type of person who likes to sum up everything with a quip if possible. The one that keeps coming to mind here lately that seems to generalize my life and the lives of so many people around me is: "The heart does things that the mind cannot understand."

How is it that two opinions can exist so clearly in the same person with no overlap...no similarities whatsoever? What more, which is of the right mindset?

The Lesson of Carpe Diem

There exist in this world, those who would conquer it by nothing other than lessons to be learned. There exist also, however, those who should in all rights never learn, lest their lessons lead them away from living. For by learning, their souls escape their body, a little more each time until when, at the height of their knowledge, their souls have all but left them; and with their souls, their dreams vanish into the oblivion of folly. With each turn of a page, the world we all knew as children slides slowly away, or rather, is pushed from their minds to make room for the thing that is more socially acceptable. For they realize that within the small area of a human mind, no two things so large as dreams and reality can ever coincide.

There is nothing obviously different from these few and the rest of humanity at large, nothing so unique as to cause them to be pointed out as a separate group. The minute irregularity is they have held onto their dreams rather than allow them to be hidden away from them in their youth. They held onto the things that society tells them they cannot have, and with each retelling, the things are torn from their hands as if to keep them from harming themselves with these ideas...these dreams.

Carpe Diem...seize the day...a source of hope for some, a curse for others. For some, it encourages them to live their "dreams"; to grasp at the things that are unobtainable to them, yet they wish were possible. For the true dreamer though, it encourages them to run from them. For they know that their dreams could be made reality with only a little child-like faith. For these, it is only in running away that their dreams remain a reality, and because of this it is only in their nightly peace, when the world is quiet in their minds, that they can draw close to their dreams.

They have not let reality set in, nor let their paths to be decided by fate, nor by any other person or thing on this earth, but by themselves, and yet, it is only they that hold themselves in check. For they have discovered that there are some dreams that are not to be realized. If they could, they would not hesitate to escape to another world where reality is suspended and all their dreams would come to fruition...but this is not that world.

What I Have Learned of Love from Love Itself

This is sort of a far cry from my usual blog posts in that it is not poetry, nor is it a fictional writing. It is merely what is on my heart tonight. At first it seems very pathetic and self-centered, but I promise there is a reason...a point that is much bigger than me that will come to be seen as it draws near the end, so please, read it all.

Love. Our society has destroyed the once beautiful meaning of this relational bond and has replaced it with a watered down feeling. I will not attempt to define this word now though; that will come later.

I believe that I have truly loved in my 19 years on this earth, and the love I have found is not that portrait that society paints. If we were to truly experience what society calls "love" we would experience an instantaneous feeling in a moment of perfect alignment of fates when all is at its best and nothing is going wrong. The lack of negativity is important in what society portrays of love, for if something goes wrong, it is no longer love, but has become misjudgment or a misinterpretation. So, where does that leave me? What has my love been like?

So often, we expect a process of positive exchange...we give something good, we are given something good in return. That is not, however, how love always works. I have loved and only been taken advantage of in return, I have loved someone who did not love me in return, I have given support in love for those who were never there to give support for me, I have loved someone enough to turn them away when it was not the best thing, I have loved enough to pour my heart out looking only for someone to help me and was seemingly left to myself, and, to be honest, I became very discouraged. I wondered if it was worth it. I wondered if "love" was all that I thought it was. I didn't understand how I was to be expected to love, love, love, and only be returned what seemed to be emptiness.

This all came to a climax, and then I realized, that I have been on the other side of every one of those feelings before. I have been loved by someone and taken advantage of that love, I have been loved and never showed a true act of love in return, I have had someone who loved me enough to promise to always be there when I needed them and turned away from that person time after time...

and you may ask, "Who are all these people that have loved you that you never loved in return?" I reply, "It is only one person...Christ." For Jesus Christ, my Savior, has looked out for me along every step I've ever taken, He's been there when I was down and needed someone to pour my heart out to, He's been there when I felt betrayed and alone, He's been there...time, after time, after time...and I've turned Him away so many times.

There is a book of the Bible called Hosea. In summary, it has only two characters, and I feel like I have learned now how to play both. The two parts are a husband and his wife, who is a prostitute. His wife leaves him time and again, returning to the pleasures of the world only to be sold into slavery, but her husband buys her back every time. He truly forgives her and continues to love her unconditionally. So many times, in my relationship with Christ, I've played the part of the prostitute. Turning my back on the one who loves ME unconditionally in favor of the temporary pleasures that this world offers me.

I realize now that all the times I have loved and been hurt for the good I've done I've been shown a picture of how my Savior, Jesus Christ, feels each time I hurt Him, and I thank God for all the times that I felt down...all the times I felt like I got a bum deal...I thank Him for showing me how much more infinitely He is able to love me in return.

Thank you, and God bless.

Empty Before God

by: Eric Fulmer

I feel as if all I've ever said
Or all I've ever done.
Has been nothing but one more act
In the play through which I run.

For within me lies a gaping hole
That nothing else can fill.
For I have tried with everything
And it lies empty still.

And though I try my best to turn
Unto my God above
And look for Him to fill my heart
With his unfailing love;

Still I find myself returning
To that stinking place
Where I try to help myself
And escape from His embrace;

But he pulls me back, even closer yet
With His mercy undeserved
And forgives me for each time that I
Away from Him have swerved.

By Whom it May Concern

By: Eric Fulmer

As I looked inside myself, a story began to emerge. It was not in itself a story, per say, but through this vision, like a parchment being unraveled, a story unfurled itself to me. A tale about a quest for freedom...

A young man, who looked to be in his early twenties, sat on his couch late one night bored from the technology and instruction of his day. He thought to himself, "I feel trapped in the day to day scheduling and rushing that is my life. Is there no freedom?!" His conscious self knew the schooling that kept him bound to his studies was imperative and that one day he would need to call his learning to use, but there lay in him a deeper more adventurous side that longed for the freedom and adventure that the wilderness offered.

Once again, however, his studious conscious self wrestled his dreams back to the recesses of his mind as he stood and walked grudgingly to his room. On his desk, his computer and its billions of connections to the outside world lay awaiting him, but tonight, he ignored it. His attention was instead drawn to the old notebook he had used for one of his classes and then thrown aside and forgotten. He picked it up and flipped aimlessly through its pages. As the many empty pages that lay toward the end of the notebook flipped by, his mind became flustered. His dreams of freedom sprang to the forefront of his mind as he withdrew from his desk a simple yet powerful tool. He knew that this wooden cylinder and the graphite bound at its heart he could build a world all his own, and so, he began to write:

"As I looked inside myself, a story began to emerge..."

The first in a while

Concerning the Present
by: Eric Fulmer

More nights than days I've lived on this earth
Sometimes in darkness unending,
But through the veil of pitch colored skies,
A beam of light is rending.

It lights the path through eternal night
And illuminates our way.
So that as we follow the steps of our Lord
We can see them and obey.