Yes, These Thoughts are too Deep for the Potty

More unsettling than me sharing what I think about as I sit on the potty at 3am are the thoughts themselves. Just about every evening I wake up sometime between 1:30 and 3 am and get up to use the bathroom. I fumble through the door hoping not to step on any plastic play cups or pointy plugs from the space heater, and as I sit down, I can't help but ponder at the illusions I/we are living in.

It's weird, but I consider the prevalence of names like Krispy Kreme, PBS kids, Gap and Target and how they can elicit such familial emotions during the day - how I can visit them more in one month than my own sister, how they are simply names that have somehow amounted to great value in my life but will soon vanish into dust in the span of eternity.

I think about the house I live in, the work Joe and I put into the gardens and yard, the energy spent on finding the right wall colors, the attention paid to where things are stored - items that have equal value to me yet so little purpose. I think about the freedom I might feel were I to move everything out onto the street and post a sign saying, "Take what you want!"

I think about Carnation Instant Breakfast and how I drink nearly two glasses a day and how not long ago there was no such thing as CIB and eventually it will probably be something my great great grandchildren will have never heard of. I think of how I am enslaved to the temporal pursuit of that which cannot be held onto and I wonder at how much of my soul drips out with every extruded and glazed doughnut that is carted along the Krispy Kreme cooling rack.

Honestly, I don't condemn it all, I just wonder at the condition of my heart and the level of surrounding distractions. There are so many things to worship and adore, so many endeavors to throw myself into. I fear falling beneath the waves of illusion and failing to completely surrender to the transforming love of Jesus. I fear allowing the winds of materialism, opportunity, and moralism to blow stronger than the winds of the spirit.

From one of my favorite songs by a little known group called Clear:

In my mind, dreams grow wild.
I catch the breeze it sends my feet to fly.
And on I go, in my own world of glory.
Just like I'm living in a fairy story.

But in the end, I'm only chasing after, the wind

What could I acquire to make my heart
delight in what it finds?
Nohing I desire can bring me joy,
like You.

The wind leads on dancing through the trees
Tripping over meadow brooks, rustling the leaves.
And so I follow, intent to taste the bliss.
To relish in the feast or awaken to a lover's kiss

But in the end, I'm only chasing after, the wind.