Introspection Retrospectively

I found this amongst my drafts from last year. It seemed well enough to post.


I don't even know where to begin.

I can't sleep at night. I just lay there, sometimes still talking (with no distractions my mind settles down and I just can't stop the thoughts from verbalizing themselves), mostly trying to stem the flood of thinking - my mind whirs like a fan on high and seems to take forever to slow down after I turn it off. It's strange how thoughts that come in the night are akin to epiphanies but the next morning the idea that shook me from head to toe is now casually recalled and then mentally tossed into the in-box for an indefinite period.

On the occasion that I do stir from near slumber to track down a pen and paper and allow my thoughts some validity, I find that the next morning those thoughts aren't as ridiculous as when I merely think about them. Sometimes I can hold onto that thought and the next night they will bear more fruit. Other times merely writing them down releases them from my mind and allows for more room for other pearls.

Many times I find myself on a soapbox late at night, mentally ranting on and on about the subject of dating, more specifically, the subject of girls yearning for the manifestation of their value and "finding" it in guys. Never would have I called it a "calling" but this morning, after giving the subject nearly an hour of my life the night before, it struck me that perhaps that's what it is, a calling. A desire to reroute my peers and the adolescent youth from digging through the garbage and slums for their pricelessness and to travel a healthier road.*

Horses have been apart of my entire life. Growing up I lived and breathed horses; to this day no smell compares to a deep breath of horse. I still have memories of watching my mother's horse, Beau, munch on grass beside our barn. I loved watching the process as they ate; the sound of the chomping, the grass there one second and gone the next. A horse grazes, meaning it moves around as it eats. The peculiar part about grazing is that horses eat in no apparent pattern. They don't start at one end of a field and methodically make their way to the other end. They weave around, moving as they please, sensing and smelling where the next bit of lush legume will be.

Horses do not graze in a standard pattern for several reasons, certain plants are toxic and horses can detect that, other times they simply want to be nearer to a herdmate, but most of all, horses know where to find the tastiest and, by default, most healthy grass. When their main diet is lacking in a mineral or nutrient, a horse is then forced to find that mineral or nutrient elsewhere. It will nudge and nose around, smelling it out and, believe it or not, will commence to eat or lick whatever it is that contains that mineral or nutrient. We had a mare once who, after we switched grain suppliers, began chewing up the wood in her stall. Our vet recommended a grain supplement and the chewing stopped. One might think, "Wood?" What the heck?! Well, when an animal can't find their default source of food, they will desperately seek for anything else. They will even eat toxic plants.

People do that with food too. When you're not eating healthily, your body will crave whatever nutrients and minerals it isn't getting. When your body becomes deprived it will focus on that deprivation and next thing you know, you've knocked back a whole bag of potato chips, a large soft drink, and you're working on a box of cookies. When in imbalance, the body seeks to compensate. If you begin eating healthily, providing to your body all the nutrients it needs in ways it can absorb those nutrients, you'll find that junk food is not in the least appealing. You won't chew on wood.

It's the same with behavior. When a person (or animal in some cases) is not provided with love, nurturing, and guidance (both in positive enforcement and constructive criticism (which we know as discipline)), when a person is not filled with the knowledge and feeling that who they are is important and loved (and validated and cared for), they will seek to compensate, they will fill their lives with whatever will give that to them. My old (way back in the day) volleyball coach used to say something along the lines of this (and though I don't care for the fact that he said it to us, it still holds a bit of relevance), "If I'm not coaching ( more like screaming at) you during the game, then I've given up on you." I'm sure it was meant as encouragement when he kept shouting at us, but I took it as the person whom he wasn't shouting at. In my mind I obviously wasn't cared about or had any worth as a team member; he wasn't paying attention anymore. I bring this up because the lack of discipline or instruction in a persons life is exactly the same thing as saying "I don't care about you," or, "I don't care about you enough to show you the best ways to grow as the person you are." Which then leads to, "I don't love you as you."





*I'm not quite ready to describe "healthier" as a life with Christ, even though it is. It's not my mode to slap Christ on a problem and say, "Well, there you go! That'll do it!" I feel too many use Christ as duct tape (even though in many cases, it's the only way to start the process of healing and life) and not enough show proof of that abundant life, of the results that come with core healing.