I am officially bored with life right now! We can't go to church. I can't go to the classes at the gym because Jaren doesn't want me to. We can't meet in gatherings more than 50 people. I am bored of all my at home workouts. Even the music I listen to while I workout to I'm bored with. Even my prayers have gotten boring! And I'm getting depressed.
I like the song by Dierks Bentley called Living. He talks about how somedays your hearts beating out of your chest and some days it's just beating, or how some days you're just alive and some days you're living. Well, recently I have been one of those people whose heart is just beating and I'm just alive, and I really want to be the person who's heart is beating out of my chest and the type of person who's living.
That's why I am here, back in my journal! This seems to do it for me every time.
I am listening to a book series that Rebecca recommended called The Renegades and in it there is a character called Wonder Boy. I have been wanting to record down a scene from that book for a long time and I think today is a good day to do it!
Caleb went ahead of her, wrapping has hand around the deck. Nova followed. Her breath hitched, the view wasn't like anything she'd ever seen before. She had spent plenty of time on rotors of buildings, even sky scrapers, but never had she been so high up, never had she seen Gatlan City laid out like a dream. There was the bay in the distance where the morning sun was dancing on the waves like molten gold. She could see both the century and the Stockton bridges spanning the river, majestic with their towering pylons and the graceful arch of their suspension cables. Their was the landmark merchant tower with its recognizable glass spire, and the centuries old Woodrow hotel still sporting a ghost sign on its brick. Things she had seen a thousand times before but never like this. From so far away she could no longer see the scars of time left on the city, the buildings that were crumbling to the elements, the abandoned neighborhoods, the drifts of garbage and debris piled up on sidewalks and alleyways. There was no noise up here to compete with the tranquility, no sirens, no shouting, no car horns, no yowling of stray cats or squeaking of territorial crows. It was breathtaking.
"You know what's amazing?"Said Calem. He pointed, and she followed the angle of his finger down to city park with it's lush green fields and autumn city parks. It looked like an unexpected oasis in a sea of concrete and glass.
"You see that tree? Near the Southeast corner of the park?The evergreen, that kind of stands up above all these little dissuades ones. That's a queen cypress tree. Do you knowhow slow those things grow?"
Nova blinked at him, unable to discern where he was going with this. "I don't."
"Slow!" Caleb said, "Really slow. So whoever planted that tree. they must have known that they were going to have to wait years, decades, before they could sit under it and enjoy it's shade. Maybe they never got to! Maybe they planted it hoping that their kids or their grandkids or even complete strangers, generations away would be able to sit under the bus of that tree and that maybe someone would spare a moment of gratitude for the person who had the foresight to plant a little sapling in the first place."
He fell silent and Nova's brow furrowed. This was the important thing he had to show her?
"Also," said Calem "trains, trains are so cool!"
Nova hummed to herself and began plotting what she could say to politely remove herself from this conversation and go back to work.
"Think of the early steam trains, all that engineering, all those resources, it must have been faith at first, right? A confidence that his was the future of travel and industry and trade. There was no guarantee that those tracks would be laid connecting all these cities and ports, but someone had enough conviction to go ahead with it anyway."
"Calem?"
"And the alphabet!" He said turning to her, "Have you ever stopped to consider the alphabet?"
"Uh ....."
"Think about it. These symbols, they're just lines on paper, but someone, at some point had the idea to assign them a meaning, and not just that, but then to teach those meanings to other people! To envision a way for ideas and thoughts to be recorded and shared!! Ugh, it must have seemed like an impossible task at first but they persisted! And think of all that's led to! Isn't that fantastic?"
"Calem!" Nova said more firmly now."Do you have a point?"
He blinked the excitement from his eyes and peered at Nova, almost sadly for a moment.
"My point is, that Ace Anarchy, whatever his motives might have been, was ultimately a destructive force. He destroyed things. But we are so much stronger and better when we put our energy into creating things, not destroying them."
"Of course." She said sourly, "And the renegades are the one's who create!"
Calem shrugged, "They're trying, but no-one's perfect. Like you said, even Ace Anarchy was fighting for a cause he believed in. A cause that was worth fighting for. But, he didn't build anything. Instead, he killed and he destroyed and he left the world in shambles. The result wasn't freedom for prodigy's, it was 20 years of fear. Twenty years in which people weren't thinking about writing books or planting trees or building sky scrapers. It was an accomplishment just to survive another day."
He smiled wryly, "but then , agent N is a destructive force too. It depletes, but it doesn't replenish. I'm worried it's a step backwards, for all of us."
They were silent for a moment. Then Calem groaned and muffled his own hair, "I'm sorry. People have always told me I'm boring when I talk about this stuff but sometimes it's so frustrating to go through life seeing all of this," he spread his arms wide as if he could embrace the city below, "there are so many things to marvel at. How could anyone want to hurt it? How can people wake up every morning and not think 'look! The sun is still there, and I'm still here. This is incredible!"
He laughed and turned to Nova again, "If I could just make everyone see . I mean, for more than just minute that is. I don't know, I can't help but think that then , we would all work together to create things, together, for once."
Nova regarded the city again. She saw fishing boats cutting through the waves heading toward the sea, cars making their way through the street, almost as if they were part of a choreographed dance. Teams of cranes and construction workers preparing fallen buildings and erecting new structures over the skeleton of the old. Hundred of thousands of people going about their lives, day after day, year after year, generation after generation. Somehow humanity had managed to build all of this, despite everything that had tried to get in it's way. Somehow they prevailed, they continued on. It was incredible! How had she never considered it before? Maybe because she never had a chance to see it like this? She had spent so much of her life underground, squirreled away in the dark lifeless tunnels. She had never given much thought how much that secrecy was costing her and the anarchists, the lives they could never live, or maybe she was seeing it now because, beacuse ...
"Wonder Boy?"
Calem groaned, "Just wonder. Prism things adding the boy turns it into a cute nickname which would have been fine when I was seven."
She turned to him shaking her head, "I didn't think you were a prodigy."
"Yeah, it doesn't come up often. Being able to temporarily reveal all the great wonders of this world" he swooped his arm toward the horizon again "doesn't seem like much when compared to volcanic eruptions coming out fo your finger tips. "
He snapped to prove his point. But rather than seem disappointed, his face took on that captivated expression again.
"Did you know that in the 17th century a prodigy held back the lava flow so their village could be ..."
"Calem!"
He drew up short! Nova started at him.
"You were manipulating me! I thought, there was a second when I ... You can't just mess with peoples emotions like that!"
"Ahhh, common misconception." He said, unperturbed. "I can't do anything to peoples emotions. I can only show them their true feelings. Or, what they would see if they bothered to look close enough. And when people see the truth, that they really are surrounded by a lot of amazing things, they tend to naturally experience an overwhelming sense of awe. I mean, why wouldn't you?
She frowned, not sure if she was buying his explanation. She felt toyed with, like she had a moment of blinding clarity only to discover it was an illusion. Except now she wasn't so sure what was real and what wasn't. It was kind of a neat gift, to bestow a sense fo wonder on those around you. But she suspected he was right, maybe the world would be different if everyone could see it the way he did.
"Why don't they have you on patrols?" With a power like that you'd be able to defuse a lot of dangerous situations."
"Ehhh, not as easily as yo right think. People have to take a second to notice the world around them and when people are in the middle of a brawl or committing a crime they're not going to stop and smell the hypothetical roses. I can have more of an impact here, helping other renegades changes their perspective. Reminding people what it is we're trying to accomplish. If we're going to rebuild the world, I'd like it to be built on a foundation of gratitude and appreciation. Not greed or pride!"
"If that's your goal," Nova said, rubbing her forehead, "Then I'm not sure you're succeeding."
"It's a slow process, but I'm patient."
"Why did you bring me up here," she asked.
"I like you nova, I don't know what you've been through, but I can tell you've been hurt, and you're still hurting. I know that some prodigies become renegades because they like the idea of having power and some want the prestige and the fame but a lot of us are here because we want to make a difference, we want to change things for the better. I don't know what your story is, but I think you want to change things for the better too. I thought that maybe, seeing this, would be a good reminder of what were all doing here. What it is we're fighting for."
I want to record this part down because I feel like God has the ability to help us see the world like Calem does! So many wondrous little miracles all around us, every single day! And all we have to do is be still long enough and God will show them to us. He can take things that we see everyday and turn them into something awe inspiring and truly magical! And I miss seeing the world through these lenses. Because like I said when I stared out, I'm bored with life, but I know that changing that has to come from within. Because the life around me really is a fantastic one, and I know that drawing close to God is the way to transition the boring into the beautiful.
Here is an example of one of these miracles! This tine little guy was in our skimmer baskets of the pool. He was not much bigger than a quarter. Caleb found him while taking care of the pool chemicals and we took him over to the pond at the park. This is him, as we drove him over to the park. He poked his head out of his shell sand stared at Austin like that for a long time and then started crawling all over the place! Austin had to constantly move his hands around to make sure he didn't fall. Look how pretty he is, that patten on his skin and all the detail.
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