is

over the past few months i have struggled with the idea of perspective.  particularly about how to go about articulating and expressing a healthy world view.  i do not necessarily mean a paradigm, no something more basic and closer to ourselves.  maybe it is a throw back to maslow or a need to substantiate universals or the modality of the mind.  whatever it is, it has been gnawing at my soul like a thorn stuck in the back of my mind.

so as i mulled through the recesses of my thoughts and crept through the back allies of my synaptic roadway i began to feel a move towards something simple, something basic.  i allowed myself to creep down the path of thought - asking myself about absolutes - that is what i was most sure about as truth.  God, nature, family, relationship.

at the end of my inner conversation (actually it was more like a round of intercollegiate debate) there was one question, a fundamental thought that persisted.  it was simply this: "how do i see the world?"

do i look around and see the world as a justification for great cosmic truth?

do i look and wonder as i once did about how other see me and if what we see is just a construct of our mind and not really real?

do i look around and praise God for creation not really knowing what that means?

no, none of those.  i look around and i see a tangible reality - a persistent truth.  that truth is simply - there is existence.  the inescapable reality is that their is a reality, no matter how you slice it or carve it.  there is.

when i wake up in the morning walk outside and look around i see is. nothing more nothing less.   and as i see others, living creatures, a dynamic and complex world that defies my rationality, it hits me.  is, is a good thing.   their is nothing more comforting than to see the world around you and to know that that world does not depend on you.  that without you there still is.

you see, since there is, that means that without my life, that is would still be there - without your life as well.  so in the grand scheme of things, our lives are not essential to is, but rather complementary - that is, in an existence that is, wholly independent from our lives, we are dependent on is, not the other way around.

to answer the question, "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound," is simple.  of course it does, because there is.  with the relational gap shrinking the world into one interconnected circuit of thought and sharing, i am more certain now that there is.  after all, i didn't make up everything on the internet in my own mind, i am not that creative.  yet the information is there, and still is whether i access it or not.

knowing that existence is with or without me is a comfort because within the greater context of is, i, we, don't need to be here.  is doesn't need us.  but here we are - and that is what is amazing about is.  despite the obvious fact that we do not matter to existence, we are still here - this gives us purpose.

whatever the cause of is, it is not us, but caused us to be - in short, is doesn't need us, but since we are here, it is reasonable to think that is surely wants us.

you see, i wake up everyday, look around at everything, read news from around the world, and all that i see is.

and i am blessed and privileged because i know is - and so do you...

before there was, God is.