Never tiring of the tests, I become weary of hesitant response.  Must each door be as before, carrying the sweet visions of delayed desire, substance, power and dream.  It would seem that some men will never learn as they yearn and fall for the same snare at each encounter, exclaiming, “what’s this trip wire”, as they gently pull it releasing the red flare.  Must the money dye explode every time in my face as I stop at the red light to look into the bag of goodies I’ve extracted?  Must I be yanked back by my belt as I step in front of the same bus at the same red light as I get out to run?  If there is a record for number of times falling for the same gag in the same manner wearing the same old tired shirt.  I certainly own that shirt.

Show me doors, show me three tunnels, ten tasks, two that are clearly noble in each iteration and I will invariably stumble through all the desperate paradigms prior to being forced in the righteous choice as elimination’s result.  Am I beyond learning, resistant to change, growth, sanctification or transformation?  Or do I have an affinity for emotional trauma as I must request extraction by HQ each time I am ensnarled, embroiled or busted, sitting on a bus smelling like a old satchel?  When then does discernment arrive, how will I recognize it having never met the two of us in passing?  Am I a ship that passes the other ship, always at night, always dismissing foghorn, lighthouse, following blindly after whispering siren, straight upon the rocks each and every journey?

Oh, you say it is good to be upon the rocks, having lost it all, it is perfect positioning for a new round of remaking.  I say that I have had enough.  No more leaping before looking.  No more following my nose or other senses, nor pursuing the desires of heart.  For those have proven wicked at best and down right filthy, evil and untrustworthy at worst.  No, I have found the measure of my success in listening to the voice of God alone.  That is why it has been so important to be trapped in each of these predicaments.  That I might experience, recall and annotate the voices of wonder or endearment that beckon me on to splendor only to leave me wasted, doused, singed and recalcitrant upon the granite steps of my own conditioning.  It’s okay falling down does teach one a certain capacity for rolling to avoid concussion.  Oh, so now he is turning this into a joyful event.  One where the golden kernel of wisdom is extracted, even from tragedy of apparent human ignoramus et ignorabimus.

This folly is the joy of my existence, for it is the mystery of my own malfunction.  A play in which I am cast as the hero, the nerd, the jerk, the soldier, the scientist, the wanderer and the saint.  The joy is I get to wear each of those garbs and experience each life, until of course I find the correct path, upon which I was meant to travel at outset.  Dad always said, “if there is a hard way and an easy way, guess which one of these you are going to choose”?  Thank God that I bounce well and the bruises clear quickly, cause guess who’s gonna bump his head in the same spot on the same low lentil at the same intersection each time he travels this trial?  God has got to have a sense of humor and perhaps he enjoys my vaudevillian comedic ability to push the same button each time as the anvil or piano waits on a fraying rope overhead my position.  Wiley Coyote, super genius, he snickers just before plunging over the same cliff, holding the stick of dynamite from the last 32 episodes.

Some day I will learn, I just hope that I have a whole lot of them left, otherwise there may not be time to get it.  For now, I will look and listen for you, Father.  That is the only thing that seems to allow me chaotic avoidance.  In You I trust, all other things seem to blow up when I unwrap them.  Thank you Jesus for such a hard head.