"Why Walk When You Can Fly?"

It's the title to a Mary Chapin Carpenter song that is Master's favorite, and key to understanding an awful lot of what drives our household at the core:

In this world there's a whole lot of trouble, baby.
In this world there's a whole lot of pain.
In this world there's a whole lot of trouble,
But a whole lot of ground to gain.

Why take when you could be giving?
Why watch as the world goes by?
It's a hard enough life to be living,
Why walk when you can fly?

In this world there's a whole lot of sorrow.
In this world there's a whole lot of shame.
In this world there's a whole lot of sorrow,
And a whole lotta ground to gain.

When you spend your whole life wishing,
Wanting and wondering why,
It's a long enough life to be living:
Why walk when you can fly?

In this world there's a whole lot of cold.
In this world there's a whole lot of blame.
In this world you've a soul for a compass,
And a heart for a pair of wings.

There's a star on the far horizon,
Rising bright in an azure sky.
For the rest of the time that you're given,
Why walk when you can fly - high?

Ooooh.
--Mary Chapin Carpenter. --

He's driven by that conviction. Driven by that belief at the very center of who He is... He is the quintessential idealist and believer. Everything He has done, throughout a long life of striving against a system that brutalizes the weakest among us, has been founded on an idealistic, almost innocent, almost childlike BELIEF in the fact that human souls and human hearts can and must soar, that dreams can and do come true if we pursue them with faith and vigor and all the strength we possess. He does not merely use that "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams" bit as a clever tag line. For Him, it is a passionately felt, passionately followed ideal. That ideal sucks up a huge amout of time, energy, effort, power. It consumes Him, and with Him, us.

We're used to it. It is the nature of our lives. What He comes to believe in, shapes our world. Whatever He sees, we come to do, to support with our lives.

There is simply no talking Him out of His visions, His dreams.

The more cautious voices, here, might venture timid questions in the beginning; might offer some thought that perhaps it would be prudent to proceed with a bit of care. Most often though, such "old-lady" tutting gets met with incredulity as our "Don Quixote" wonders why we aren't as enthusiastic about whatever quest He has in mind for us next.

We've learned, T and I, to gather up the brooms, the dustpans, and the first aid kits, and try and keep up. Dashing about after a dreamer -- following in the wake of a sincere believer is exhilerating, if not always tidy. Sometimes believers smash into hard surfaces. Sometimes, however, they fly. When they do, they carry those of us who would be more earthbound with them, and then, oh then, the skies are glorious.

Why walk when you can fly?

swan