Older

As I have gotten older
I have found I don’t have the same filter
As I used to

I say what I am thinking
A lot more without thinking
About whether I should or I shouldn’t
Say the thought out loud.

I saw ocean and the cliffs
And the waves and the clouds
All coming into view
Off the coast of Cabrera
And I said out loud
Wow
Before I even thought
To only think it

I was away from the news
For a few days
And when I got back to it
I said out loud
Oh God
Like Captain Steve Rogers,
Right after that Thanos snap
When before,
I would have bottled it
Absorbed it
Reflected
Breathed
Processed,
Then proceeded if appropriate
To vocally express
My reaction to the brokenness
Of this world

I have gotten older…
And I am feeling like I am feeling more,
Like there is a well of feeling that has gone deeper,
But equally brings pressure
to get the things of greater quality
And substance out faster
So that efficiency of emotion
has increased with age
As perhaps efficiency
of the body
has not

Like youthful lust in its season
stirs up the brain into sudden flame
Setting acres ablaze
Like a wildfire out west
It has an effect
But you cannot cook with it
Cannot boil water over it for ramen
You cannot use it for making s’mores
Or sober confessions
Or offering atonements
Or forgiving wrongs
Or building community in slow dancing shadow
Or finding home away from home
For the first time
And incarnating
Some holy beautiful facets of
The Tent of Meeting locally
And beginning to understand
Experientially how it works
For future reference
Though on that Great Day
It won’t be needed

For then there will be
A more aged and timeless love

But it is ironic, perhaps,
Because so many of our feelings
It seems are rigged
We can’t measure love
But we are finding in our science
As veiled and in process as it is
that there is this
Combination of chemicals
Oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine a few
That work in the process of bonding
Biology emotions and energies producing
A feeling of love if the elements are right
Or if the right elements are right there
And I’m starting to wonder
As I get older
If these biological signifiers
Are pictures of deeper spiritual truths
If in the beginning there was this cosmic
Hit of something sublime
That absolutely blew the mind
of the Divine
To create this bonding
In faith hope and love
to one day fallen
and one day broken
and one day bought back
By incarnation and
divine breaking
humanity
Through a fanned up
wild and eternal and youthful flame
That burned into prominence in His nature
Intertwined in that DNA Divine
That in our concept of time we could describe
As perhaps, having grown even deeper
Quote unquote maturing to a new level
Within the ages though He transcends all seconds
So that, there is a groaning
And a sighing
And a wondering at His wondering after us
As our concept of time goes by
And He exclaims more in exultation
When we resist the devil and there is fleeing
And He weeps harder for us
when we weep
than when we weep for ourselves
And among a cloud of cheering witnesses
His voice is the loudest when we choose life

Life…
Eternal, knowing Him and the One He sent
Life, feeling, and becoming more like Him
In a way that my mind seems to grasp as older
Feeling deeper as we grow into
having been feeling longer
And in that feeling longer
feeling even more
feeling than when
the feeling first was felt
Filters removing
As we move closer
For that finally face to face
That 1 John 3 hints at
I can only imagine the anticipation of
This young and old eternal timeless God
At us becoming what we were always meant to be
Deep feeling, expressive, exclaiming icons
Of Holy and set apart beings
Being filled more and more
With the feelings of life
and love
And lament and grief at evil
and joy at redemption and faithfulness
and truth
and hope
and life

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Ty Brasel “4 The Stars” ft J. Monty