Chances are, you can’t remember the first beautiful stranger that ever caught your eye, and you probably can’t remember the one that parted seas of people during rush hour traffic yesterday evening, either. The outwardly attractive stranger is like a well placed adjective—they grab your attention and flutter your mind, but only for a moment. Used improperly or in overabundance, descriptive words get skimmed over, the reader never catching your intended impact as they scan the page for words of relevancy and importance. The problem with adjectives is that they have short life spans. Adjectives are like the fashion industry and pop musicians. They have to get noisier each day just to hold us. An adjective-based performer’s only real intention is to catch our eye for a time then walk away with fat wads of cash oozing out of their pockets.

The opposite of adjective-based writing is verb-based. The difference between the two is that verb-based writing implies and instigates action. Verbs speak of movement, and movement is the aromatic allure that holds the reader’s nose to the ink. While adjectives add fluff and pomp to our stories, movement causes the reader to sit up and pay attention. Movement is what our hearts desire and revere. We want to know exactly how the character caught hold of a passion in his own soul and thus instigated change, action and movement in those around him. Our eyes and minds are naturally drawn to verbs. That adjective-based, beauty blip that caught your eye from across the street is forgettable indeed in comparison to the verb-based stranger who walks up, looks you in the eye, kisses your cheek, and begins a hearty conversation full of vigor and confidence with you, a complete stranger. Adjectives are used to clothe us and take us on beach vacations. Verbs are meant to rile us up and push us on our journey.

We have a choice. We can either live adjective-based or verb-based lives. We will be defined as one or the other. We will either spend our days attempting to catch the eyes and attention of others for momentary gain and satisfaction, or we will spend our days building movements with those who care about the story we attempt to write and share. The choice is ours.

I am unsettled.

A certain restlessness stirs in me as I sit drinking hot tea within the confines of my apartment.  It’s 3am.  I can’t sleep.  I’m drowsy but wide awake.  I’m ready but unable to move.  I’m knowing but not quite enough.  I’m energized with nothing to accomplish.  It’s quiet but I’m having a hard time listening.  I simply sit.  And wait.  My head and heart compete for attention like blood thirsty rivals who chose long ago to live in the same house.  I can feel them quietly stealing from one another like enemy ants rapidly scurrying back and forth between where my brain and heart reside, carrying away stolen bits and pieces of each others homes in order to grow their personal mounds of accumulation.  The space between, the gap, the trenches now worn and filled with black ants and red, taking from each other in order to build their kingdoms within the borders of my restless flesh and bones.  The red take from the black and the black from the red.  They meet somewhere in the middle with crooked, evil smiles and rushed antenna nods in attempt to disguise the identity of their stolen property, quickly continuing on their way.  I can feel each of their hinged legs lightly touching down as they scamper back and forth along my spine trying desperately to store up enough of what the other has before the long, cold winter comes and there’s no more time to steal, no more time to store up, no more time to scurry about.  The trading of assets between my heart and my head leaves me unsettled as valuable pieces of who I once claimed to be are exchanged between colonies, each constantly hoping for a permanent place of rest and purpose.

Taken aback.

People tend to look at you strangely when you tell them these things.  When they ask you how you are, and you respond, “Honestly, unsettled.”  They tend to hasten their eyes, crumple their noses, and furrow their brows in deep, agonizing inquisition as to the nature and extent of your current, verbalized status update.  They take a step back, look a little closer, and internally begin to wrestle with your response as if something has genuinely upset them, thrown them off kilter, and caused them to question their own personalized form of sanity.  Unsettled.  Uneasy.  Uncomfortable with the way things are.  Unbalanced according to which ants worked harder the evening before.  Uneasiness breeds uneasiness.  It spreads from person to person until the entire room is declaring, “Party over!”  Uneasiness is rude like spending cocktail hour drinking a heavy pint of black brew instead of the routine, well-dressed, pink martini.  Uneasiness spreads until the tuxes and ballroom gowns are equally upset, and together we’re blown from one corner of the room to the next like fallen leaves pushed about by an eternal, unseen breeze.  Inwardly fallen leaves temporarily accepting of this identity because outwardly we’re clothed in bright yellow, burnt orange, red, and deep purple facades of seemingly esteemed perfection.  Outwardly beautiful, yet inwardly already dead, already detached from our source of life–wasting away–tossed about from one corner to the next not knowing where we’ll land and what our purpose will be when and if we ever do.  Unsettled.  People give me funny looks when I tell them I’m unsettled.  Like I need roots.  Like I need to settle down and settle in.  Like I need therapy.  Like I need to sit down and talk to someone.  Someone.  Someone who deals with people who are unsettled.  People who don’t have it all figured out.

Figure it out.

So I pretend to have it all figured out.  Wake up, kiss wife goodbye, go to work, clock out, get paid, come home, play with kids, brush teeth, go to bed.  Check, check, check, and check.  I live a checklist life so people can’t see my cracks.  I apply male cosmetics otherwise known as differing shades of pride and walk about the earth wearing well polished armor and mask to conceal the scars.  It’s acceptable.  “Pride is acceptable,” I convince myself.  I whiten my teeth, clean my car, press my suit, style my hair, go to church on Sunday morning, watch football, and cut my weedless grass.  Look at me and my neatly trimmed, dark green yard with white picket fence providing just enough buffer between me and the rest of the world.   I’ve got it all figured out.  I’ve got it all figured out until my clean, unsuspecting world starts to tremble and shift as the incomplete foundation of my heart, stolen away over time by nimble ants and embedded arrogance, can no longer stand on its own.  My kingdom’s buildings collapse upon me, and before I have time to reorganize and cushion my fall I find myself buried beneath the rubble, surrounded by people I ignored, fenced myself in from, and passed each day now screaming out in agonizing pain, dying beneath me as the residual debris from my former kingdom buries them alive, unable to move, unable to shift their heads, unable to breathe, unable to lift the concrete slabs off of themselves, unable to make sense of the chaos trapping them in the darkness.  I can hear them shouting for Jesus as their lives are slowly, helplessly drown out by the shadows of night and lack of hope for morning.  Their souls escape through the cracks and crevices left between the bricks and metal compressing their physical bodies as their voices are silenced once more, and their flesh is pushed to the grave.

If Jesus came by.

I’m an unsettled recluse in this life.  I hide my uneasiness behind a molded smile, crisp, green pieces of government issued paper, and social charity work for the so called poor.  I used to think that once certain decisions were made life would start to even out.  The storm would become calm.  The waves would stop sweeping over the boat and the wind would simply stop blowing.  The ants would start getting along and the leaves would slowly fall to the ground in graceful, easy, comfort.  I thought peace meant an absence of storms, an absence of uneasiness.  I used to think if Jesus came by my booth I would leave my pitiful tax collecting and simply follow Him.  No more crying out, “Save me!  I’m going to drown!”  No more being unsettled.

I’ll airbrush my way to freedom.

I’m unsettled by the tumultuous battle occurring between my desperate heart longing for something more and my stable, smart brain that implores me to stay on the steady, wide path.  The battle between actually living faithfully and just living with the knowledge of faith permeates to the core of who I am and constantly presses me to the fringes of uneasiness.  Uneasiness.  Suppressing uneasiness is easy.  Choose to ignore the war, and no one ever really dies.  Airbrush over my red, raised, pus brimming flaws and fill in my deep, jagged cracks.  I have it all figured out.  I will airbrush my way onto magazine covers and freedom.  I will ignore the ants and pretend as though my kingdom never fell.  I will live in constant admiration of the outer beauty I’ve managed to create, refine, and constantly update throughout my life.  People will neither hate me nor love me.  They will simply be lost with me somewhere in the in-between.  In the safety of the surface.  In the comfort of the fumes being released from the airbrush.  I will breathe them in.  Maybe kill a few ants.  Maybe sustain my kingdom for another day.  I will destroy my uneasiness and declare to the rest of the world that this Christian has it all figured out, and if you don’t than you need some of what I’ve got.

Unsettled behind the mask.

The perfect facade.  The best disguise money can buy.  The best flaw-covering foundation organic chemists ever produced.  Mask your blemishes and conceal your mistakes.  Let’s put our best face forward, uneasy as it may be.  Uneasy.  I’m uneasy.  I’m unsettled.  It’s 4 am.  I can’t sleep tonight.  My mask is in need of attention.  I’m starting to bleed through the cracks.  Dark red blood turning violet blue, staining my tan colored clay.  I’ll do some repair work in the morning.  Or maybe not.  Maybe I’ll peel away the putty and simply let the reality of who I am be the reality of who I am.  Maybe I’ll stop hiding.  Stop pretending.  Stop pretending that I have it all figured out. 

I don’t believe me.  I don’t believe the man in the mirror with clay and glue dripping from his face.  I don’t recognize me behind the mask.  I can’t sleep tonight.  My mask is putty in my trembling hands.  They’re covered in it.  Sticky, wet, warm, gray putty oozing through my finger tips, splashing on the floor beneath me.  I’m unsettled.  And I’m okay.

Those completely devoted to veritably loving others desperately plea and fervently grapple with the innermost limits of their hearts enduring strength to not rest until their neighbors, friends and adversaries alike are all joyfully apprehended by love, encouraged by kindness and blanketed with compassion.  The truly devoted know and deeply understand that there is no greater passion, no greater calling, no worthier a quest, than to genuinely and wholeheartedly love those who move, laugh, cry, sing and live all around them every moment of every day.

In loving one another we surely choose to welcome each others joyful experiences as well as our painful, uncomfortable ones; willingly accepting the weight of certain tragedy into our lives, bearing each others burdens and sorrows together.  Whether it be through tears or laughter is of no consequence for there is no more fulfilling a commitment to be made, and nothing gained or accumulated in a single lifetime, or in many, could ever surpass the lasting satisfaction that comes from a life totally centered upon and wholly surrendered to loving others regardless of any harsh, prefabricated dividing lines or boundaries which have subtly infiltrated our lives through a pervasive, influential and seemingly overwhelming culture bent on tilting us toward selfishness, cut-throat competition, and over consumption.

Sincerely loving people is the greatest and foremost calling we have on our lives.  If we fail to love, than we have failed at everything.  If we gain the entire world–obtain riches beyond imagination, acquire power above all other rulers, give everything we have to the poor, win the favor of multitudes, rid the world of poverty, provide clean drinking water to the thirsty, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, educate the uneducated, heal the sick, become famous–yet we have not nor have we ever shown true love, than we have gained nothing and sacrificed everything.  To love, regardless of anything, is the greatest opportunity we will ever know.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.  –I Corinthians 13:1-3

Cultivating a lifestyle of love in a world consumed by noise is not just a good way of living, it is the only way to ever truly live.  Without love, life is but a fragment of what it was designed to be.  All other pursuits are fleeting, here today and gone tomorrow, worthless in the face of eternity and the lasting remembrance of those whom you had the opportunity to impact with love but chose instead to pursue self serving ambition and dream.

How much longer will we conceal our love?  For how much longer will we encapsulate our hearts, hiding our love away, saving it only for those whom we know will love us in return?  We look the other way.  We quiet our voices to a whisper.  We shun the needs of others, and we cast away those who so desperately long for our attention and care.  If we gain the entire world, yet we forfeit our souls, hold too tightly to our love, than we have lost everything.  In this life, to gain or to lose, if it be without love, is merely an illusion, a trickery of the senses meant to shield us from freedom and disguise the needs of others as illegitimate.  If they be outside of love, put down your petty pursuits and start anew.  Begin a journey of freely loving others with all that you are and all that you have been given, for in the end nothing else will matter.

Yeah, if it doesn’t break your heart it isn’t love
Now if it doesn’t break your heart it’s not enough
It’s when you’re breaking down with your insides coming out
It’s when you find out what your heart is made up of

– Switchfoot, Hello Hurricane, Yet

It is difficult to fully comprehend just how dedicated we are to someone until something radical occurs in relationship to them.  The radical relationship breakdown usually involves some level of inner restlessness simultaneously accompanied by movement toward a point of firm decisiveness.   The decision, many times, is between following someone or something wholeheartedly–truly committing to the journey–or, slowly backing away, severing ties in silence.  It’s in these moments of breakdown that we come to an unequivocal understanding of just how meaningful or not that one persons life or thing is to our own.  We tend to see most clearly in the breakdown, when all else fades into the background and the truly important within a defined moment stands up and makes its presence known.  In the midst of challenging transition, we either cut through the clutter, or the clutter cuts through us.

When something so significant transpires that your heart unmistakably breaks in response, then you know, despite every other surrounding distraction or desire, that your life will never again be the same.  It is during the initial moving of our hearts that sincere, lasting transition takes place, starting within the inner most portion of our minds, moving graciously outward, striking through layers of self-composed identity, transforming our entire lives into something new.  It is within this state of transformation where freedom, overwhelming peace, and genuine joy are discovered.   It is during these moments of breakdown that we begin to see our lives through a more earnest lens, honestly begging ourselves for the answers to the most demanding questions we’ve been ignoring for so long.  Within the breakdown, we are capable of better differentiating between what is genuinely valuable and that which is simply not.

We seek a beautiful breakdown.  We long for a transition in thinking away from thoughts consumed with the feverish satisfaction of our own wants and desires by way of accumulation and self-service into a life defined by a genuine, passionate pursuit of something greater than what our current, self-imposed routine has to offer.  We seek a heartfelt breakdown; a shifting and bending of our hearts toward Love.  We long to live lives founded upon and consumed by love, to run freely forward completely at peace, canvased by grace and mercy.   We seek a breakdown of commonality, no longer to be defined as lukewarm, content to blend in and slip away into the comfortable, quiet reverie that is complacent mediocrity.

To seek a beautiful, captivating breakdown is to chase after something bigger than anything we can ever be on our own.  It requires self sacrifice, an attitude of surrender, and a world-view founded upon the idea that if I have I will give and if I have not I will still give.  The relevancy of the message is that within the breakdown, within the stripping away of everything that hinders us from seeing clearly–undivided by selfish pursuit–there results the common factor of love which binds us all together.

Despite the breakdown, the personal struggle, the hardship, the internal wrestling with what genuine generosity looks like, despite it all, nothing can eliminate or outweigh the love we show and have for one another.  When all else is stripped away, and there is nothing left to lean on, nothing else to run to, love will remain.  Love conquers the deepest of all breakdowns.  It reaches in, heals, and sets us free.  When every other distraction is dispersed, love still remains.  In the end, how we respond to the core issue of love is what will matter the most.  As my friend Aaron likes to ask, “Are you using your stuff to love more people, or are you using people to get more stuff?”  A strong dedication to love is a commitment capable of sustaining us through any breakdown.  In the end, after the storms of life have passed, after everything of lesser importance has left the conversation, when we are satisfied in a state of beautiful transition, nothing else will be significant outside of authentic, vibrant love.