20/20 vision

I know that this isn't somthing that is new for anyone, but as I've noticed it is somthing that constantly sneaks up on us, or me in anycase. As humans we have the innate ability to walk our live almost completely backwards. Every once and a while we get to turn around and actually see where we are going, but for the vast majority of the time we walk backwards. We strive to see the future as clearly as we see the past. It is something that all of us are taken by to one degree or another. Whether we just have a little laugh at the comical fortune in our fortuue cookie, seek out the help of a medium or a psychic (though I don't endorse or suggest this), or read the apocalyptic passages or books in our religious texts. The great success of Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins' series based on an interpretation of the Biblical texts of the Revelation of St. John. For centuries we have been desperatly trying to know what our future is. You might say that we are obsessed with it. It permeates our liturature in texts like H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine", or our films like the success of the Terminator trilogy, the Matrix trilogy, or any number of films set in the future.
On a side note, I don't believe that it is possible to truly know the future. I don't believe that mediums who commune with the dead, or psychics who claim to know the future are...for lack of a better term, for real. I think it's all bunk. I believe that the only one who knows our future is God, and he isn't always forth comming with it, except for what we absolutly need to know so that we can be prepared for it. As for the writings of Mr. Lahaye and Mr. jenkins...I don't necissarily believe that that particular interpretation of the Scripture is correct, though it does provide for a good story line. I'm not saying that they are wrong and that I'm right. We both have done research, though they have, I believe, done a good amount more that I have. I have found holes in their theology, and simply cannot except it whole hartedly as my own. If you disagree with me, that's fine, we don't have to believe exactly the same thing.
So we're obsessed with the future, why? I'm starting to believe that we are so obsessed because we can see the past so clearly. As obscured as our future is, our past opens up to us a sense of pattern, chance that wasn't so much chance, and every once and awhile, purpose. This is really my reason for writing late into this night. When we finally sit down and look into our past, if we are truthful, I believe that all of us will see a design to our lives. It's the same with any rug or tapestry ever weaved. If you sit on the strand as it is being woving you will never see you purpose, even when you look around you. You would see the other strands, but nothing makes sense. You look ahead of you, but there is no connection. But turn around and before you opens up a colorful peice of fabric, and suddenly you understand. You can see in what way you fit into the pattern, you see the pattern. We say that we can learn from the past, which implies that at least some of what we know, can be use to protect us from our future, or at least from repeating the our past mistakes.
I was thinking tonight about what this past year has given me, what I've learned, what I've grasped, and the things that still seem to escape me. If you know me at all you know that this time last year and most of the way through the year I would not have said that I wanted to be there or that I thought that I had a reason to be there beyond finishing up my requirments. But as I sat in my brothers car to night I started to realize some of those reasons. If I hadn't come back for a 5th year I would have never gone to New Zealand and spent two of the best weeks of my life with a wonderful group of people that I did not know until this past year. I never would have had my conversations with Cami, my 'freshmen' friend. I never would have met Andrea, a blessing of a women, who it has been my privilage and joy to get to know. Phill and Steph, Phil G., Steve, Stephen, everybody. I've grown in this past year. I've learned to commite to things in such a way that I've never done before. I was able to keep in touch and deepen my relationship with Erica. I learned new things, bettered my grades, and convinced myself of what I can do, and what I'm willing to do anyway. I'm a new man, recreated again and again by the forger and founder who first created me. Every email I send out is stamped with the same lyrics, the last chorus of Bebo Norman's The Hammer Holds, and I think it would be appropriate to stamp it here.
"So dream a little, dream for me in hopes that I'll remain
And cry a little cry for me so I can bear the pain
And hurt a little hurt for me, my future is so bold
But my dreams are not the issue here, for they the hammer hold
This task before me may seem unclear, but it, my Maker holds"
Once again I look back, and at least chose to see the pattern in it. Maybe you don't believe that the pattern is so obvious in your own life, but if you havn't yet turned around maybe you should. The pattern is there. It is there because the designer is there.
A.T.H.