How I wish it were possible to transcend time ' that I might simply reach back and pull myself into the past. Now, of course I realize the past is highly romanticized, that nostalgia develops from the glorification of simpler times ' but weren't they just marvelous? Perhaps the grass isn't greener on the other side of the fence; it just used to grow greener in general. Alas, it's out of reach, at least for us.
Suppose you looked at time from the Lord's perspective; He's not governed by time, since He created it, after all! Thus, all time, every human life, and the interconnection of everyone's lives ' it's all before Him at once. This is fascinating to me. He sees me now, as I am (incomplete), the adult me (still incomplete), and me after I die and go to heaven and He makes me perfect and complete ' all at the same time. He sees me as a child, too. And, zooming out from my insignificantly small life, He knows everyone who ever lived, lives, and will live and loves and knows and listens to and speaks to and thinks about each one of them all at once!! Whoa. I would have trouble with that level of multitasking.
Native Americans are so intriguing to me. I suspect it is because I live in America. There is something about the people who hundreds, even thousands of years ago stood on the land you are standing on. I go behind my house, looking at my yard and far and near to the surrounding hills and fields and trees, wondering if it all looked the same so long ago. I'm sure a lot of things have changed, but it is still the same place. People, Native Americans, lived here. They may have walked where I walk, lived near where I live. Grown up, learned, taught, fought, found love, started families, grown old, all right here. I imagine girls my very age, real and breathing, seeing the same sights that I see. Someone I could have met and made friends with. Why, I could have been born in that time. There are some modern inventions and customs I am painfully grateful for, but other things I feel wistful to have missed. The past seems like a more innocent time to have lived in. There are a whole lot of evils in today's society. And yet, things haven't changed nearly as much as most are prone to think. Temptations are the same; sins the same in principal; wrong attitudes, abuses, and sickness were all there. But so were other things, I imagine ' going through the different stages of growing up, being shy and awkward around the opposite gender after hitting the teens, your mom, dad, and siblings, having pets, doing chores, friendship, making choices of right or wrong, the weird person in the fourth teepee down who's a couple acorns short of grinding hole. But God chose to put me where I am, and I am thankful for it ' though there isn't much I could do if I were disposed to pout, anyway.
Antique items are lovely too ' I love going to antique stores to gaze at and caress all the remnants of the past. Old stuff is just always cooler, there's no getting around it. And yet physical things, at least things made by human hands, can only last so long. That's why earth is the ultimate antique. Beyond the physical, the institutions of the world ' the doings of people that repeat throughout history, the age-old habits and instincts of animals ' these things too I love. Nevertheless, I love to be able to touch and see old things, or touch and see new, living things, knowing that they are directly descended from the very originals formed by the Creator's hand.
There is something deep and mysterious about the past; it's a feeling I get from varied sources. It is similar to the feeling I used to get from looking into a mirror in my parents' room as a child and imagining if I had never been born, trying to imagine nonexistence. Or perhaps more like looking into the night sky with its ancient moon and stars, preferably when there are no clouds or surrounding buildings or trees to block my view. And really, all sorts of grand, colossal, and magnificent displays of nature inspire it, too. The feeling is of being exceedingly small and insignificant, but not in a negative way. Not a feeling that there is nothing out there and I am meaningless, but a feeling that there is something, Someone, much bigger than myself; Someone who made those wonders of nature; Someone who didn't have to, but did, go to the trouble to make me, and has a purpose for me. It's the right perspective to have, I think.
Of course, I really don't expect everyone, or even anyone, to get what I'm saying. Feelings and meditations from a person's inmost being are so very private, individual, and unattainable to the acutest degree by anyone besides them self and the One who made them, that I don't believe it is possible to express them with mere words. Storytelling is an incomplete art; stories tell of events and the actions, words, and thoughts of characters, but cannot truly communicate the characters' deepest personal experiences, though there are some very good storytellers out there. A reader has to have a bank of their own experiences to draw from, to compare what they are told is happening and how the characters are feeling to how they would feel were those things happening to them, and their own experiences of those feelings. That's why stories mean different things to different people; its incompletion leaves it very much open to interpretation. But that is not at all bad; I think it's one of the greatest charms of stories. It's just frustrating when you're trying to get people to understand your epiphanies! As it is, I'll leave it to you all to try to figure out what I'm talking about. Go on, try and find something that gives you a glimpse of eternity.