Choose Your Own Adventure

Choose Your Own Adventure

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I used to love a series of books called Choose Your Own Adventure. In these books, you  went from completely passive reader to active participant in your own story. Well, sort of. You’d come to a decision on page 13. You come to a hallway with a creepy door at the end of it. If you proceed down the hall and enter the creepy room, turn to page 26. If you decide to be a weenie and stay at the end of the hall, turn to page 14.

Whenever I’m at Goodwill or any other used bookstore, I always look for any of the books in this series. So far, no luck.

Life is like that.

So many of us see the days in a week as merely exercises in existence, something to get through until the weekend arrives. Then we look back at our lives and wonder why they seem for the most part to be empty and vacuous.

What if you viewed each day of your life as a brand new adventure? Not in the sense of zoning out of reality and living in a fantasy world, but seeing the challenges and obstacles as opportunities to grow and learn.

Each day you get to choose to be a passive observer or an active participant in your own life. You can mark time until 5 pm, or you can see even the most menial of tasks as holy and sacred as unto the Lord and see everything as an spiritual act of worship (see Romans 12:1-2). That’s the choice you get each morning.

So what will you do with this great and amazing gift called life? If life is the grand play and you may contribute a verse (as Walt Whitman and Robin Williams put it), what will your verse be?

“I’m going to live my life inspired
Look for the holy in the common place
Open the windows and feel all that’s honest and real until I’m truly amazed
I’m going to feel all my emotions
I’m going to look you in the eyes
I’m going to listen and hear until it’s finally clear and it changes our lives

There are so many ways to hide
There are so many ways not to feel
There are so many ways to deny what is real

And I just showed up for my own life
And I’m standing here taking it in and it sure looks bright” (Sara Groves).

Revisiting My Own Past

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Recently, I discovered an old favorite band of mine that I hadn’t thought about in a while. You’ve most likely never heard of the band, since they were a late 70’s jazz fusion band. You most likely have heard of their drummer, an English chap who goes by the name of Phil Collins.

Anyway, back in the day I owned a cassette compilation of some of their most well-known compositions. I’m fairly certain I picked it up in the discount section at either The Sound Shop or Camelot Music in the Hickory Ridge Mall, probably just before heading to the food court for some pizza from Sbarro’s.

A few weeks back at McKay’s Used Books (and everything else you can think of), I had enough trade credit for four of their CDs among some of my other noteworthy finds.

It’s interesting how much more I appreciate their ridiculous musicianship than I did way back when. Of course, back then I really dug groups like Wham! and Club Nouveau. Don’t hold that against me. My musical tastes have definitely matured a lot since those days.

Also, I’ve been reminiscing about a great series of books I used to read as a wee younger lad. I believe they were called Choose Your Own Adventure. In them, you would read for a few pages before being presented with a list of choices, a la if you enter the dark and scary hallway, turn to page 94, but if you elect to stay in the kitchen and make yourself a PB&J, turn to page 108. I loved those books.

So my next quest is to find at least one of those books. I’m checking out the usual places– the library castoff section, Goodwill, McKay’s, and amazon.com, but so far no luck.

So far, I’m batting .500, which for me is a win.