Imagine you are going to work on a puzzle.
Imagine you do not have the puzzle picture.
Imagine that is your life.
You dump out a bunch of pieces that seem very random. Fitting the edges together is the easiest part--they all have one side that is straight. Except, of course, for those puzzles that try to trick you with inner pieces that also have smooth edges. When you have that kind of puzzle you think a piece is an edge but later it emerges it was just part of a tree, a growing area. Maybe you outline your life, the borders where your days are contained--a career, a country, a people. Within those borders there are still some confusing pieces but at least you can see an outline even if you can't see the big picture.
Sometimes you can even fit pieces together inside without looking at the picture, just as in life some things seem to make sense even when you don't know where all this is going. You get the job you like, you have a good friend, maybe you get married. Those pieces fit, you think you see the big picture and you call it "life" and it seems to be working. You keep pulling pieces in and connecting them to the areas you have built and a picture starts taking shape. The picture of you.
Then suddenly you grab a piece and try as you might you cannot make it fit. There's a little bit of blue but the blue you thought it would match when you first saw it is different as it comes closer to your puzzle. Why did you lose that job you loved? Why did that dear friend say those hurtful things? Why did that guy dump you? Why did your child die? Just as trying to force a piece into the wrong spot, things that don't fit your picture of life jarring ruin the jigsaw you are assembling.
A pile of random puzzle pieces illustrates nothing. Until you put them all together. Until the end of the puzzle you cannot see the whole picture--at least, not unless you had the picture in the first place (which, of course, is the usual way to assemble puzzles). Life makes sense in reverse. Life makes sense when you see the big picture.
Imagine you are here for a purpose.
Imagine you can know the big picture.
Imagine this is your life
A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.
~ GK Chesterton
Imagine you do not have the puzzle picture.
Imagine that is your life.
You dump out a bunch of pieces that seem very random. Fitting the edges together is the easiest part--they all have one side that is straight. Except, of course, for those puzzles that try to trick you with inner pieces that also have smooth edges. When you have that kind of puzzle you think a piece is an edge but later it emerges it was just part of a tree, a growing area. Maybe you outline your life, the borders where your days are contained--a career, a country, a people. Within those borders there are still some confusing pieces but at least you can see an outline even if you can't see the big picture.
Sometimes you can even fit pieces together inside without looking at the picture, just as in life some things seem to make sense even when you don't know where all this is going. You get the job you like, you have a good friend, maybe you get married. Those pieces fit, you think you see the big picture and you call it "life" and it seems to be working. You keep pulling pieces in and connecting them to the areas you have built and a picture starts taking shape. The picture of you.
Then suddenly you grab a piece and try as you might you cannot make it fit. There's a little bit of blue but the blue you thought it would match when you first saw it is different as it comes closer to your puzzle. Why did you lose that job you loved? Why did that dear friend say those hurtful things? Why did that guy dump you? Why did your child die? Just as trying to force a piece into the wrong spot, things that don't fit your picture of life jarring ruin the jigsaw you are assembling.
A pile of random puzzle pieces illustrates nothing. Until you put them all together. Until the end of the puzzle you cannot see the whole picture--at least, not unless you had the picture in the first place (which, of course, is the usual way to assemble puzzles). Life makes sense in reverse. Life makes sense when you see the big picture.
Imagine you are here for a purpose.
Imagine you can know the big picture.
Imagine this is your life
A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.
~ GK Chesterton
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