Doing Documentation

Rilke

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I love this quote.  And this poet.  It matches my life experiences so perfectly.  A couple years ago, as I was walking out of deep grief, the phrase "to let" began to carry much weight for me.  It can sound negative and passive and something you resist at first.  But I realized that much of my pain came from the resisting and once I embraced the accepting I could also be embraced by the peace that was waiting for me there.  And here I am. 
Just keep going.  No feeling is final.

Just gathering sticks.

Happy Day of Gratitude! 
I am here at my mom's house with a set of Minnesotan grandparents, five baby chicks that I'm taking care of over break, and a missing sister (who is spending the afternoon with her boyfriend's family.......).  We have spent the later part of the morning prepping the turkey and casseroles so that we can be ready to give thanks and eat a hearty lunch by 1:30.  After the food was prepped my mom excitedly suggested, "Now let's make the table pretty!"  And so in the spirit of "doing" I grabbed a plastic bag and set out with a sense of tiny adventure and possibility to make a "nature lap" around the house and see what treasures I could find.

Without any kind of finished product in mind I gathered leaves, sticks, sprigs of green and a miraculous, lone feather.  Shrugging off thoughts of What are the neighbors thinking?  and What if I can't make anything beautiful out of these things at all?  Welcoming a sense of nonchalant bravery, softly singing to myself and offering this act as one more step of obedience into walking into His possibilities for me.  After a few failed experiments (an important part of the creativity process, one to hold with ease) here is the finished product.

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Add to the good.

Move

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Do.

That's a heavy word that's been staring me in the face lately.

Do good.  Offer good things.  This very active and moving thing. 

To move would be to create something new, to end up with some kind of product or performance that could then be labeled as "good" or "bad" or "right" or "wrong".

So then there's fear.

But something that's slowly growing in me, becoming stronger then the fear, is sadness, or regret.

A sadness when I think of my dusty violin, my empty sketch pads, songs unsung, words unspoken, my years filled with so many moments of passivity, of seeking safety and comfort as what is "best".

It evokes a mourning of sorts. 

Who I am supposed to BE has been left unfulfilled in so many moments...

To BE.

The best doing comes from being.

That's what I always forget, and why the pressure to "do" builds up into an impossible mountain.

But doing is simply the flowing from the being.

I have ways I see the world that need to be expressed, or something is lost.

And that product does not have to be "good" or "bad", but it will just simply "be"...because it is my reality in that moment.  My own heart's expression.

In community every voice is needed in order to truly be in relationship.

Expression is my calling.  I can do things in my own way, not how I believe it should be done.

It needs to be done in this way.

Of Blood, Death and Mystery

2 years and 2 days ago.

My daddy slipped into the early morning darkness
and was gone.
Only now does it feel easier to write about it.
There has been enough time,
enough revisiting of those places of pain
to now be able to see them and speak of them,
instead of being swallowed up by the enormity of their remembrances.

I was in an armchair
in the corner
in their bedroom.
Rolling and dreaming and watching and waking.
When would the moment arrive?
It was more than apparent that it would be this night.
With each waking moment,
taking note of the the new rhythms of his breath
turning more and more machine-like as the night waned on
As was I becoming, and had been for the entirety of that season.

My aunt, the nurse,
checking his heart rate and softly acknowledging what we already knew.
It had been her birthday, the day before.
But she spent it rolling and dreaming and watching and waking
with us.
Because that's what blood does.
When the waters heave
you bite down hard,
"grin and bear it",
do what you need to do,
get damaged by it all,
become forever changed
and hurt, hurt, hurt
Just to be near them,
and hold their hand
and check their heart beats
and sleep in their corners
and hope that you somehow help to lighten that impossible load
Even if it strips you raw to see it all, you do it.
Because their blood is your blood.

The moment came.

Light as air,
Heavy as dusk.

It is something that my mind still locks away in a cabinet labeled:
"Great Mystery"
There are no words for the normalcy and horrific nature of Death.
It is both ugly beast and natural life progression
that twists and bends to form one strange and mystical creature.
Something I too, will walk through one day.

But today,
life is normal.
And that is crazy.
More than normal...life is good.
Something so easily accepted now,
that felt so impossible then.

And in the Kingdom
Death is not the story most told or felt
for him or for you or for me.
It is one thread of reality
that gets masterfully woven into
one majestic garment worn by every
saint and sparrow,
star and seed,
that must fall down into ground
to grow into Life.

Alleluia
Alleluia
Alleluia and Amen.

Sweet Steps

These days are sweet.

I sense His presence,
His leading
His gentle, guiding hand.

Relearning the power that I hold in me
to speak,
to move,
to affect this place.

Shedding old, anxious layers
whose big bark
has held these hands still for long enough.
It is time.

Time to move,
to create,
to fill spaces with what He's planted in me.

Progressing.
I can't think of a better word than that,
I'm sure there is one.
But that is what this feels like.

Progress.

Patient,
frustrated,
volatile,
humbled,
breathtaking,
burned out
progress.

And I find that I'm so in love with this life.
Thank you, good Father.
With my head pressed to this sweet ground, I thank you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you....