A Reconciling

I unfold in you.
You.
Who is burning like fire
and sweetness like honey.

I release every unreconciled part of me
into Your mysterious hand.
How can I know what you've done?
You.
Wrapped in death and blood
crowned with Love and light.

You gather every strange part of myself
under the shelter of I AM.

I submit to this act
of un-hiding my strangeness.
You see and You know--
There is no hiddenness.

And I sense that rebellion
is maybe more of just an unwillingness
to let my Every Part be loved.

So I open everyday to
You.

Flowy is my new fav.

Thanks to musings in femininity. I really love the silhouettes of these skirts.

Something feminine is wanting to bust out of me lately. This season I've found myself surrendering to strange new urges of flowery classical music, baking for.the.fun.of.it(?!), watching and re-watching Jane Austen movies and deciding to grow my hair out just so I can braid it romantically down my back. Apparently I'm a female.

Sigh.

Chapter 6

Quaking
like Isaiah, as understanding was birthed of his tiny-ness
after glimpsing one royal hem that had filled the Temple that day.

He knew,
like I sometimes know.
And so we know together,
that we are so so far.

And still,
that same robed King finds ways to bring us so so close.
Maybe like touching hot coals on sad lips. He makes ways for us.

Mysterious,
though they are.

So much, So much

So many things

Driving home I see
Prophetic sceneries
of softly clothed branches
raised up
next to bare-skinned wooden ones
that speak of their fate
just as
old men speak to young.

So many things.
Things--
all around and everywhere.

The day is done
and emotion protrudes out heavily
--always at this same time of day,
just as I am returning home.

And I decide
this emotion is a prayer,
just by simply letting it find its place
within the One
and it is heard.

And always then
So much, so much--

So much romance fills me up
and I sense that
He feels proud and strong
of my little-girl-trust.

He's in love with me
!
and So Much Love
poured into So Much Pain
makes me tender and soft
again and again.

Crazy Bones

Not My Own

There's a sadness I feel that I own.
An ache that becomes me.
But today
in a silent stained-glass glow
I unraveled with Job.
Laid down my fight
and together we confessed,

I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me,
which I did not know.

And the honesty of that ignorance
made that moment ripen into a sweetness
that completed this day, like a circle.

Things are changing.
...Times they are a-changin'...
But this new autumn air
still washes up the old.
Memories of one year ago
and all of its unbearable anxiety
and all of my clawing at the eyes of the inevitable.

But this evening there's a song being sung
by my Family
next door to my room.
And how can I not embrace the beauty of now
with simple acts of worship like that
touching my very own Walls?
And I smile for today
and for what's to come
and for the achingly sweet beauty all around me.

This perpetual sadness is not me.
Only a coat that I need to slip in and out of
every once in a while.
But I have known it long enough
And these days
the word happiness has been sitting very well with me.

To Let

You let me cry today.
You let me lay my head down and
cry for all of it.
You let me lay down
and be sad
and sorry
for losing it all.
You allowed me to not know my way.
You have let me be
that stained bride.
You let me say "not yet"
and tread in these shallow waters
And You are not alarmed by me
at all.

Sorting Through

Stones.
Using my whole heart feels hard.
I don't do much of that
because everything always feels so damn big.
So I dabble here
and there
and try to unbelieve that everything matters
so damn much.

Stones.
I laugh at what I used to love
And wonder,
wonder,
wonder
What I will become
when all the false truths of change
Settle back down to ground.

Stones.
I don't know much about much
But there's a chorus of crickets
outside of my window tonight
Singing steady,
steady,
steady.

This song

...makes me want to worship. Enjoy.

Remind Me Again

10.31.09

"Stand up straight and tall
under the strength of My love
and the shadow of My wing.
Nothing is too dark for Me.
Feed on My faithfulness.
Stand up strong in the authority
that I have given you.
I have seen you all along.
I will see you through this."

Open Handed

Even if...
...my hopes never come to pass,
...it's just a lesson in learning to enjoy but not possess,
...you say no.
Help me to agree with You.

So that my conscience may be true before You
and that my hungry flesh
can learn to want for no more than You.

The lamp to all feet
directs the steps
of those who fear Him.

It is not within me to listen and obey but
You are enough
You are enough
You are enough
for the faint of heart.

Did you know...

...that even dark is light, in Him?

I have recently begun drinking in deep gulps of healing, and it has been so sweet. It began on 04/14/10 at an appointment that I had spent all day trying to figure out how to cancel. I walked in, emotionally limping, like a wounded-winged bird. I sat down, all knotted up and defensive, not wanting to talk about what I knew needed to be talked about. Protecting the pain.

But as I began, we invited Jesus to walk right along with me. It had been the slightest of invitations and yet, he appeared and led me through it all, just as he promised he would. Granting grace and then freedom in response to heavy confessions. Granting a Forever perspective in even those most tender places. Fresh eyes for old carved out idols of pain.

He taught my eyes how to see. Peering back into those haunted places I saw not a dying, but an opening. I saw not a defeat, but an earning. I drank it in and then sat in His glow, rosy cheeked and breathing in brand new breaths of freedom. We both noticed a visible difference. The Wooer of all Hearts had captivated mine.

You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride;
you have stolen my heart
with one glance of your eyes

Not only that, but He is connecting me to a beautiful group of people, a family, and it brings such a lightness to my heart. Over and over again, He allows His love to wash me clean. The kind of love that softens your gaze towards all things. The kind of love that's only expressed in the language of breezes and branches and bare shoulders.
Extravagance at its best
Beauty for ashes, indeed.

Amen and amen.

Human Thing

02.17.08

The softness of the forehead
of the one
that accepts her Father’s tender words about her.

Regaining dignity that was lost
in fragments throughout the day.

Remembering to walk in a full kind of humanity,
and seeing it equally reflected in the faces of those around her.

It’s a human thing:
Wondering. Reaching. Straining.

My tiny hands.
Grasping at what they could possibly know.
Receiving gratefully.

My small feet.
Finding space on this earth
to walk in their own kind of way.

All limbs reflecting their Source.
Seeking out movements that rest between effort and ease.

It is Your voice that haunts
the dark places of my insides into light.

It is You who grants all movement.

And so…
I seek You.

Knowing Trouble

Lately,

I have been remembering a time of learning,

in a desk

in a classroom

in a college.

It was a favorite professor that day

who looked at his young students

to say,

Trouble will come to you. I promise.

In your lifetime you will see it.

You will not finish life without it.

I thought and thought

two different thoughts.

One of starry-eyed disbelief:

My life is calm and steady.

I'm sure I will live out my days

in no big ups or downs

and be happy forever and always.

And another of hopeless horror:
What terrible thing will happen to me?

When? Will the pain be forever?

How terrible will it be?

And in my mind now I see that student

who both doubted and feared

the pains of living

and could only carry on in

a known temporary happiness

And all the while

secretly bracing for impact.

And now years later,
I find in myself

a different kind of a learning.

Not of

desks or

classrooms or

colleges.

But as one tiny student

whose eyes have gained just a little

of this unwanted wisdom.

Trouble comes and

people want to say,

"Poor him," or

"Poor you,"

but right or wrong

I can't help but think:

You are not immune to this sort of thing.

Trouble comes.

It just does.

And it feels like fire in your skin

and it won't let you sleep

or eat

or breathe

And your body shakes at night

and you lose all of your words

and thoughts

and the ability to walk about in the world.

But I must say,

there is something about fire.

Something about the heat,

the intensity,

the relentlessness of it

that feels very, very necessary.

I'm reminded of how

babies are birthed,

and how pearls come to exist,

each in distress,

but all the while being navigated

by the complete naturalness of it all.

He knows.

He knows.

He knows it all very, very well.

And once the fire has given its all ,

and something physical

has been changed or destroyed,

then we come out to view the ashes.

We come out of hiding,

Shedding those rigid layers we

had believed we needed to endure.

And we see, yes there were things here before

that are not here now.

Yes, something very terrible has happened.

But, here I stand.

Here I stand.

I did not die from the pain.

And what did die away has been taken care of

by one strong and gentle Savior

who covered the work of even the worst of fires

on a cross

on a hill

so that our unconquerable parts

might know peace forever and ever

and ever.

Tired

I want to be good
and strong
and humble.
I wish I was okay
with the hurt
and never chose
distractions
over hearing His voice.
I want to be obedient
and healthy
and trusting.
Just not today
and maybe not tomorrow.

Someday.

Rock of Ages

There are memories I have, so visceral and painful, that have etched themselves so deeply in my heart that I know their remembrances will never go far from me. When I think of the visual representation of it I see a land wide with rock and, without any permission given by me, a chisel ravaged that land with deep trenches. This was not our asking. It was a violent and vicious attack that has left us changed forever.
In the process, someone was stolen from us and we are left in his absence to try and wrap our minds around having just witnessed the ugly progression of life turning into death. In reality, my mind gets it. In my mind I know that we are all going to die one day, that physical life always ends in death, and that disease is not always survivable. I understand these things with my mind. But my heart...my heart screams, "WHAT?" My heart stops me in the middle of my daily tasks and thinks, "Wait, what just happened here?" My heart silently wonders, "He's really gone?"
There is something inconceivable about it all and because I am tiny and human, my heart can only contain so much of it at once. So when one layer gets worked through, another layer appears to remind me of the reality of it all over again. And I sit, bewildered in those trenches that have been dug in my heart, just as if they are places I've never seen before.

BUT...

I also know that deep calls to deep. Where deep trenches have been dug, there also lies the potential for deep waters of healing to be invited in, causing dry earth to be watered and new buds to spring to life. Where ashes sit in heaps, therein lies the potential for the Spirit to come as He does and turn them into such beauty that the world wonders, "How?" He is bounty, He is solid, He is the Rock of Ages. His Word speaks it and so I raise my eyes from the trenches to grasp it. And looking back, I see how faithful He was to begin wooing me just before everything really began to unravel. His Love rings true forever, so faithful is His loving kindness. Lean into that tiny voice. Fear nothing, for not even death can quench his Love. Fear nothing, fear nothing, fear nothing. Sit at his feet and minister to His heart with your unfaltering trust. Let him lift your chin in order to see more clearly and let all heavy, heaving sadness be laid to rest with the victorious Man of Sorrows.

Note To Self

Go visit this place.

Much

Fifteen months of much
And I hate tomorrow
Because one year ago it held word of good news.
But I know that tomorrow,
just as today,
holds only the ash leftover from one ugly fire.
And in my mind's eye, my face is
covered with this ash and the careless wind
steals it from my wretched, grasping hands.
When will I ever learn to hold loosely to all things,
not my own?
And I stand powerless against the sweeping waters,
unable to resist the rising of whatever piece
of remembrance that chooses to re-announce itself to my heart,
Just as if learning it for the first time.
Wound and unwound and rewound again.
And somehow, I'm all of these things:
Raging
and understanding.
Horrified
and knowing.
And so I stand,
human,
Under the God who gave life to these words:

"Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze."

Laura Dreyer

Songbird, Songbird

Something's been rollin around in my gut
and it makes me wanna sing.
I wanna sing a song
that fixes itself upward and
grazes all things unseen.
I wanna sing a song
that rattles my throat,
and then my spirit
and births something new
and lays the old down to rest.
There's something about using
your voice as a music maker
that throws locked doors down
and closed hearts open.
I wanna sing.

Go ahead and chuckle

Title: A Question No One Wants to Hear
Setting: Standing in line for coffee at the mall
Characters: A 5-year-old girl, dressed in pink. Me, dressed in dark blue.

Script-
Her: (To herself but side glancing at me) I wonder if that's a boy or a girl...
Me: (Look away, trying to ignore it and hoping she forgets her question)
Her: (A little more directly, and this time crowning me with her tall balloon animal) Is that a boy or a girl?
Me: (Closed-mouth smile but still don't say anything, since she's still calling me a "that")
Her: Are you a boy or a girl?
Me: I'm a girl...Did my short hair trick you?
Her: No...it was your coat.
Me: Oh, well I guess I gotchya then...heh.
Her: (Turned back around silently)

AWKWARD

When Anger Tempts

Your pain is not a badge,
do not get used to wearing it.
Your pain is a gateway.
Something to know well,
and then travel through
in order to meet the sea of pain
that lies just outside yourself.
Be both soft and strong,
Do not seal yourself off
for there is much to be reaped
from this impossible winter.

To Do

_ feel everything necessary
_ reap the treasures of darkness
_ gain back the body that grief has whittled away
_ express what is in me
_ remember, with a tear and a smile
_ trust the finished work of Jesus
_ raise my hands in praise
_ love like he did
_ expect good things

Unloosed

I am the sloshing
at the bottom of a
deep
deep
well.
Both disturbed
and flowing.
Both turbulent
and loosed.

This must be done
And it must be felt.

Almost always ever contained
in situations
such as these.
But now am the sloshing
at the bottom of the well.
Lapping up the bitter
along with the
sweet
sweet
depths that heaving waters
tend to stir up and create.

Oh, how He loves

Somehow,
in this violence,
Your gentle hand
rests heavy upon me.

Holding me all together,
reminding my eyes
of what to see most.

Even as I nurse
these wounded limbs,
and sense their future scars,
I bend low
beneath Your mercy
and raise my tattered arms.

What I Will Do

I will not cower.

I will stand
and turn
and hold this dark night.
I will feel it all.
I will peer up through the cowardly smoke
and I will let this fire do its work on me.

I will believe Life into our midst.

And He speaks in His faithful way
and says:
I will bring you through
I will bring you through
I will bring you through.

And I will believe that He will.

My Heart's Song

I will sing of Your mercy
that leads me through valleys of sorrow
to rivers of joy

when death, like a gypsy
comes to steal what I love
I will still look to the heavens
I will still seek your face
but I fear You aren't listening
because there are no words
just the stillness
and the hunger
for a faith that assures

I will sing of Your mercy
that leads me through valleys of sorrow
to rivers of joy

alleluia, alleluiaalleluia, alleluia

while we wait for rescue
with our eyes tightly shut
face to the ground using our hands
to cover the fatal cut
though the pain is an ocean
tossing us around, around, around
You have calmed greater waters
higher mountains have come down

I will sing of Your mercy
that leads me through valleys of sorrow
to rivers of joy

alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

-Jars of Clay

Blog

Stop on by and leave some love for my dad, Larry:
http://larryswisdom.blogspot.com/

Here's to you, 2010

I want to listen carefully and choose well this year.

He meditates on [God's Word] day and night.

He is like a tree planted beside streams of water.

That bears its fruit in season

And whose leaf does not wither.

Whatever he does prospers.

Truth vs. Sentiment

"I understand God by His Word. I cannot understand God by impressions or feelings; I cannot get to know God by sentiments. If I am going to know God, I am going to know Him by His Word. I know I shall be in heaven, but I could not build on my feelings that I am going to heaven. I am going to heaven because God's Word says it, and I believe God's Word. And “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Rom. 10;17...If you build yourself on imaginations you will go wrong. You have the Word of God and it is enough...And truly the Word of God changes a man until he becomes an epistle of God. It transforms his mind, changes his character, moves him on from grace to grace, makes him an inheritor of the very nature of God. God comes in, dwells in, walks in, talks through, and sups with him who opens his being to the Word of God and receives the Spirit who inspired it."
-Smith Wiggelsworth

Words to match my inklings...

"Silence guards the inner heat of religious emotions. This inner heat is the life of the Holy Spirit within us. Thus, silence is the discipline by which the inner fire of God is tended and kept alive. Diadochus of Photiki offers us a very concrete image: 'When the door of the steambath is continually left open, the heat inside rapidly escapes through it; likewise the soul, in its desire to say many things, dissipates its remembrance of God through the door of speech, even though everything it says may be good. Thereafter the intellect, though lacking appropriate ideas, pours out a welter of confused thoughts to anyone it meets, as it no longer has the Holy Spirit to keep its understanding free from fantasy. Ideas of value always shun verbosity, being foreign to confusion and fantasy. Timely silence, then, is precious, for it is nothing less than the mother of the wisest thoughts."

"What needs to be guarded is the life of the Spirit within us. Especially we who want to witness to the presence of God's Spirit in the world need to tend the fire within with utmost care...Sometimes it seems that our many words are more an expression of our doubt than of our faith. It is as if we are not sure that God's Spirit can touch the hearts of people: we have to help him out and, with many words, convince others of his power. But it is precisely this wordy unbelief that quenches the fire."

The Way of the Heart by: Henri Nouwen

Remember to Listen

I love days like this.
Days of silent showers
holding only water, steam and soap.
Of frigid knuckles wrapped
around freshly mugged coffee.
Of unexposed sadness that
gets met with Perfect Love.

And this day He says to you and to me;
Set your face like flint,
Lift your eyes from every woe brought upon you.
This day, see Me most clearly
And with this lifted head invitation
I will sprout my Word in your dry earth.

On days like these,
Where every subtlety weighs heavy with sentiment,
I remember to lean in and strain my weary ear
for Faithful Mercy is gently prodding
every potential opening to Self,
even on this day.

You have nothing to prove to Me.

I'm in love for the first time

and the thought of His gaze softens my insides.
I am found in His heart.
I am found in his His affection.
Forever and ever and ever.
I belong to the Strong and Tender Father.
Never again, Darkness.
Never again.

Beloved Daughter,
You have My ear.

Come away with Me.

Listen, O daughter,

Consider and incline your ear;

Forget your own people also, and

your father's house.

So the King will greatly desire your beauty;

Because He is your Lord,

Worship him.

Psalm 45:10-11

Love Poem

Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls;

All Your waves and billows have gone over me.

The LORD will command His love in the daytime,

And in the night His song shall be with me—

A prayer to the God of my life.

Psalm 42:7-8

I don't usually do things like this.

On my flight to California last week I had the following conversation with the young man sitting next to me, who happened to have the last name of Heap:

Me: So where are you from?

Heap: Arizona.

Me: Were you born there?

Heap: No, I was born in London...or somewhere...I'm not really sure.

Me: Oh, ok...cool...(don't really know what to think about that...)

Heap: I'm acutally going to go to London soon to visit my cousin. She does music and so do I so...

Me: What kind of music does she do?

Heap: She has a band and some of her music is on the soundtrack of Shrek 2 and Garden State...

Me: Oh, that's cool. (For some reason I'm just continuing to go along with the conversation without asking anymore about this cousin of his??)

Heap: She's a bitch, I really don't like her...but I really like her lyrics.

Me: Hm. So when are you going?

Heap: I'm not sure...She's going to help me out with music stuff though. Her band's name is Frou Frou?

Me: Wait...WHAT? Frou Frou?!?

Heap: You know them?

Me: (Instantly morphing into the tween of my youth) They are TOTALLY FAMOUS!

Heap: Her name is Imogen Heap.

Me: I KNOW...SHE IS FAMOUS!! My friends and I LOVE her! OMG!

Heap: Hmm, I didn't know she was that famous. Wow, you're like freaking out all of a sudden...

Can you guys believe that?!?! Now that I see her picture, they really look alike...and he was wearing a hat like that too. Crazy!

Totally famous...and totally met her cousin.

My friend got married

in the mountains of El Crucero, Nicaragua. She was the best kind of bride there could be: full of ease, joy and beauty. What a blessing it was to be present there and to capture her on her day...

Shy Feet

Amazed lately
at my self
which contains both willingness
and unwillingness so easily in one single body.

Finding that in necessary times
I am able to trade in my weak knees
for strong legs, in order to
move in the direction of the brave parts of my heart.

All the while,
in one and the same moment,
shyly hanging back
asking those same silly little questions
that haunt almost every little girl I know:
Am I good, am I pleasing, am I enough?

My toe tracing something on the ground
And those fantastic 80s lyrics circle me
round and round;
Love is a battlefield.

Amazed lately that
there is so much more fight in me
than I could have ever possibly realized before now.

goodbye:hello::25:26

Well, today was my birthday.
That's right. The day that Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett both died, was my birthday.
But that's okay. Life and death...they are all bound to happen, right?

Last night there was a dark, furry moth on the ceiling of our family room. My sister said, "Moths always remind me of death." A foreshadowing of today? Weird.

That's okay. For a little bit I felt heavy about it. About death, accompanying my birthday. Then I remembered that I didn't really like this past year, and that it's okay to lay it down to die. I can actually say, it's over...phew! It's under my belt now. I have all of the richness and wisdom of experience that heartache and grief bring...and yet I don't have to experience it in that same way again. RIP 2-5. I'll wave a big goodbye to you.

Hello 2-6. You feel sunnier to me. And I don't mind being closer to the big 3-0. Because as life is lived it grows and expands our hearts if we let it...so next year has to be better. Simply because...I let my heart be made bigger.

From: Five Flights Up

By: Elizabeth Bishop


...The little black dog runs in his yard.
His owner's voice arises, stern,
"You ought to be ashamed!"
What has he done?
He bounces cheerfully up and down;
he rushes in circles in the fallen leaves.


Obviously, he has no sense of shame.
He and the bird know everything is answered,
all taken care of,
no need to ask again.--
Yesterday brought to today so lightly!
A yesterday I find almost impossible to lift.

You have regarded my low estate.

I always avoided hunching myself over

that ground down there.

So lowly, so strangely religious.

Then the fire. It came.

Fires of grief from every direction.

I was burned down to ash

until my face had to meet it.

My face,

it twisted into both defense and release

when it had come forcefully down.

And only when face to face with it

could I see its latent fertility.

My knees and shins laid to rest.

My forehead kissed its surface.

My little ashen body cradled in its earth.

Both life and death in one sweeping motion.

To now find myself newly pruned and planted.

With fresh new skin that covers

a newly attentive posture.

My tongue

scorched by hot coal

cries anew, "You are able!"

Relearning steps.

Walking humbly and keeping eyes to the ground.

Eyes to the ground.

You will lead me.

You will lead.

Dear Summer

First Grade Assignment: Write a letter to Summer

"Dear Summer,
I love you you love me. You are yellow. When you come I will play outside. I will never go inside. Summer can you see me do soccer? Summer look at me I can ride my bike." -Ekjoatroop

"Dear Summer,
You are the best. I really miss you very much. Would you play with my sister when I am sick?" -Jahee

"Dear Summer,
You are cute. You are gold like a flower." -Luisa

"Dear Summer, You are beautiful. I am going to the pool can you come with me?" -Maria

"Dear Summer,
You're too hot. You're yellow like the sun. I'm going to play tag with you. Can you eat? Yes I can eat." -Noe

"Dear Summer,
You fry me like an egg. You are my friend. Do you eat grass?" -Adan

Kids' natural curiosity and playful poetry always surprises me. I loved reading these sweet letters.

There was a day at a camp
in a clearing
in a wood
that has coupled itself so closely
with my heart these days...

The One Who Awakens all Hearts
speaks to all sleepy souls from birth:
Welcome to the light little one,
I am your Helper.
All of my Love is for your good.

And we,
with squinty-eyed distrust
or wide-eyed hopeful trust,
reject or receive these Words
and carry on.

We carry on,
we carry on,
and the world surprises and mistreats us
from all sides.
We carry on,
maybe crawling along or skipping,
laid out or upright.

And we may either say,
This mountain is oh so movable,
for my Father goes before me...or
This mountain will surely be my end
so I will lay down and surrender to its large bark.

And this is how it goes-
He watches as we

become what we believe.

and pass it on and down and all around.

Now I'm taken back to that day of nature learning

in the camp

in the clearing

in the woods.

The leader had said:

Look! I have brought you out into safety.

This clearing has no trap or harm for you.

Now- fly like a bat that does not see with eyes of sight!

Blind-folded and squinty-eyed, I ran.

But picking up speed, I stopped.

Trying again, I ran.

And when fear of a great nothing grew too strong,

I stopped again.

Hadn't I seen the clearing with my own two eyes?

But distrust always hears the bark of the mountain

over the steady flow of Love from the Father.

And fear breeds distrust and distrust will never

lead to flight.

And here I sit today,

unsure with eyes of sight,

but seeing clearly with eyes of spirit

that there is a clear path for my feet.

And if I cling to trust, then I just may

become what I believe.

Sister's Senior Show: Octopi!!

My incredibly talented sister had her BFA showing last night, in Manhattan.
I was there with my new Nikon L100 to capture the action. Check it out!

The Weight of it All

At age 5 or 6,
the witch in my story book,
after hatching some kind of hair-brained plan,
said something like this;

That's so crazy...
it just might work!

And I thought and thought about what a funny thing that was to say. And I thought and thought about the words she chose and

how they matched, but also how they didn't.

And it made me stop,
and file it away,
in tiny wonderment of the
possible playfulness of words.

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May 2006:
I took a trip.
From Kansas City to Osaka, Japan.

Mother tongue abandoned,
I thought that I'd feel free.
With no possibility of being forced into meaningless chit-chat or other-worldly discussions that always seem to knock my feet off of familiar earth-ground,
my anxieties were quieted.

Walking that strange cement the first few days, I was free to be just "she" or "her", and enjoy the sun and the water and the ground.
And then walking that strange cement my last few days the ground seemed to repel me, as I found myself missing the weight of words.

May 2006:
I took a trip.

From Kansas City to Osaka, Japan.

They showed me words like arigato, and kon'nichiwa
and I would speak them, but always with that same repellant feeling in my mouth. That mush-mouthed feeling of, You don't belong here.

And soon I was missing my familiar thank you and hello.
Words that didn't need to sit in my mouth before being pronounced or defined or translated. And these remembrances twisted around in my heart and reminded me of the weight of it all.

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I was never good at doing active kid things at recess on the playground.
In the classroom I felt like I was more apart of my class, but on the playground
I was more like the strange child on the sidelines.

Separate.

So when Morgan-wavy-haired-cool-girl came along,
I bowed down.
But when she decided to tell Ronnie-blue-eyes-cool-guy
that he made my heart beat so fast and my cheeks go so red,
I flipped out.

I remember my fists
that had clamped onto her shirt so fiercely so that
when she tried to run, the cotton had stretched and pulled.
But I was no match for Morgan-wavy-haired-cool-girl,
and she got her way.

I stood watching her skip carelessly
toward my Ronnie-blue-eyes-cool-guy
for just one second.
I couldn't watch for long, my mingled pride and dread
made me turn my back, ever so casually,
just as if I couldn't care less about what she was about to do.

She returned,
grinning, laughing,
with a report.
What had he said about me?
He had said;
Disgusting!

That word,
the worst news of my 9 year-old life.
That word,
like a punch in the nose
that makes your eyes
water down your red, red cheeks...

That word.

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"At a certain point you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening. After a time you hear it: there is nothing there. There is nothing but those things only, those created objects, discrete, growing, or holding, or swaying, being rained on or raining, held, flooding, or ebbing, standing, or spread. You feel the world's word as a tension, a hum, a single chorused not everywhere the same...The silence is all there is. It is the alpha and the omega. It is God's brooding over the face of the waters; it is the blended note of the ten thousand things, the whine of wings. You take a step in the right direction to pray to this silence, and even to address the prayer to "World". Distinctions blur. Quit your tents. Pray without ceasing."

"Teaching a Stone to Talk" -Annie Dillard

You hide us well.

But we, O Lord, behold we are Thy little flock;

possess us as Thine, stretch Thy wings over us, and

let us fly under them. Be Thou our glory.

-Saint Augustine

Breaking Spring Open

Nicaragua;
I thank you for those six days in March when

Your light hit us just right,

Your sand opened up for my toes,

Your flowers spilled over edges,

Your dusk broke through that tiny mountain town,

And for one sweet week

You gave me back this one sweet friend.

Child Eyes

When I was a little girl
my eyes held all knowing in their sockets.
If a thing too overwhelming came to be,
I could simply close my tiny eyes
and un-see the unmanageable.

More than once
I lost control of my bicycle on a certain steep, steep hill.
So squeezing shut my eyes,
that hill would come to not exist for one
tiny
instant.

More than once
I was alone
in the Buick's big backseat,
and we were again pulling into that terrifying car wash.
Unfamiliar sounds and movements invaded my senses.
Pulling back my mother's hand,
back to where I sat,
It was my shield from the strange.
Placed and held firmly
from temple to temple,
arching up over my nose.
Familiar skin on mother hands hid me from my nightmare.

And now,
though with longer limbs,
I still struggle between denial and truth
in the daily opening and closing of these eyes.

When what I fear the most enters my vision,
with head ducked under covers,
it becomes the monster that I will always dread.

But
When what I fear the most enters my vision,
and with willing eyes I take it in,
in all of its terrifying possibilities,
it releases from all of my grasping intentions,
and transforms into an offering to the God of the Poor in Spirit.
I am now open to receive His heart.
And certainly, He does not fail to hear the voices of his hurting children.

Do you trust Me? What have you to fear?

In Celebration of Light: Sunday morning.

Excerpts by: Wallace Stevens


1
...The day is like wide water, without sound.
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine...


2
...What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
...Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measure destined for her soul.


4
She says, "I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?"...


5
She says, "But in contentment I still feel
The need of some imperishable bliss."
Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams
And our desires.
...The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness
She makes the willow shiver in the sun...


7
...Out of their blood, returning to the sky;
And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,
The windy lake wherein their lord delights,
The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,
That choir among themselves long afterward.
They shall know well the heavenly fellowship
Of men that perish and of summer morn.
And whence they came and whither they shall go
The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

8

She hears, upon that water without sound,

A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine

Is not the porch of spirits lingering.

It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay."

We live in an old chaos of the sun,

Or old dependency of day and night,

Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,

Of that wide water, inescapable...

And, in the isolation of the sky,

At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make

Ambiguous undulations as they sink,

Downward to darkness, on extended wings.