throw it at the wall

i'm trying to create some external rhythms in my life that will hopefully form some good habits. one of those rhythms is writing. so even though i don't feel that i have some phenomenal thing to write, i'm going to do it anyway. because you have to start somewhere. you have to throw some crap at the wall, see what sticks, and hold on to it.

i don't write music (don't start with me), but i do love to write words. i think it's because i process externally and it's often times through words that i discover more of who i am and who god is.

talking about prayer last week, someone said to me how important it is to unplug and get alone with god, that we all need quiet and solitude in order to connect with something (or Someone) greater than ourselves. but i'm not big on solitude. i thrive on people, experiences, relationships, conversations, noise, distractions, adrenaline. when people say that you need to unplug or get quiet to pray, you begin to think something is wrong with you if you don't "need" solitude.

seasons of my life have been filled with extreme self-loathing over my incredible inability to get quiet or solitary in prayer. i would try to change, to make myself need/want/desire solitude and quiet. i would try to practice disciplined "prayer", you know the kind, with every eye closed and every head bowed. but my wandering mind and incessant list of wants, needs, fears, desires, and worries left very little room for Anyone to get a word in edgewise. and let's just be honest. that's not helping anyone.

but i am in a season now of great self-embrace where i seem to have found my way, at least for the time being. because i do find Him, hear Him, speak to Him and He to me. i find him when i run, when i play piano, when i write. somewhere between putting on my running shoes and arriving back at my front door, the mire of the day gets lifted off of me and i remember that i am connected to everything and Someone greater. somewhere between sitting down in front of the piano and the next hour or two that disappears, i remember who i am and what i've been given. and somehow, when i start to write, i wind up closer to understanding than confusion, closer to peace than chaos, closer to connected than isolated.

there is no clasping of hands, bowing of heads, or closing of eyes. but there is perspiration and movement, motion and propulsion, dreams and hopes. and this has become my way.

between belief and life

you are what you eat and you live what you believe.

i want to believe that the good news of the gospel is that this world and this life doesn't get to have the last word.

i want to believe that Someone greater gets to be the alpha-omega Word on who i am, on who we are, on what this life is supposed to be: beautiful and breathtaking, a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light.

i want to believe that all this depression and endless cognitive wormholeing means that i'm exactly in the middle of where i'm supposed to be, embracing and fighting for the ragtag kingdom of god.

i desperately need to believe that it's possible to be so in tune with the unswerving beautiful creator of all this mess that everything else becomes dissonant caucophony in comparison.

but i have embraced the dissonance as my bittersweet resolution. and i've grown more exhausted with every silent fight.

so if you are what you eat and you live what you believe, then i believe that i've taken up residence in the gap between belief and life. and in this gap is a vacuum of questions, manufactured liberations, and spiritual insanites.

if there is any hope of hearing a different final word on me, i either have to change what i believe, or change what i live. i wonder which will be the easier.

cut from cloth

tonight, while my mom and i were talking, she said this to me (a direct quote):
"right now you need three things: jesus, a good counselor, and some penicillin... not necessarily in that order."

she finds a way to be wholly honest, genuinely compassionate, and amazingly funny all within the confines of 18 words.

amazing.

i hope that as the years wear on, that i can somehow become like my mother. this would a beautiful thing because she is beautiful.

temporary amnesia

forgive my temporary amnesia
but i can't seem to remember
when i gave you permission
to tell me who i couldn't be

i didn't give you permission
to tell me when i should be afraid or alone
to tell me when i should be a woman or child
to tell me when i should stay within my lines

but time, age, and the ticking of biology
gave you an excuse to whisper the doubt
promise upon promise you crept in the dark
and too tired to fight anymore i gave in

the sweet poison from your tongue
that promised me life
now tastes rancid and stings like death

age, betrayal, and exhaustion
got more air time than the Holy within
and i gave up my freedom
for manufactured liberation

i lost myself in the journey
but i swear
i have gone out to find her

hope begins in the dark

when you come awake to what's really going on, you pay the price. you carry the weight and the wait is real. i've seen some incredibly dark moments in the last few weeks. asides from what surrounds me, it seems to be running rampant everywhere. there is broken-hearted sadness in the beautiful face of a new friend, disillusion in the familiar faces of my companions, exhaustion in my own red-streaked and swollen stare. i hear you speak and the corners of my heart agree "this is a sad world...", but i believe that there is something beautiful trying to be born in the pangs of this childbirth. and so we wait and ache, alone in the dark, fumbling for a hand or at least a familiar glance that reaches through our eyes and whispers "i know."

there are easier ways out of this: self-medicate, deny, ignore, hunker down in the corner, isolate, have another. but my heart tells me that this is getting increasingly desperate. we need to fight, embrace the horror, and remember that we are not alone. not one of us.

anne lamott says "hope begins in the dark... you wait and watch and work. you don't give up." my memory of hope is daubed with fingerprints and dirt. but i am watching, and trying not to give up. don't you give up either.

"after the last tear falls
after the last secret's told
after the last bullet tears thru flesh and bone
after the last child starves
and the last girl walks the boulevard
after the last year that's just too hard
there is love...

after the last plan fails
after the last siren wails
after the last young husband sails off to join the war
after the last 'this marriage is over'
after the last young girls innocence is stolen
after the last years of silence that won't let a heart open
there is love...

in the end
the end is oceans and oceans of love and love again
we'll see how the tears that have fallen
were caught in the palms
of the Giver of love and the Lover of all
we'll look back on these tears as old tales"