peace isn't always found in the silence

I lay in the still early morning quiet, listening for the few birds that stuck around for the winter, and watching through the haze of my pile of blankets for the first frosty bits of light to soak through my windows. The morning is as seamless as the lake in my memories, buried deep in the mountains without a single ripple to disturb the surface.

And then footsteps.
Then a door slams.
Next a baby screams.
A few minutes later another door is slamming.

Soon there are multiple sets of feet stomping around on the floor with no awareness of what the word 'quiet' might mean. Dishes are clanking; pots and pans making an early morning racket-song as the voices begin in the un-silence and build in energy the longer they carry on.

Pretty soon there's music coming from the living room, seeping into my bedroom through the paper-thin walls, and I am awake whether or not I want to be or am ready to be. On a good day I grab my smile and my mandolin and prance into the living room to join the festivities. On a better day I am the one awake before everyone else, and I therefore assume responsibility for the musical joys of the morning, and wait for others to join in.

So I lay there, under the pile of blankets, thinking back to the previous night. We gather in the living room, wonderful smells, a room just full enough of people, smiles and adopted family. I can see the invisible glow emitting from the room, it's crawling through the cracks in the wall, leaking outside into the darkness. We share food and laughter and life. These are pieces of things I've wanted for so long, these are answers to prayer, and parts of Jesus walking around with skin on. I blink multiple times to make sure this is really happening, like the times you pinch yourself to make certain you aren't dreaming.

And then I make a sleeping attempt around eleven (pm). That's a reasonable time, isn't it? I lay in bed with headphones on, music or an audio-book as my attempt at sleep; my attempt at sanity and at quiet. stillness. silence.
It's now one a.m. and I am laying, frustrated, in my bed as I listen to sound-clones of what will be in the morning.
Feet walking, stomping.
The occasional door slamming.
Bang.
stomp. stomp. slam. loud laughter. stomp.
talking, more talking, with insertions of laughter, sometimes far too loud, it seems, at one in the morning. And I lay there trying to decide exactly how much I can suck it up, and how selfish it would be to go tell people they are being too loud.
I get out of bed and do the latter.


I was thinking about all this on the bus ride to work this morning. I was in a bit of a hurry when trying to leave, nothing too rushed, but I still really dislike being rushed. It makes me feel disgruntled. It makes me feel grumpy. It makes me feel like everyone is getting in the way, and that no one realizes what it means to have to go to work on time.
No, I don't have time to talk to you, Hope.
No, I actually need to use the bathroom right now.
etc.
I will spare anyone reading this the rest of the description and my messed-up line of reasoning and cut straight to the bone of the issue.



Community, it sounds all fluffy and nice.
And parts of it are.
Seeing Jesus show up, praying and worshiping together, sharing food and stories and music, it's all pretty amazing. It's kind of astonishing that this sort of thing can happen. It really is. Like I said, sometimes I have to blink.

And then there's the other side. The side I'm pretty sure Jesus wants to happen, the side I'm pretty sure frustrates the hell out of me sometimes (yes, people, contrary to popular belief, I get frustrated, angry even. And selfishly so).
We go through at least a roll of toilet paper a day, and even more when anyone has a cold.
Milk and butter are a commodity, especially when it's organic.
Sleep is also, more so for me.
Dishes are a constant chore for everyone. I'm not sure how this works when it seems like the dishes are disproportionate to the amount of people living here...? you tell me.
There are kids screaming. loudly. 'nough said.

And I realized while sitting on the bus that maybe Jesus gave us community and gave us each other so that we would learn what it really meant to look to others good before our own.
And that is not something I really want to hear when I understand what it means. Yeah, I like the pretty words, like all those beautiful fairy tales coming to life out of poetry books..... until I actually know what the words mean.

But it's then that Jesus steps in and puts on flesh. It's then that he tells me that he carried a cross and my sin on his back, it's then that he tells me we are to follow in his footsteps.

Community is about not always having the time to do the things you want, or the silence you need to remain sane, or the space to keep your own privacy. Because it reminds you that Jesus gave all of his life for us, and he called us to put others' good before our own.
And it also reminds you that there's no way on earth any of this is going to happen unless you continually look at him.
I can pretty much guarantee that without him you are going to lose your sanity as well as your temper.

But the amazing and exhausting thing is being given this gift, this chance to see Jesus and be constantly reminded of how much we all need him.

Have you ever sat next to Jesus?

I work this part-time job out in the mall. It consists of wearing all black... even black socks, of selling photos, and of stifling my creativity. The mall also really weirds me out. (not the store, just the mall) Something about being around crowds of rabid holiday shoppers out for the latest deal, dragging their kids around as though they are on leashes, and subjecting anyone they encounter to their selfish ideal of being in such a big hurry, something about all that just doesn't rub me the right way.
Anyway, I'm showing some folks pictures of their kids so they can choose what they want to buy.
They're pretty nice, actually, most everyone I had to 'sell' to yesterday was pretty nice. So here I am, Ms. "sales person" all in black.... and corporate says we need to hit such-and-such a number. And a few co-workers are all for the upselling, they tell me what to compliment, what sly lines to insert, etc.... No different from most other places wanting selling done. And I must say, their deals really aren't too bad. Here was my reasoning: I'm not pushy and I refuse to be, I'm not fake and I'm not going to give fake compliments, if they get one, it'll be real. And the thoughts continued in this progression when I first started working there. Thing is, they haven't changed. But yesterday something different happened.

In the middle of my shift, in the middle of talking to someone, I was all the sudden very aware that Jesus was sitting next to me. He was concerned with how I was treating every single person. He also could care less what corporate said, or my co-workers if it somehow infringed with how he expected me to treat the people or the situation. ....And all the sudden it wasn't about "I'm not any of these things, so I refuse to act this way", even though I may have been very right in those justifications. It was "Jesus is sitting next to me (!!), and what the hell do any other 'opinions' or 'directions' matter compared to my obedience to him???"

These Resurrection Dreams

I let loose my grip, tossed off these hinder-some shoes,
And went down to sit by the riverside,
open hands to the heavens;
Bare feet digging into the earth, finding my roots.

My eyes caught the wonder, I lay my hand
over my mouth-lost in silence, I repent.
I repent while the giant mythical trees tell me
their story, stretch their limbs to the sky-
the silent prayer they are crying out.

I turned to the end of the book,
got lost in the story
that grew out in front of me.

I walk through the garden, wandering,
must we always lose these child's eyes as we grey?
Must we always cage ourselves in -
with gold and silver and comfort?
Must we become allies with erasers that clear
the danger, adventure and wonder?

Must we rationalize
the ants as they toil, the birds
as they take the air upon their wings,
their spring-song sung back, forth,
echoing in layers and harmonies,
the river, playing it's way somewhere new
with whispers to the shore,
diamonds hidden til the sun
smiles it's blazing gaze on it,
in the warmth of friends who know?

Must we rationalize?

Must we trivialize the words when spoken
out of the void of nothingness
"It is good"

Put on your eyes, oh world

Need we distract, when we can see
through the veil- life
and him?
it is the ache and the goodness that no words hold captive.

Must we really fear life and death,
all in one?
Or,
can we not learn to fear neither
And come awake, live,
in the bits and pieces scattered about
small shadows living on
of a someday whole world,

why shudder we from fear,
when death only stands a door?





re-found this poem I wrote last spring.

Some days it feels like the whole world is before me, this giant chalk board, scribbles of all colors covering every empty space. And I look at it with a jumbled, distracted eye, and a head that is trying to put together some form of coherence. And maybe I stand there for a few moments trying to decipher it, maybe a few hours...... until something inside me realizes none of this is it. And I throw eraser after eraser at the chalk board until the entire thing is left blank. And then one hand begins writing a story:

Crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne.
Hark! How the heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own.
Awake, my soul, and sing of Him who died for thee,
And hail Him as thy matchless King through all eternity.

Crown Him the virgin’s Son, the God incarnate born,
Whose arm those crimson trophies won which now His brow adorn;
Fruit of the mystic rose, as of that rose the stem;
The root whence mercy ever flows, the Babe of Bethlehem.

Crown Him the Son of God, before the worlds began,
And ye who tread where He hath trod, crown Him the Son of Man;
Who every grief hath known that wrings the human breast,
And takes and bears them for His own, that all in Him may rest.

Crown Him the Lord of life, who triumphed over the grave,
And rose victorious in the strife for those He came to save.
His glories now we sing, Who died, and rose on high,
Who died eternal life to bring, and lives that death may die.

Crown Him the Lord of peace, Whose power a scepter sways
From pole to pole, that wars may cease, and all be prayer and praise.
His reign shall know no end, and round His piercèd feet
Fair flowers of paradise extend their fragrance ever sweet.

Crown Him the Lord of love, behold His hands and side,
Those wounds, yet visible above, in beauty glorified.
No angel in the sky can fully bear that sight,
But downward bends his burning eye at mysteries so bright.

Crown Him the Lord of Heaven, enthroned in worlds above,
Crown Him the King to Whom is given the wondrous name of Love.
Crown Him with many crowns, as thrones before Him fall;
Crown Him, ye kings, with many crowns, for He is King of all.

Crown Him the Lord of lords, who over all doth reign,
Who once on earth, the incarnate Word, for ransomed sinners slain,
Now lives in realms of light, where saints with angels sing
Their songs before Him day and night, their God, Redeemer, King.

Crown Him the Lord of years, the Potentate of time,
Creator of the rolling spheres, ineffably sublime.
All hail, Redeemer, hail! For Thou has died for me;
Thy praise and glory shall not fail throughout eternity."

It's advent and I am sitting here in front of this chalk-board, this heart, waiting for another hand to write one story. Waiting for a hand to wipe away all the indecipherable mess, and to place himself in the emptiness. The whole earth is waiting, and groaning to know him.

It seems it takes a lifetime to keep our eyes from roaming to and fro.... to keep them, and our hearts steadied on one thing alone.
I say this, late tonight, sleep sneaking nearby, creeping round my cozy pile of blankets, drawing my eyelids down further with each added moment....I say it before sleep hits. Before memory steals it away.

I am not humble.
I'm not good.

Those things aren't what my disposition leans toward.

But I know someone who is good and is humble. And I have put my hope in him, that he will erase all the lies of pride, and cover me, continually.... "like a broken record" with his blood. And he will keep reminding me, keep telling me, keep humbling me-not of my own accord,but so that I will look to him, and look only to him.

It was from him I have received everything. It is from him I've been given grace, love, hope, redemption.
It's all his fault if anything wise, or true, or right exits my mouth.

He is the cause and perpetrator of our joy- and of our life.
To God only be the glory through Jesus.

I want to go back to India.

Some days I feel so far removed from this dream, that ends up being all it is, a dream….wavering through the fog and mist, disappearing and reappearing at sporadic moments. It’s as though I’m playing some massive game of Hide-and-seek. Not that we should build idols and enshrine them, not that we should turn our dreams into our gods. Rather, we should seek to glorify God in all we do, and if he removes something, we remain content. If he allows something to come to pass, we remain content. We are single-minded and single-focused.


I have spent the last hours of the dying night thinking about India, why did I go? what did I learn? who did I become family with? How did it change my eyes? How did I learn love from others? Who did I give love to? …..and what did I promise on that rooftop almost three years ago?

…..That promise, those words, they are still hanging on the air. They might be avoided by fear, they may have even changed perspective (in a good way). And no, I am not going to go be some hero. I am not going to do ‘mighty works’ or ‘big things’ even. I sometimes wonder if the heads of the prophets got muddled with the enormity of things sometimes, this huge expectation they felt inside themselves of what God was doing, and what he was saying? Did they ever feel crazy? ….or did they ever feel frightened by exactly how big things were? Or had they learned what I am still trying to digest?

None of what I do is big. He uses us. We are his. We are his dependents-and everything “big” is done through Him; through his power, through his love, through his life, death, and resurrection. We claim nothing, not even the breath we breathe. We are however, responsible for how we use what he has so graciously given us. And we are responsible for following him, even though he is the enabler.

The fear used to hunt me down, it pursued me as quickly as the initial excitement. It would fill me with the lies that heaped all of this supposed greatness onto my own shoulders, and said it was an impossibility too large for me to hold. And that part of the lie was true- all of this, all of anything worth doing is far too great a burden and a weight for someone as small as I.
But the falsehood was just assumed from the beginning: That the weight of accomplishing relies on me, that the weight of situations rests on my shoulders.

The fear makes the wrong assumption.

I am not the savior of the world. I am not the supplier of my next breath. I do not create oxygen or make the sun rise every morning or the stars explode every night. I don’t whisper up to the birds to tell them which songs to sing for which season. I didn’t paint the colors on all of nature. And I didn’t speak things into existence out of the vast emptiness that lay before me.

I am not the doer. I live only when I live in the blood of Christ.

The weak, the broken, the absurd- He uses us all so that there is no doubt-so that it is beyond reckoning that this power comes from him and him alone. Simply because it is an impossibility. It goes against our reasoning and comprehension. But that is the language he speaks with, and that is how we are sure that it is his power, not our own moving within us.

I am infinitely weak and small and broken.

And my God, the God of all things, He holds me in his hand. He looks on Jesus’ blood that covers me, and I am His.

So what is impossible?
Not anything that God wills.

Jesus.


He really is the answer to all the questions.

I found this quote in a bonhoeffer book today while browsing the library.... :
'In the end, there are only two possibilities of encountering Jesus: either man must die or he kills Jesus. '

I went jogging through the little patch of woodland trails near my house today. It was quiet, no other humans, and as I was nearing the end of the path back to the road all the sudden I see hanging, suspended in mid-air, a leaf. It is just dangling there, held by two tiny strands of spider web, like some mystical appearance out of a fairy-tale. I had to stop and stare for a moment, at first bewildered, then just in a soft wonder. I mean, how often do you come across floating leaves in the woods? And how often do you pause, just to stare at something and ponder.....?

Open your eyes this moment and see the redemption breathing around us in the darkness. And live in Him.

"She does not belong by rights to this world at all, but to some other planet, probably mercury. Her proclivity to her true sphere destroys all the natural influence which this orb would otherwise possess over her corporeal frame."

I love George Macdonald.



A few things:

Life can be really hard. Really Hard, and I don't even know the half of it. It'll probably just get harder.

But life can be really good, even through all the sludge.... because of this hope, and because of this love.
I have things to smile about, and I'm going to smile, even if it's through the tears.

hunger pains and crimson stains

I came to a coffee shop, bought the cheapest thing I could (tea)(hey, rent's due soon) and sat down, took a deep sigh and prepared to start learning more photoshop. And then I came across this while checking email. Perhaps I should summarize. Someone is selling a mansion for 75 million dollars..... with 23 bathrooms, 13 bedrooms, a bowling alley, movie theater.............
Is your jaw dropping, have you gone into a coma yet?
This is definitely an extreme case, I'm not implying that the majority of Americans walk around with millions of dollars in their pockets, and bathrooms enough to use a different one every day for more than three weeks, But to me, these are the implications of a starving nation, and really, of a starving humanity(as much as we have helped the idea along, it's not just americans chasing their own prosperity). I've heard of such things, but today I am sitting here shell-shocked because I don't understand how someone could come to the conclusion that they should build something like this. I don't understand it. What could inspire you to be so bored, what could inspire you to hoard so much? These are the signs of a starving nation,and it outrages me that we live in such poverty that people hedge themselves in with all the greed and comfort and safety they can muster in the hopes that they will allude life, and maybe death too.....
And somehow the same thought I have been having lately is connected. We are hungry for something else. It's as though we have this giant tapeworm living inside us, eating everything in sight, demanding more and more, and yet we are still hungry......and we are either still unaware of our tapeworm, or are left asking the question, 'how do we get rid of it?' and 'how do we get rid of this persistent hunger?'
I also look around and see a church full of people, containing a huge amount of love, and generally speaking we can be pretty good sometimes at lavishing it upon each other, at loving those who love us (sometimes). But I'm left wondering there as well, if we have something that destroys the tapeworm and satisfies the hunger.....why aren't we giving it to the people that are hungry?

What are we doing, Body of Christ??? Are we building our own invisible mansions full of other things that hold no value? Are we really seeking out those whom Jesus seeks, are we really looking with his eyes? Are we really loving with his love? Or are we building our own half-hearted, self-imploding time bomb?
I guess I want to see impossible perfection, in the sense that it actually is possible. Jesus broke a few loaves of bread and fed people who were really hungry-thousands. So why is it that we are so unsure of the love he has given us? Is it a small thing that he did this? We are unsure of ourselves, when we should be sure of him. Is it a small thing that he covered us with his own crimson stains? Is it a small thing?
Or is it a big enough thing that we have faith and love, from him, to love others, to feed the hungry, to comfort the sick and dying and lonely in the smallest ways (and just maybe those are the big ways)? to love those who spite us, and annoy us, and reject us.....and know that it is multiplying just like the bread and fish? Is it a big enough thing that we have faith that he is multiplying the love he has given us inside of us to amounts we can't even imagine?
Jesus told his disciples to feed the crowds. He would not give them an impossible command, he doesn't toy with people that way. It was possible because they had Jesus with them. It is possible because we have Jesus with us.
I'm not advocating a faith based on works, or our justification based on works. I don't believe in that at all. What I am sick of is a bunch of unmotivated, lazy people sitting around talking about theology and arguing and debating and getting all 'intellectual' about things. (I'm not isolating myself from this group, by the way) What I am sick of is a gospel that says Jesus loves you exactly like you are and you don't have to do anything to earn it and ends there. I think that statement is true, but I don't think it ends there.
What I am advocating is a love that actually has power and compels, because I am sick, really, really, sick and tired of myself, and others who have made this blood into something weak and fluffy.
What I am saying is that if we really know Jesus, if we really know the Father, we should look more and more like him the longer we know him. We should have works, only because there is simply nothing else a love of this magnitude can do except produce more love of the same kind. Anything less is taking away from the power of what has been done for us, and the love that has blanketed us.
Are we living like these crimson stains are a small thing?

If we are, we shouldn't go looking for works or signs or power.........
We should go find Jesus....or go be found by him,
and then see what happens.

I don't think I want 23 bathrooms. And I don't think I want the disillusion that I am as far removed from that tapeworm as I would like to think I am.
I want to walk beside Jesus and watch as he brings light and love everywhere my feet carry me. I've only got a tiny crust of bread, but I've got Jesus.

goodness

Awhile back I remember a friend writing something relating to God's character, and how we were to know it if we weren't to base it on our circumstances, since our circumstances can be bad indicators of such. And I remember sitting to muse on this for a few moments....and then, without realizing that he had already answered the question himself, at the end, thought "the cross!"
It was then I saw "in the person of Jesus" as the already given answer. I smiled.

I guess I just thought of this because I've been sitting here thinking about how good God is, apart from my circumstances. A lot of my circumstances have in fact just changed in the last 48 hours or so..... but it's funny, I feel his being good as being a prelude to these. I almost feel these circumstances as insignificant, because he was already so good, and his being good had nothing to do with these particular circumstances, it has to do with who he is and what has already been fulfilled. he didn't have to do any of it(changing my circumstances) to somehow be further classified as good. I'm kind of out of words at this point. And that's really ok.
"He is good" doesn't quite encompass it, but it's all I've got. Usually at this point I steal someone's words when mine aren't adequate (quote) but, really, maybe you should just go read the whole book of psalms, or spend a few days in the woods, or sit silent under the stars, or breathe the morning air as the sun is waking.
maybe you'll start to understand what 'good' means...
and maybe you'll be astonished.

some simplicity

I wonder what it would look like to live a life that was entirely held captive by who Jesus is. I wonder what that reality would look like. I know some days I am far from it. And some days he feels so close that it's a wonder I can breathe, it's a wonder it doesn't catch in my chest because of the overwhelming wonder.

I seem to always think I can be content with very little....
But we don't get to choose the situation that we are to be content in. It is given to us, and we are to be content within that situation. We are to trust in that situation. Not another. I really don't have any idea what all this is about sometimes, and my head can get severely jumbled trying to 'figure it all out' , whatever that means (it seems to accomplish very little).
I know I am always re-learning that God is good.
He really is.
And that He is the only thing to be content in.

into the woods

I'm going out to the woods soon.
I'm going to learn silence again. I'm going to untangle myself from all the distractions I am so adept at entangling myself in.
I'm going to the woods to find Jesus, and only him. Not my own version, or anyone else's, just him- who he really is.
I am going so that my eyes will be reawakened to wonder, and I can stand in awe of the one who can speak truth into existence.
I am going so that I might remember, away from the chaos and deceptions of life, why I am really here, and what this life means. I am going to rediscover a story that I am entwined in, that grows around me like the ivy climbing toward the clouds on the trees.

Maybe that's a lot to be going to the woods for.

especially in 3 days.
well.
an adventure. even a small one.

I'm taking quiet steps through the sunny cemetery this morning; deliberate in my coming, deliberate in my thinking- only with no knowledge of what thoughts will come. It is quiet here- as regards human sounds- but the birdsong, the early spring singing- it is clear, it echoes and fills the air.
I pass by the monuments we make for peoples' lives. They surround me, covering the landscape and the hillsides. They say very little about it all, really; a piece of stone etched with a name, two dates, and if you are fortunate, maybe a phrase- some sort of wish or identifying mark. And to the stranger, their entire life is encapsulated in this single piece of stone. I look at the names and dates, I wonder what their stories are, what their lives were made of. And I wonder what kinds of stories we have, what sorts we will leave, and what bits of story will outlast us. I wonder if we will be courageous enough to leave any stories of the type that stay around, I wonder if we live lives worth the telling. I know a story that has outlived the physical reality of someone by about two-thousand years and running. But it wasn't an easy story to live.

Why do we dare give so much respect and reverence...and even care, to people who are no longer here, and yet the ones who still are....?
I can't deny I really like cemetery's. They are like gardens full of windy roads, sculptures, interesting stories (or so my imagination suspects) and very few people. Part of me is at odds with this though. It almost seems like we are trying to resurrect eden for our dead. We make these places filled with peace, stillness and beauty. But all for a body in a casket? Why do we not fill our world with more of this for the living? Maybe it is the ache for what creation was intended to be, maybe the hope that there is something else- after all this, displayed in our choice of landscaping for graves.
But someday we will see the world whole.
It won't be with these bodies, and it won't be filled with meager cemeteries and wishful thinking.
It will be bright and full.
So much so that these words do it an injustice due to inadequacy.

Forget everything but Jesus.

“I just can’t sell the idea of spending that much money to go to India, they don’t understand why you need to go to India”
I can understand this point of view, there are a lot of reasons for it, first and foremost, maybe I wasn’t specific enough, maybe it’s simply because I am not well-enough known there, either way this isn’t meant as a rant against anyone, this is me realizing exactly why I am going to go back to India; with or without the apparent money, whether it’s now, or I have to work for it for months…..

There is a little girl, around four years old now, living on the streets of Pune. I held her for hours one day. She sat in my lap and would turn around occasionally to stare up into my eyes with her deep, dark brown ones, they held secrets I will never know, and even at two years old, probably a profound depth of pain and suffering that I will never understand. Sometimes she would sleep, other times she would sit up and laugh and avidly watch what was going on with everyone else in the room. We ate lunch together, both of us dirtying our hands, while I ate steadily, she ate hungrily. I helped her dip sweet biscuits into a cup of chai without spilling it, and without losing the entire biscuit in the chai (it‘s never as fun to drink soggy biscuits). The entire time she latched onto my right hand with her tiny hand. And when the hours were up, I had to let go of that hand. I had to release her - back to the streets. Her older sister picked her up to carry her out the back door, and she looked up at me with those huge, deep eyes, and tears started their journey all the way down her face; they didn’t stop, she kept crying, and trying to get back down to come back in. I couldn’t stare at those eyes anymore, I had to leave the room. I had to leave so she could go back to the streets, I had to leave before I lost my own sanity.

It may not seem valid to go to another country to ‘just hang out’ with some street kids, or other people who live on the streets, or kids who used to but now are fortunate enough to live in a house with people who love them, take care of them, and make sure they have a chance other than the hopeless cycle of life on the streets.
It may seem much more valid to have an organization, some sort of visible project that lasts for a week and demands the sweat of your brow, like building a house or a church. (I am not saying these things aren’t important, I think they all have their place) But wandering around India, feeding random people out of a backpack, spreading Jesus where you can, giving listening ears, eyes to see and weep over, and a broken heart to offer on someone else’s behalf - a pencil and a camera to carry stories to another people who are also in poverty- poverty of love, how is that obsolete? A burning heart to try and get someone to just look into another pair of eyes affected by our way of life, and to get that someone to really look back- and to see, to understand what it is to feel real empathy for someone else, to feel real pain over someone else’s pain, to feel real repentance over our actions, the ones we weren’t aware could cause such pain, and to feel something other than indifference, something other than a cold heart of stone, these things are worth more to me than all the money in the world. How can you even compare the kingdom of God, how can you put God’s love on the same plane as money? They are two entirely different substances.

And it’s true, I don’t necessarily have to go all the way to India to love my neighbor…. Not in the sense that there are plenty of people right here before me to love (which should by no means be neglected either) But if the only way people can learn to love each other is by knowing a bit of them, by being entirely confronted by them and not turning away, then going somewhere, and in a sense bringing those people back with you, is of infinite value. Beyond that, how is it loving on my part, if I know what I do, if I’ve seen what I have, and do nothing, say nothing?


We can’t just keep ignoring our brothers and sisters, our family, while we sit around in all our comfort here. We don’t know what real poverty is, if we want the comfortable life that globalization and our nation’s setup provides for us, then we are also held responsible for those from whom we steal our comfort. We are responsible for those who provide us with an abundance while they have a lack.

We can’t turn our eyes away anymore.

I can’t turn my eyes away anymore.
I’m going back, and I’m bringing their stories, bits of themselves. Jesus gave his life so we could give ours. Let’s not toy around with that. Let’s not ignore blood that was given on our behalf, just for a little bit of fleeting comfort.
I don’t care if people think I’m crazy for it.
I don’t care if they think it’s dangerous or it really is.
My father is going to help me go. And that’s that.

sometimes peace comes in really unexpected ways, at really unexpected times.

I'M GOING TO INDIA!!!!!!



...somehow.


:)

...... But we all die someday.

I'm lying on the hard floor, reading of India by the blazing woodstove. The narrative weaves in and out of modern day India, then moves onto the problems faced by a society if they want to keep growing(in a positive manner). Indians seem full of hope and passion that they can change their situation, collectively. I listen to the language of subtle deception; one that preaches hope, one that preaches success, one that promises a better life- one with more ease, one that proclaims people can indeed be lifted out of poverty. But they speak in the language of ethics, they speak in the verbiage of 'prosperity' for all. They speak in statistics and societies and governments. This seems to be a fairly common language for us all, evidently. ...but then the candle is snuffed out, the smoke goes in trails through the air, and I hear words in the silence:

"...but we all die someday"

The dialogue continues, I feel my heart start to contract, in despair I want someone to realize, I want someone to not be disillusioned. I want someone to realize what all this subtle language implies. I want someone to not ignore the fact that we are all of us, while living, hurtling toward death.
I am not negating the importance of some of these things.
What I am saying is that there is a lack.

We speak in technical terms and goals.

But we don't speak in tears and compassion and brokenness and real hope.

We don't speak in the language of love.


We only speak in the language of a fixed world. A better "us" and more comfort and ease.

....but we all die someday.

And really, all this, is it just to provide our own distraction, just to ease the boredom of days gone by and keep our eyes flitting to and fro, but never for one moment contemplating the thought that we are all taking slow and involuntary footsteps toward death? Or the consequences of what this means in relation to the life we live?


I will say it again:

someday I die.

If I don't learn to love like Jesus what else is there?
What else does not turn to dust?

sitting on a bathroom floor

I want to know where you are??
Why did you take the chains off only to abandon me, only to let me get swallowed by the system? Only to prove to me that dreams are only dreams? Only to leave us all to the yawning blackness of all this.

Where are you?

I'm sitting on the bathroom floor after minutes of staring at the ceiling in agony, angry tears set loose from my eyes, hurling questions at God as fast as they come. I'm sitting on the bathroom floor because it is the only place I can find to cry. The only place I have a moment's semblance of being alone unless I want to go sit outside in the snow, watching that mystery fall from the sky. I don't want comfort, I want answers. I am distinctly aware, in the midst of my crying, that no defense is made in reply. I am simply screaming out to the patient silence. It waits for me to finish. Then I am aware of things I don't want to hear. I get no answers of dreams and impossibilities; only the realization that once again I have a small glimpse into the lives of my friends from the previous summer. The ones I spent so many mornings breaking bread with, hearing of God from, learning to see again from. I have no idea how they do it. I have no idea the hope to which they cling when everything around them is broken, when all the can physically see is the dull empty void around them. I think once I was naive enough to think I envied them, in the slightest. This is hard. This isn't easy anymore, and so I'm not sure I like it.
I don't have faith like Abraham. I'm just a lost girl discovering how weak I am. I am just a lost girl discovering how broken the world is. I have no money, no job, no home, even my dream (which involves none of the above, well, not directly at least) seems like a vast impossibility- a person thrown to waves of a restless ocean.
I look at the mirror of myself and laugh.
Am I done throwing questions? ....because I got no answers devoted to the questions I asked. Maybe I will keep throwing them, but maybe when there's nothing else left to scream out, I will turn back to hope. absurd hope. everything looks absurd right now, including myself. My dream is absurd. Who tries to go to India in this sort of situation, and then write a book about it, trying to portray to a world of unloving people this love that even I can't grasp? ...... But maybe I am finally starting to come to what real hope is. It's absurd. Jesus? I'm sorry, but that's absurd, what he did was absurd. What he asks me to believe in the face of what I see? ....that's quite absurd.
But what's hope if I can see it and touch it with my hands, and fit it inside my rationale? ...then it only amounts to another thing I can lay under the illusion of being under my control. Hope doesn't exist that way. It is grows entwined with trust.
And what is being thankful if it doesn't begin and end only with being given the chance to know this person who very literally is love? Maybe being destitute teaches us what it really means to be thankful? (I wouldn't know, not there yet) Maybe what I really mean is that it makes the contrast sharper,such as when you appear to have nothing and yet are thankful for everything.

I'm still left wondering what is going on, why something is proving so difficult, so impossible, when it is the one thing I feel like I am supposed to do. Why is it so easy to give up and go back to a system? so hard to crawl out of the dirt and try to lend new eyes to others, grow new hearts for ourselves? Why is the worthwhile thing the hard one, the one that makes you grit your teeth and struggle along, while the one that lends ease does so deceptively?

Where are you?

I'm waiting for you to make yourself known. I'm waiting for you to make a way even through the wilderness, regardless of what it looks like.

So I sit, here in the darkness. With all my questions, with all my hope, with all my weakness, with all my crying out....
Don't abandon us.

some have felt this much deeper than I :

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
and by night, but I find no rest.

3 Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
4 In you our fathers trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
5 To you they cried and were rescued;
in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

6 But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by mankind and despised by the people.
7 All who see me mock me;
they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;
8 “He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him;
let him rescue him, for he delights in him!”

9 Yet you are he who took me from the womb;
you made me trust you at my mother's breasts.
10 On you was I cast from my birth,
and from my mother's womb you have been my God.
11 Be not far from me,
for trouble is near,
and there is none to help.

12 Many bulls encompass me;
strong bulls of Bashan surround me;
13 they open wide their mouths at me,
like a ravening and roaring lion.

14 I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
it is melted within my breast;
15 my strength is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
you lay me in the dust of death.

16 For dogs encompass me;
a company of evildoers encircles me;
they have pierced my hands and feet —
17 I can count all my bones—
they stare and gloat over me;
18 they divide my garments among them,
and for my clothing they cast lots.

19 But you, O Lord, do not be far off!
O you my help, come quickly to my aid!
20 Deliver my soul from the sword,
my precious life from the power of the dog!
21 Save me from the mouth of the lion!
You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen!

22 I will tell of your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
23 You who fear the Lord, praise him!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him,
and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
24 For he has not despised or abhorred
the affliction of the afflicted,
and he has not hidden his face from him,
but has heard, when he cried to him.

25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will perform before those who fear him.
26 The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the Lord!
May your hearts live forever!

27 All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before you.
28 For kingship belongs to the Lord,
and he rules over the nations.

29 All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
even the one who could not keep himself alive.
30 Posterity shall serve him;
it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation;
31 they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn,
that he has done it.

I don't have any words left, so I will borrow some:

Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it;
shout, O depths of the earth;
break forth into singing, O mountains,
O forest, and every tree in it!
For the Lord has redeemed Jacob,
and will be glorified in Israel.

I might spend a lot more time on a bathroom floor staring at the ceiling, wondering.

But make me thankful.

And give me hope.

Everything is being made new