awkwardness

This is the first of what I'm sure will be many "married" life posts.  Married life, as I had anticipated in quite an adventure.  It's fun; it's easier than dating in some ways and harder in others.

Anyway, apartment living is a new aspect of life for me.  I like it though.  It's cozy and has just what we need for this stage.  It is even better now that the smoke smell is gone.  However, dealing with multiple families around us is interesting.  A couple days ago we were witnesses of a domestic dispute.  A woman near us and her significant other really got into it.  There was a lot of yelling, and Ben and I were temporarily trapped in our apartment.  (Our's is the apartment right beside the stairs, which is where the dispute was going on, loudly.)  As annoying and awkward as that whole situation was, I felt compassion toward this woman.  The human part of me was 100% annoyed.  The compassion is solely from Christ.  I've often heard it said to be polite yet distant from your neighbors.  Common sense tells me to do that as well, and left to my own devices, it is exactly what I prefer to do.

BUT of course, The Holy Spirit will tug at you about stuff.  I feel the tug to move past simple polite smiles and courteous "How are you's?"  Those things are comfortable, and Jesus calls us to more. I'm convinced that every aspect of life is fertile ground for "mission work."  We like to put "mission work" into a nice neat category, and it is usually a category that doesn't infringe on our every day comings and goings. Therefore, I know that this apartment situation is not accidental. If I want to be a missionary in my career one day, I need to practice and be missional now. In the struggle I see around me how can I even begin to dare to hoard the hope I have found.

This is going to be awkward. I know it will be. Sometimes I think Jesus thrives on awkward.  I mean think how awkward He made the pharisees feel.  And He definitely made his disciples feel awkward...He washed their feet. That was so weird. It is so weird.  And He said walk the extra mile.  What do you even talk about for that long?!

It is time to take this step though, no matter how awkward it is.  It is time to take this bigger step because I believe in a Christ that is bigger than nice smiles and positive attitudes.  I believe in a Christ who destroys darkness, shatters chains of hopelessness, and stomps the ploys of the enemy.

yielding

from a tangle of thoughts,
writing yields order and focus

from a misshapen lump of clay,
sculpting yields shape and form

from a rigid block of wood or mass of stone,
carving yields movement and realization

from soundless air,
song yields resounding emotion

from a bland canvas,
painting yields enlivened color



from dust and ashes,
The Creator yielded life.





we are like our Father.  we must create. art in all forms is amazing to me because it makes concrete those things of the Spirit.  it is a projection of the things unseen, yet shared throughout humanity.  

fissures

At what point do our hearts break for the world?
Is it in an instant?
Is it a buildup?
Is this question like asking at what point grains of sand become a mound?
Does it happen after watching too many violent news reels?
Could it be the weight of the words from the radio bearing down and creating more and more fissures in the fortification surrounding our fragile hearts?
Is it all of these things at once?

My heart seems to have a habit of breaking and mending.
It is tender, but it is resilient.
It is interwoven with the threads of the life-giving Holy Spirit.
I listen to the news, and it hurts.
I listen to the news, and sometimes I cry.
I listen to the news, and sometimes I despair.
I listen to the news, but it always leads me to pray.
I cry out to my God for this world because there is no fixing it without my God.

I listen to the news because even though it hurts, I would rather be aware than be numb.
I would rather ache than be filled with bubble-gum happiness.
I would rather experience heartbreak over the conditions of the world and know that my joy and hope are not confined by those conditions.

I pray to my God; God is the source of my hope for a new day, a brighter future, peace, and love.
I know that prayer is more powerful than I may feel it to be. So, I do what I can, and I pray.

So as for "the news,"
I have to know. I have to be aware.
I am interlocked with those who are hurt and those doing the hurting.
Our flesh is the same substance, and our souls are the same mystery.
The same God hears all our suffering, and the same God cares.

departure

and so I left, as quietly as I came.  The immanency of my departure making every word weighted and the love I had to give urgently yearning to be poured out. I was a blip. I was a single puzzle piece from the 1,000 piece puzzle.  I was one voice within a choir.  I was one plane ticket out of thousands.  I was one girl from america there for one week. Insignificant but significant.  Humbled and overjoyed.  Made low and brought to the heights all at once.   Even so, at this point I was leaving behind more than luggage.  This second visit had caused my love for that place, La Romana, Dominican Republic to delve deeper into my very being, to carve itself upon the post and lentil of my heart. The connections I had made, lines I cast, the strings of my heart were now all pulled taught with distance.   The guarantee of seeing these people ever again absent. But it was beautiful, like a firework, short-lived, yes, but brilliant and memorable.  

At 2:30 am the plane lurched toward the runway, and I, inexplicably wide-awake, pressed my perpetually sweaty face to the oval window, which was not much larger.  The runway lights waved me away, and as we broke gravity the excitement that comes with the miracle of flying welled up inside me.  We slid into the air in that hollow aluminum tube, my mind whirring with the impossible physics of it all.  In not so many breaths I could see the street lights, car lights, motor-bike lights spread out beneath me.  I saw miles from my minuscule width of glass.  Where was I seeing?  Had I been there? Was Clara there? Was David there?  Was Estella there?  Was Emilio?  Louis?  Nadia?  Marie? 
How many lives were in my view but absent from my sight right now?
Surely, they were as numerous as the stars that I could see above.
It was as if the strip of darkness that separated the clusters of of stars and the land sprinkled with lights, imitation stars, served as a mirror. 

The two mysteries, the stars and the people, above and below, gazing, mirror-images, at one another.

The lives, miracles on the earth.  Each one burning with passion, the will to thrive, the courage to stand in the face of uncertainty, endurance under hardship, the brilliance of the human spirit.
These were reflected by the audacious stars that refused to be extinguished by the darkness about them.
For at each star's boundary of light, the darkness was forced to stop; it had to bow to the defiant star.

And when I see the sky, indeed, I am not ignorant of the presence of darkness, yet I choose to marvel at the vivid light of each star.

And so, perhaps these people where surrounded by what would be considered "dark" conditions.  Yet, while the conditions were evident to me, I had no choice but to be taken with and marvel at their joy, their passion, their free-flowing laughter, their sound, their shouts of praise, their love, their generosity, their God-given light.

*I, too, have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night, and I have chosen, indeed, to look joyfully at their light.

[*reference to Sarah Williams's poem, "The Old Astronomer"]

Steeped

Last week I took a kayak out from the shore of the panhandle of Florida onto the gulf of Mexico. When I had paddled out from the shore, I looked around.  About half a mile to my right and to my left it was raining hard.  I could see curtains of translucent gray connecting the dark gray waves to the sun sprinkled clouds.  I heard the thunder rumble.  [Perhaps I shouldn't have been in the water, but I obviously made it safely home, so we can just ignore this minor detail.]  The water around me had darkened to reflect the sky as if to conceal depths of secrets.  I could only see the surface and my wavering reflection looking back at me.  The waves jostled me in my small boat as the wind began to blow.  Soon it would storm where I was.  Yet, I sat contently in the momentary calm and surveyed the ocean.  The horizon was nothing but sky pouring into ocean.  The enormity of the sky and ocean swallowed me.  Here I was floating suspended between the air and the deep.  I was terrified and excited, feeling endless and feeling tiny.  I wanted to feel the comfort of the shore, yet I longed for adventure.  I was fascinated by the movement of the clouds and waves under the breath and command of the wind. I came to understand more deeply the balance of being in wonder at and fearing God in that moment.  

This moment got me thinking about how it is so amazing to me how the entirety of life is steeped in a spiritual reality.
This spiritual reality, in my mind, is the warm and healing broth of life that everything else is suspended in.  It permeates everything and holds everything.  It is the force of motion.  This is not something I woke up and realized one day; it is something that I seem to have slid in to.  I recognized bits and pieces over time, and each day I attempt to move closer to being able to recognize it in every breath.  I am not there yet.  Sitting here it is easy to recognize this beautiful transcendent fact, but as soon as someone is confrontational, leaves the toilet paper roll empty, leaves their 4 day old cereal on the table, hurts my feelings, or cuts me off in traffic, the spiritual aspect of life evaporates from my mind.  I try each day to cling to the reality that I am surrounded by human beings filled with sacred souls.  If I am in nature I am surrounded by creation made by The Spirit who breathes into each soul. Indeed, in every situation, I am wrapped in an ocean of my God; God's presence is unending.  Were it an ocean, I would be upon a raft; if I were to gaze about me, no where I would look would yield anything but more ocean.  It is humbling, terrifying, and awe-inspiring.  Yet, to compare God’s presence to an ocean isn’t sufficient. God’s presence would be the air too.  Yet, even that wouldn’t be enough, the fact that anything exists at all tremors with the presence of God. God is in all things, above all things, and all things have existence through God.  

Stars

The stars in the sky remind me of the knowledge I have of God. I see so many stars and have learned what I feel like is so much about God, yet, it is not even scratching the surface. The stars I see are nearly insignificant to the amount of stars that exist. I am thankful that I worship the God who is so far beyond me, yet Who cares so deeply for me. 

Mirror mirror

 I love how your teeth set

Asymmetrically

And I love the line on your nose 

I love how your hair is wavy and fair 

And I love how to tan your skin goes

In the sun

I can see

your eyes,and the wavering layers of blue

And I see, my dear,

There is no flaw in you.