LOVE

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carful round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in teh casket of coffin of your selfishness. But in the casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless-it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable... the only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is Hell. (C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves)

There are things I am afraid to feel for fear they will hurt too much. There are things I am afraid to cry about for fear that the torrents will never stop. There is a longing in me so deep and so inate to love and be loved, and in this season I am keenly aware of it. Is it the remembrance of the hope that was born to me so long ago in the form of an infant vulnerable; love Himself? Is it the heart of flesh that now resides somewhere protected between flesh and bone, that now bleeds? I have dared to love a few times and been hurt deeper then I could imagine and maybe even more then I can understand. Will I dear to love and be loved again. Could it be that all He says is true? These are the ramblings of a mind that runs in circles desperate to find the off ramp. A body stretched between time and eternity, preferring to be torn in half to feel the release of the pull. Will the release come? I dont know, but until then I will try to love deeply in spite of the depths of sorrow that matches the heights.

O Me! O Life!

"O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse."
Walt Whitman

" I'm sensitive and I'd like to stay that way"
jewel

Longings For Home

"O MAGNET-SOUTH! O glistening, perfumed South! My South!
O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse, and love! Good and evil! O all dear to me!
O dear to me my birth-things—All moving things, and the trees where I was born—the grains, plants, rivers;
Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they flow, distant, over flats of silvery sands, or through swamps;
Dear to me the Roanoke, the Savannah, the Altamahaw, the Pedee, the Tombigbee, the Santee, the Coosa, and the Sabine;
O pensive, far away wandering, I return with my Soul to haunt their banks again;
Again in Florida I float on transparent lakes—I float on the Okeechobee—I cross the hummock land, or through pleasant openings, or dense forests;
I see the parrots in the woods—I see the papaw tree and the blossoming titi;
Again, sailing in my coaster, on deck, I coast off Georgia—I coast up the Carolinas,
I see where the live-oak is growing—I see where the yellow-pine, the scented bay-tree, the lemon and orange, the cypress, the graceful palmetto;
I pass rude sea-headlands and enter Pamlico Sound through an inlet, and dart my vision inland;
O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar, hemp!
The cactus, guarded with thorns—the laurel-tree, with large white flowers;
The range afar—the richness and barrenness—the old woods charged with mistletoe and trailing moss,
The piney odor and the gloom—the awful natural stillness, (Here in these dense swamps the freebooter carries his gun, and the fugitive slave has his conceal’d hut;)
O the strange fascination of these half-known, half-impassable swamps, infested by reptiles, resounding with the bellow of the alligator, the sad noises of the night-owl and the wild-cat, and the whirr of the rattlesnake;
The mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon—singing through the moon-lit night,
The humming-bird, the wild turkey, the raccoon, the opossum;
A Tennessee corn-field—the tall, graceful, long-leav’d corn—slender, flapping, bright green with tassels—with beautiful ears, each well-sheath’d in its husk;
An Arkansas prairie—a sleeping lake, or still bayou;
O my heart! O tender and fierce pangs—I can stand them not—I will depart;
O to be a Virginian, where I grew up! O to be a Carolinian!
O longings irrepressible! O I will go back to old Tennessee, and never wander more!"
Walt Whitman

I scarcely appreciate what I have until it is gone. Wanting what we do not have I guess is the plague of a soul not yet settled. When will my bleeding heart rest in your hands? "Peace I leave with you my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." Therefore I shall set my face as flint and head into the wind with you as my strength and my shield

I measure my life out with coffee spoons

I spend hours that turn into days and will eventually amount to whole years of my life over coffee. I find now it is less about the drink and more about the conversation, but not just conversation. I realized tonight we are desperate to know ourselves and be known by others. I am finding more and more we fail miserably at it. All the things we think we know we don't and worse still we are horrible at communicating what we are unsure about. There is a great chasm between us all that we could name The Fall. I wonder if it is part of the blessing from the One who desperately wants to be known by us? We are desperate to be drawn back into the whole that we departed from. We think friends are ones who like the same food, music, books, movies; because we believe that somehow this links the selves together. There is only so much we can convince ourselves of until you realize you have a fist full of dust. Loneliness is imminent and maybe our best whiff of reality.
So why then do I continue to try to find myself in a cup of coffee? The culture, the aroma, the stigma, the comfort, the tradition, the addiction. Why do I search to find the thread between us? Because I am searching for a way home and we are from the same place and you remind me of a part of me I forgot I had. Because you may be the hand and I am the eye and without one another we are useless. Because I cannot say to you... " I don't need you." Maybe I will find you in the end and discover I never knew you at all because, "Nothing is yet in its true form"

Listening to the Song of the Kitchen

Today when I was preparing to get dinner started for 110 people or so I was caught off guard by the mesmerizing beat of the sound of the kitchen. I realized that it doesn't matter where you are there is a song to be heard a melody that rises if you only stop and listen. How many songs do I miss a day because I am wrapped up in the task I was given or am to inwardly focused?
It starts with that low constant thump and then you find that all other sounds want to join in the chorus. It makes me wonder about the conductor. Beneath the ambient noise is a song that makes your soul move and your feet start tapping. "a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance" Find your rhythm and DANCE... Even if it is in the Kitchen!

Do I dare disturb the universe?

" Do I dare disturb the universe? In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have know them all already, known them all-have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons. I have measure out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying face beneath the music from a farther room. So how shoudl I pressume? And I have known the eyes already known them all-They eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated sprawling on a pin, when I am pinned and wriggling on the wall. then how should I begin?" T.S. Eliot

Looking in the wrong direction

I wonder how often we are found this way face turned away gazing in the wrong direction scanning the horizon, when what we are looking for is right next to us. You say... "Rest in ME. Wait upon Me. Come apart with Me. Seek My face. Seek my Fellowship. O Lord, what shame that You should need to beg us thus! Better that others might find us unavailable vecause of our occupation with You, rather than for us to be so slow to come, so dull to hear, so cold of heart, so indolent of soul." Oh the day when I turn around and look full in His glorious face. Let thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. " We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." T.S. Elliot

Thirst. Sete. δίψα.

"God, You are my God; I eagerly seek You. I thirst for You; my body faints for You in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water." Psalm 63:1 I really dont like drinking water if you offer me a choice between it and just about anything else I will choose the something else. "However, water tastes so very good when you are thirsty! Clear and cold, there is nothing more delicious and satisfying. You do not have to guess when you are thirsty, or time thirst like you would taking medication. Our healthy body demands the fluid replacement and lets us know relentlessly until we succumb to the desire to drink and satisfy our craving. Extreme thirst is waiting too late; we are probably by then very low on this essential nutrient. We are up to 75% water; our body needs water to function, to regulate our body temperature, and is the element for transporting oxygen and nutrients it also safeguards our organs and more."
Therefore I have learned a valuable lesson of what I often need I dont necessarily want. Here comes the metaphor...
"Jesus answered, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirst again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John4:13-14 When I need something or am desperate I am not afraid to call on the name of Jesus however, in every day mundane things or when I think I have things under control I usually dont even think of Him. If God made us out of the very fabric of Himself then I would need Him to restore, rejuvenate, and refresh me. The great thing about drinking water is the more you drink it the thirstier you are on a daily basis, ironic? You can fit the rest of the metaphor together as you please. Just some passing thoughts to chew on or drink up as it were.

"My mother groaned, my father wept, into the dangerous world I leapt..."

"How singular is the thing called pleasure and how curiously related to pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it... yet he who pursues either is generally compelled to take the other; their bodies are two but they are joined by the same head." Socrates
I have been strangely attuned to the cycle of life and death lately; something is always dying and something is always being birthed to life. Blink... that is the span of your life in light of eternity. Also the cycle of pain and pleasure are quite curious to me as I learn to be in the world but not of it. "Imagine a set of people all living in the same building. Half of them think it is a hotel, the other half think it is a prison. Those who think it a hotel might regard it as quite intolerable, and those who thought it was a prison might decide that it was really surprisingly comfortable. So that what seems the ugly doctrine is one that comforts and strengthens you in the end. The people who try to hold an optimistic view of this world would become pessimists: the people who hold a pretty stern view of it become optimistic." C.S. Lewis Oh that my view of this world might be changed. If only for a moment I could see the hand that holds time, and how quickly the chord could be drawn on the curtain. For one moment I could risk stepping outside the comfort of my formulas and text books to experience something bigger then myself that transcends my self imposed box of probability.
The worst thing is that I can do nothing about this but I must only wait and receive. You wouldn't think it would be hard to just rest and take it in, but my mind is busy and my hands fidget and soon I am off again working on a formula that I know will never be quite right. How we deceive ourselves. " Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him." James 1:2-5

How Salty is Salt?

While brunching at a local cafe La Dah eating a bit of eggs benedict and sipping an italian blood orange spritzer, we discovered something interesting
You may not be able to see it but you can see my reflection in this tiny salt shaker. I was reminded of the scripture"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It's no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled on by men." (Matt 5:13) and often times in my over analytical mind I wonder what the author really meant by that. So as I added a touch of salt to my beautiful meal and tasted the enhancement I thought there are inumerable ways we can be salt to eachother. How can I bring out the best, "taste" if you will of each person I meet. I have discovered this is quite the hard task considering my background in post-modern humanism I am often only concerned of my own flavor. But, I certainly dont want to be thrown out and trampled on by men. I love that you only need a touch to flavor a whole meal which means I dont have to do much but be myself. I love how God teaches me through the little things in life. So...let me know how I can add a punch to your flavor today

Escalator Dreams

I had a vision once of me on a moving escalator towards God. The moral of the story was that once you make that first leap of faith you are on moving along at a set pace towards eternity, but you have a choice, you can stand walk or run or if you were really dumb you could walk bakwards. I am working my pace up to a moderate jog for now, I think I need new tennis shoes though. This picture was fun it was more just that I had been tired and sat down and there was a camera out at the right moment. Hooray for the little surprises in life.

The Evolution of a Laugh

I often have spent time wondering along with my sister why we do some of the things that we do. One of the genius discussions we had was on the action that happens when we want to express outwardly when we are happy of think that something is funny or maybe you are just awkwardly nervous. We analyzed the action of laughing as we broke into stitches. What was discovered in this very scientific experiment was that in order to communicate your feeling (one of the above), you activate muscles in your face to raise your cheeks and show your teeth. If this is not accompanied with the unusual gasps of air coming from your diaphragm then this showing of teeth could easily be mistaken for anger or cannibalism on its brink. Luckily we all understand!
Furthermore I am delighted how different we all do this action and how beautifully it paints the character of the One who created such a beautifully unexplainable delight. Have you ever noticed how healing laughter is... try it, it works best with someone else. ENJOY your laughing extravaganza!

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time in a far away land lived a girl in the kingdom of toilets that flushed the opposite way. It sometimes smacks me in the face when I am walking down the street in the morning and birds that I used to marvel at in the pet store and wonder... who would pay that much for a bird and then what do you do with it, fly around in flocks and have the most annoying call I have ever heard and I am reminded of that early nintendo game when you shot the ducks and the dog would run to fetch them. Sadly I own no gun and if it got right down to it I would not be able to do it, but I digress. The point is I live in Australia and I find it interesting to think I never dreamed in the years of lockers, SCA, cafeteria lunches, and ridiculous relationships that I would be a missionary in Australia. My dreams were only as big as my city and and a mediocre love. NOW I am alive I mean really and I am ravenous for truth and life. And it starts here when I can smell the most beautiful flowers, my favorite the frangipani, in my back yard. I watch people pass from death to life. I live a life of reality and passion, I hurt and love deeply, I discover a new piece of me daily, and I am well loved. How life unfolds sometimes... let it blow your mind!

That Shadow, My Likeness

Often I get in the way of light and there comes this shape that looks similar to me but is not me. I can not catch up to it and sometimes it wants to out do me by growing taller and thinner then me but I take solace in the fact that the time will come again when she will be shorter and squater then me and even disappear. I always remain until I return the dust from hence I came
"THAT shadow, my likeness, that goes to and fro, seeking a livelihood, chattering, chaffering;
How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits;
How often I question and doubt whether that is really me;
—But in these, and among my lovers, and caroling my songs,
O I never doubt whether that is really me."
Walt Whitman