on the shore

In the moments in between moments,

when heaviness drags aside

the pendulum's wide measured swing,

we are given a choice.

When all seems still

in the heart-heavy dim,

to accept the silence

and trust that it will speak,

to rest in the pause

and believe 

that it will, and is already,

moving within, 

to reach out in the darkness

and hope that dark will give light,

to go in faith,

into the places

you have not yet been...

This is the opening

and the name of what

you must begin to call your life.

This is the lapping water

that surrounds all starting points

into the sea.

Step in.

stop struggling

Do you ever have a hard time going to bed?  You feel like there's more you should have done during the day, more you could do even now, so you push back sleep just so you can get that one last thing accomplished?  I've been like that off and on in my life.  I'm not sure what I think I should have done or discovered by the time the day ends, but I often have a nagging feeling there's something I've missed.  

But tonight as I told myself to bypass books and magazines and journals and my computer, just this once to just go to bed without feeling like I was leaving some answer unsought or life-changing thing unaccomplished, I remembered something I heard at camp (CMMBC) that has stuck with me since.  It was so good to hear it tonight.

Stop struggling.

Just stop struggling.  It sounds easier than it is.  Our youth pastor had found out some interesting information about quicksand and how you escape from it once you've started sinking.  She was using quicksand as a metaphor for sin-- something that traps you and keeps absorbing you deeper and deeper.  As someone who gets that "sinking" feeling all too easily, I loved this metaphor.  

So apparently when you find yourself in quicksand (she looked this up online, and I just did too), there are three things that will help you get out: 

Shed extra weight, stop struggling, and surrender yourself-- lay out your arms and legs.

People will float in quicksand; we're less dense than the sand, clay and water.  If we don't struggle, we can gradually be lifted out-- the sand will shift underneath us, and the way upward will naturally become clear.

Be still.  Let things go.  Reach out; surrender yourself.  

And I'd add, 

Be patient.

Rest sometimes seems like the last thing I need-- I need to find answers and I need them now.  But there's something after rest, or during it, that floats up and lays itself like a blanket over the unreliable quicksand.  It's light, easy, and strong.  I don't entirely know how to describe it...but it's there.

"Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Stop struggling.

sunny flower

Doesn't everybody need a sunflower

the size of their hand?

I walked into work last week to find this gorgeous gal on my desk, beaming away at me from her little glass milk bottle vase.  She prettied up my cubicle for a couple days, but as the weekend was then upon us and I couldn't bear to leave her there (shouldn't sunflowers be in the sun?!), she came home with me!  Now she's on our front porch.  She's so far been a little too top-heavy to crane her neck up toward the sun like most sunflowers, but as usual, there are good things to be found in the situation.  

1.  She is the generous host of some bug life...hence the front porch as opposed to a sunny area inside the house.  

2.  Have you ever seen a prettier back-of-a-flower?

gathering

Cast the net wide,
wider than you know--
bring all the fish in.
This heart is a school.

carry a light

On the eve of a life,
God spoke a beautiful word
that brought into being
image and mind and heart.
And Person was there, too,
in her many bits and pieces,
swirling around and looking
for a place to land.
And God was there, too.
And God gave her a dream
that her looking-up eyes
and a vision of wholeness
were not just things to be
given to her by another Person,
but by the One who had made her
that way.
She has a hard time looking up.
She doesn't quite know what to do
when the "her" He lights up inside
feels so much bigger
than the one she is.
And that's why He says,
it takes time.
It won't be perfect.
But watch My hands,
not the clock's.

you've got soul under your skin

I forget that sometimes.

--

Rage won’t lie that far beneath
Something sinister that runs through your veins
Can you feel it burning out the seams?
And has innocence forgotten your name?

Do I look like a saint?
Until the curtain rolls,
Talking stops for the picture show

You got soul under your skin.
What happens when you don’t know who to let in?
Will we ever understand?
We’re just breaking out the windows

Deadly spies in submarines,
Taking information for twisted games.
I feel its turning all on me;
A guilty finger points away from the blame.
Now you look like a saint
Until the curtain rolls,
Talking stops for the picture show

You got soul under your skin.
What happens when you don’t know who to let in?
Will we ever understand?
We’re just breaking out the windows

How did we get so far,
running to hide these scars?
Love’s not afraid of what it finds in the dark.

--Matthew Perryman Jones, "Breaking Out the Windows"

redundant!

Found it on YouTube!
Gotta go practice my pizza making!
Whooaa!

cup stacking! coal digging! hide the hamster!

I just can't explain why this commercial for The Office makes me so happy. But really, do I need to?

what i am made of

It's hard not to wonder.

thirst

"In his ardent prayer, he did not ask God to explain his confusion to him, but only thirsted for joyful tenderness, the same tenderness that always visited his soul after praising and glorifying God."

- The Brothers Karamazov