Bones was a homeless man. He was emaciated. I imagine that's where he got his nickname. I didn't ask; I just snuck him extra pieces of pie the weeks I was doing dessert at the Denver Rescue Mission.
The things I learned about God through the eyes of people who had no homes or, in many cases, families- rescued me. Skinny Bones changed my big life.
It becomes easy to make God many things, all of them unloving and condemning. It's simple to dumb God down to a book that was "written thousands of years ago and was a game of telephone; hardly accurate." (Actually, Homer's Iliad was written 500 years post his death and only 643 manuscripts have been found. The New Testament was completed within 25 years post Jesus' death, burial, resurrection and ascension, and there are 24,000 manuscripts and counting found to confirm actual translation, historical landmarks, etc...perhaps a post on things like this later. Historians have written about Jesus too, a man who was crucified, buried and rose from the dead. Josephus is one of them. OK, ya...maybe another post about this later. And he either was God or was not. Something cannot be true and false. Right...maybe another post on this later.)
Well, anyway, it's passive to make God a magic trick because we can pull him out of our little hats and expect the rabbit to dance, we can make him the angry index finger-lightning striking God that resembles a statue because it means we never have to face wrong choices. The consequences of our living become God's fault. Bones didn't have this view. He didn't blame God for the fact that his daughter never called him. He blamed Meth and his choice to smoke it. (Dad, as in the man who adopted me because you were always hand picked to be MY daddy, if you are reading this you can rest assured I no longer talk to Meth addicts when I am alone- but I may still occasionally slip them some pie.)
What emaciated life moments or, in some cases, emaciated people taught me was that God is God. He is not what I say he is. God is who He says he is. God is faithful.
Bones knew he would probably not live a very long life. I wanted his daughter to forgive him, to reach out to him. I wanted Bones, a 60 something man that could not even cast a shadow, to have someone who would smell his shirts when he died and remember him as someone they could have talked with. I didn't care about Bones' shirts because his stuff mattered to him, but because no one else seemed to care about what happened to him at all. When I realized, years ago, that Bones had probably died, it stung me in a place I could not quite put my finger on. It was mostly because I felt injustice. That man was trying and damnit, that should have counted to his daughter. That man was alive; and that should have counted to all of us.
Bones reported excitedly the day he got a job. Three weeks later he walked up to the pie cart and handed me a sweatshirt. Bones handed me a sweatshirt. I had five extra coats, I'm sure, in my car. Bones. Handed. Me. A. Sweatshirt. He had bought me a gift with his first paycheck. A homeless man bought me a present.
I think many homeless people I give change to DO buy alcohol. I really believe that with all of my heart. And I think that the point in me giving them money is that I made eye contact with them. They were people, not pigeons begging for bread in a park. They had a name for that moment. They had someone say, "Keep trying. Just keep trying."
The point in giving them money is not to control how they spend it. The point in giving is to keep MY heart pointed towards rescue, towards people, towards a Bones who maybe wants his daughter to call him back...my quarter will not change anything. My quarter will not change that that woman may still die alone.
My quarter changes my heart.
I'd like to think Bones was able to recover and that he died in his sleep. Yes, maybe that his alarm clock was set for 6:45 that morning, chain of the fan clinking against itself, his dogs asleep as the foot of his bed. And maybe he was asleep with plans to see the Doctor that morning. Maybe his daughter was going to pick him up for that appointment.
Who knows what happened to Bones, or what I did with his sweatshirt or if he even liked the pie...but seeing a man who kept trying with nothing, who was happy about two pieces of pie, about being able to give out of his very little- reminded me that I always have something to give. And Bones didn't care if I kept his sweatshirt and I didn't care if he liked my pie.
And none of that was actually the point, now was it?
And none of that was actually because God was wrong.
And none of that was for nothing.
You see, I think in God's faithfulness he allows us to be homeless (some of us figuratively). It is when we have no roof above our heads, at times, that we notice the stars for the first time. And maybe when it feels like I am God's victim, like he is just out to get me...well, maybe I am just lucky enough to be right about that.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
My name means peaceful meadow; and, I added a few...
(Inspired by a speech I heard given by Dr. David Noebel last week):
What I am for:
I am for America, a kind word; I am for Al-Anon.
I am for books, big hips, baths, bacterial flagellum and all it screams about the complexity of design.
I am for Christianity, children, and Creationism.
I am for Christmas morning.
I am for discipline and discipleship...and
Excellence (not perfection). I am for El Qanna.
I am for faith, friendship, finger paints, family dinner, french fries and femininity.
I am for grassroots, gummy bears, and grandparents.
I am for health, humility, homemade green chili, harmonicas.
I am for the homeless.
I am for imagination, Israel, the innocence of children, justice, and journals.
I am for kites and killing spiders.
I am for laughter in any situation, long-hand letters, memories and music.
I am for modesty, masculinity, and marriage.
I am for the NRA.
I am for naps and I am for orphans.
I am for Pastor Youcef, prayer in schools, passion, and old pictures.
I am for Paley's Argument for Design written as a response to Richard Dawkins' the Blind Watchmaker.
I am for knowing when it's time to quit.
I am for the resurrection, resolution, righteous anger; and, I am for the Rapture.
I am for self-control, silent films, and the smell of rain.
I am for spontaneity and I am for schedules.
I am for Truth, Thanksgiving all year, tithing, trusting, and teachers. I am for trying again, tomorrow, type-writers; and I am for theTrinity.
I am for understanding before seeking to be understood, virtue, vanilla ice cream and Vivaldi.
I am for the Westminster Confession, wax seals, whales, and the 1828 edition of Noah Webster's dictionary.
I am for Xanadu or bust being real.
I am for Yahweh, youth; and I am for zoos.
What I am for:
I am for America, a kind word; I am for Al-Anon.
I am for books, big hips, baths, bacterial flagellum and all it screams about the complexity of design.
I am for Christianity, children, and Creationism.
I am for Christmas morning.
I am for discipline and discipleship...and
Excellence (not perfection). I am for El Qanna.
I am for faith, friendship, finger paints, family dinner, french fries and femininity.
I am for grassroots, gummy bears, and grandparents.
I am for health, humility, homemade green chili, harmonicas.
I am for the homeless.
I am for imagination, Israel, the innocence of children, justice, and journals.
I am for kites and killing spiders.
I am for laughter in any situation, long-hand letters, memories and music.
I am for modesty, masculinity, and marriage.
I am for the NRA.
I am for naps and I am for orphans.
I am for Pastor Youcef, prayer in schools, passion, and old pictures.
I am for Paley's Argument for Design written as a response to Richard Dawkins' the Blind Watchmaker.
I am for knowing when it's time to quit.
I am for the resurrection, resolution, righteous anger; and, I am for the Rapture.
I am for self-control, silent films, and the smell of rain.
I am for spontaneity and I am for schedules.
I am for Truth, Thanksgiving all year, tithing, trusting, and teachers. I am for trying again, tomorrow, type-writers; and I am for theTrinity.
I am for understanding before seeking to be understood, virtue, vanilla ice cream and Vivaldi.
I am for the Westminster Confession, wax seals, whales, and the 1828 edition of Noah Webster's dictionary.
I am for Xanadu or bust being real.
I am for Yahweh, youth; and I am for zoos.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Some things, we keep...
I found a note in my son's Bible today while we were doing his "quiet time"- reading about how God made everything. It was a note I wrote on an envelope to my husband during a church service when we were engaged. It read, "The rainbows remind me of God's promises every time I look at it."
It was a note about the stone in my engagement ring. Every time the light caught it the prisms would bounce back colors like Ivy on the side of an old house.
The last time I saw my wedding ring was May 28 last year. The thought that I have lost my wedding ring hit me so hard this afternoon it brought tears to my eyes. Again.
To the person who found my wedding ring:
I want it back. You will never be in those stores; finally beside someone who says your name like they know you. You will not eagerly wait for it the morning you find a note on your windshield that's damp with dew written about the sunrise. And that day won't be the wrong day.
You didn't have dead flowers in the pots on your porch and you didn't get a kiss on your cheek while you cried over the funeral you had to have over those damn flowers.
You won't be pushed in to a river with snakes- and not be afraid of them for the only time in your life because of who was beside you.
You won't fight at Noodles or on Easter.
You will never have to find yourself the most selfish you have ever been, realizing you just wanted something bigger and prettier- and then GET it and be humbled to your bones.You will never see the look in that man's eyes when he proposed to you. You will never have it put on the wrong hand out of nervousness. You will not give it back to him before the wedding with your cold feet.
You won't make mistakes you are still learning from.
You won't pace with it in your room the night before you get married in Hawaii- calling out to God like a lifeline and see a lighthouse- and then sleep.
You won't choke during communion, and remember Amazing Grace like a 4th of July.
You won't see the war waged over addiction, long-cold nights that could have killed our spirits, the way the cat wanted to go outside or the words you wore like colors on the walls like kids.
You won't forget how to love someone. You won't still be loved even when you forget.
You will not buy your first house with that ring; have your first child.
You will not twist it on your finger while you are bleeding on a towel praying God's very breath over your unborn child on the way the hospital in a snow storm.
You won't hear your son cry first for the first time after 40 hours of labor or sleep on his floor when he is sick with that ring.
You will not ever understand the story of that treasure- even if you now think it's your ring.
And what I am learning over the past year- is that it was never my ring. It's our story. And it's all still there- right where we left it. In the corner of our hearts, still mending at times, still growing. When my finger was bare last spring, it made me realize how much I want the story, not the stone. It breaks my heart deeply not to have such a gift, a banner of love- so-to-speak, anymore.
But I saw that note- and I realized that only God could save a marriage with a lost wedding ring.
The reminder of his promises are still complete.
The only ring I want is the one I am given- and I don't care if it's a piece of glass. It will still be ours.
It was a note about the stone in my engagement ring. Every time the light caught it the prisms would bounce back colors like Ivy on the side of an old house.
The last time I saw my wedding ring was May 28 last year. The thought that I have lost my wedding ring hit me so hard this afternoon it brought tears to my eyes. Again.
To the person who found my wedding ring:
I want it back. You will never be in those stores; finally beside someone who says your name like they know you. You will not eagerly wait for it the morning you find a note on your windshield that's damp with dew written about the sunrise. And that day won't be the wrong day.
You didn't have dead flowers in the pots on your porch and you didn't get a kiss on your cheek while you cried over the funeral you had to have over those damn flowers.
You won't be pushed in to a river with snakes- and not be afraid of them for the only time in your life because of who was beside you.
You won't fight at Noodles or on Easter.
You will never have to find yourself the most selfish you have ever been, realizing you just wanted something bigger and prettier- and then GET it and be humbled to your bones.You will never see the look in that man's eyes when he proposed to you. You will never have it put on the wrong hand out of nervousness. You will not give it back to him before the wedding with your cold feet.
You won't make mistakes you are still learning from.
You won't pace with it in your room the night before you get married in Hawaii- calling out to God like a lifeline and see a lighthouse- and then sleep.
You won't choke during communion, and remember Amazing Grace like a 4th of July.
You won't see the war waged over addiction, long-cold nights that could have killed our spirits, the way the cat wanted to go outside or the words you wore like colors on the walls like kids.
You won't forget how to love someone. You won't still be loved even when you forget.
You will not buy your first house with that ring; have your first child.
You will not twist it on your finger while you are bleeding on a towel praying God's very breath over your unborn child on the way the hospital in a snow storm.
You won't hear your son cry first for the first time after 40 hours of labor or sleep on his floor when he is sick with that ring.
You will not ever understand the story of that treasure- even if you now think it's your ring.
And what I am learning over the past year- is that it was never my ring. It's our story. And it's all still there- right where we left it. In the corner of our hearts, still mending at times, still growing. When my finger was bare last spring, it made me realize how much I want the story, not the stone. It breaks my heart deeply not to have such a gift, a banner of love- so-to-speak, anymore.
But I saw that note- and I realized that only God could save a marriage with a lost wedding ring.
The reminder of his promises are still complete.
The only ring I want is the one I am given- and I don't care if it's a piece of glass. It will still be ours.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
New Introductions
I think to be effective in life we need to let each other know each other.
So, I want to share some things I wrote a long-long time ago. Being vulnerable is very hard, but it's often the only credibility statement we have. I think people want to know that someone else does understand, that we are not ants in a community passing each other all day. I think we want to know that we are not just robots crossing lines and washing our clothes in machines. I think we want to know that we are not machines.
I want people to know that God saved me. That God is love and love is real.
I have a fire in my once dead bones because of Jesus- and that's more than a feeling. This journal entry is part a story about a rescue, a very small window in to what I have been rescued from in the past. It's nothing really romantic, or poetic or grammatically correct- it's just life. My life.
I have had people tell me that Christianity is a crutch. And you know what? IT IS. And I am so thankful because I know, for myself, those moments of life where I know I cannot do it by myself; and, I didn't.
So, when did I turn from a private hundreds of journals in to an internet junky? I haven't. I am still not sure how I feel about a blog, to be honest. It seems strange and trendy- but if just one person reads and says "me, too" then I was no longer selfish in writing letters to a phantom audience for so many years. Then maybe you became my audience and maybe it helps knowing you and I are not ants. And maybe it's just the two of us.
12 October 2002 3.27 pm
Nothing can or ever will be the same. I can never experience this moment at the Brazil coffee house with vanilla chai and an orange muffin, sample of chicken soup, again. I see it as a loss. And that may be the reason why I feel or even want to die before I am 25. Lately, I have experienced a sort of sadness that even prevents me from crying. It just consumes me and I feel as though beaten and like it's running madly through my veins and am I dying?
I cannot even rock or curl in to the fetal position- I just stare as I am consumed by this. I know it does not have to keep me sick for long. But it is a sickness. It's an iron fist and when it lets loose of my throat I gasp for thick air...and cry heavy tears that soak my shirt.
I must set standards for myself, for my life and career and to make a career out of my life and a living out of my career. So many places I feel I could run to but none of them have any arms. God does not have tangible arms and my faith will grow because of it. I must stay as a mountain building to all who watch me. I don't want to show how hard it is to find another bus stop, another journal, another job. I'm just so tired and mislead in to thinking I understand why people kill themselves- and I think I do.
Maybe I want to change, read, cry in front of someone, find a picture of someone I miss in the center of my Bible and forget what they look like, avoid open space, sleep all day. No matter where I am the entire rest of the world is right in front of my nose. I don't know why I can't just make it go away?
Nowhere I really want to be, go or end up. I don't want to be held, watched or even adjusted to. It all depends on nothing because that is what I have made of all what happened. Even the blind could easily see how it has control over me. In control, in love, at work- is it possible to have spent 5 years and 100 lives?
I can't even say it all outloud on these pages because it will kill me.
There is a cure. There has to be. Church says to pray and honestly, I don't have an excuse not to or why that wouldn't make sense. So, maybe I will pray today. What could it hurt? Nothing. Praying is taking a chance on hurting nothing. It's a place to start, anyway, and that's all I can hope for.
So, I want to share some things I wrote a long-long time ago. Being vulnerable is very hard, but it's often the only credibility statement we have. I think people want to know that someone else does understand, that we are not ants in a community passing each other all day. I think we want to know that we are not just robots crossing lines and washing our clothes in machines. I think we want to know that we are not machines.
I want people to know that God saved me. That God is love and love is real.
I have a fire in my once dead bones because of Jesus- and that's more than a feeling. This journal entry is part a story about a rescue, a very small window in to what I have been rescued from in the past. It's nothing really romantic, or poetic or grammatically correct- it's just life. My life.
I have had people tell me that Christianity is a crutch. And you know what? IT IS. And I am so thankful because I know, for myself, those moments of life where I know I cannot do it by myself; and, I didn't.
So, when did I turn from a private hundreds of journals in to an internet junky? I haven't. I am still not sure how I feel about a blog, to be honest. It seems strange and trendy- but if just one person reads and says "me, too" then I was no longer selfish in writing letters to a phantom audience for so many years. Then maybe you became my audience and maybe it helps knowing you and I are not ants. And maybe it's just the two of us.
12 October 2002 3.27 pm
Nothing can or ever will be the same. I can never experience this moment at the Brazil coffee house with vanilla chai and an orange muffin, sample of chicken soup, again. I see it as a loss. And that may be the reason why I feel or even want to die before I am 25. Lately, I have experienced a sort of sadness that even prevents me from crying. It just consumes me and I feel as though beaten and like it's running madly through my veins and am I dying?
I cannot even rock or curl in to the fetal position- I just stare as I am consumed by this. I know it does not have to keep me sick for long. But it is a sickness. It's an iron fist and when it lets loose of my throat I gasp for thick air...and cry heavy tears that soak my shirt.
I must set standards for myself, for my life and career and to make a career out of my life and a living out of my career. So many places I feel I could run to but none of them have any arms. God does not have tangible arms and my faith will grow because of it. I must stay as a mountain building to all who watch me. I don't want to show how hard it is to find another bus stop, another journal, another job. I'm just so tired and mislead in to thinking I understand why people kill themselves- and I think I do.
Maybe I want to change, read, cry in front of someone, find a picture of someone I miss in the center of my Bible and forget what they look like, avoid open space, sleep all day. No matter where I am the entire rest of the world is right in front of my nose. I don't know why I can't just make it go away?
Nowhere I really want to be, go or end up. I don't want to be held, watched or even adjusted to. It all depends on nothing because that is what I have made of all what happened. Even the blind could easily see how it has control over me. In control, in love, at work- is it possible to have spent 5 years and 100 lives?
I can't even say it all outloud on these pages because it will kill me.
There is a cure. There has to be. Church says to pray and honestly, I don't have an excuse not to or why that wouldn't make sense. So, maybe I will pray today. What could it hurt? Nothing. Praying is taking a chance on hurting nothing. It's a place to start, anyway, and that's all I can hope for.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Some 1926, Some 1970's, Some 2007, Some today.
I'm so glad I went. An evening with my mom's best friends from high school felt restless, just being invited. Daughters just don't say no to things like that. But in 2007 I wanted to.
What I didn't know was that I was being invited into basements from 37 years ago filled with music and unsigned birthday cards. My mom's telling of the time she was in Ken's car on the way to her brother Tony's funeral. His car broke down. She was late to Uncle T's funeral. One of three times she would ever see my grandfather cry, and she was late. I knew the story but the way she said it that night made me want to hug her like a daughter that would have said "yes" to her invitation the day before to this dinner with no hesitation.
Ann T's husband has since left her. She married at 19. She has never been single. She does not know how to balance a checkbook but she knows how to survive breast cancer.
The songs were like security blankets. I understand songs like that.
I drove home thinking about when I was "that age."
19.
New York.
Thing is, everyone there is still the same stranger they were to each other several years ago. Sounds are the same. My uncle asked me, "Won't it be nice to see the side of the city you can only see if you have money in your pocket?" when I went with him years ago.
I'd like to think I knew what he meant. I think, I hope I did.
Truth is- there is a certain part of ANY city you can only see with money in your pocket.
It's the safe streets, the inside of cabs, Broadway musicals and 5 star salads. And there's everything wonderful about those things, honestly.
Apparently what money could not get you was a good homeless friend to share HIS lunch, doormen who will save your life, friends with names you cannot pronounce but will spend hours roaming the streets to play their harmonica next to you, coffee from a street corner that tastes more like home than Starbucks ever could...
and here I was thinking bright lights would save me and give me memories in place of dreams that were bold and BUCK-eyed. Here I was annoyed at my mother's invitation in to her past when she, herself, had her own cock-eyed miracles she had survived.
Small town gave my mother friends that understand sitting on the porch and watering the lawn with their fathers, packs of wild dogs, packs of wild horses, Italian wedding cookies and Russian Easters.
Well, any way, Happy Birthday, Rosebud. I am sorry I did not come to see you. I don't know how to leave you. The nights I used to tuck you in and listen to you talk yourself to sleep...got so quiet once you moved. You don't talk at all anymore. Well, maybe inside you do. I think that...inside you do talk and it's brilliant.
And now I, am selfish, and I don't know how to leave you...and so I don't. And I'm so sorry.
But if I had come today...those are the things I would have said this time. And I would have told you how amazed I always was at your humility...the most beautiful room you ever saw was in a hotel.
And I would have sang Bill Bailey...and on the bench at City Park you would have sang it with me.
I love you.
What I didn't know was that I was being invited into basements from 37 years ago filled with music and unsigned birthday cards. My mom's telling of the time she was in Ken's car on the way to her brother Tony's funeral. His car broke down. She was late to Uncle T's funeral. One of three times she would ever see my grandfather cry, and she was late. I knew the story but the way she said it that night made me want to hug her like a daughter that would have said "yes" to her invitation the day before to this dinner with no hesitation.
Ann T's husband has since left her. She married at 19. She has never been single. She does not know how to balance a checkbook but she knows how to survive breast cancer.
The songs were like security blankets. I understand songs like that.
I drove home thinking about when I was "that age."
19.
New York.
Thing is, everyone there is still the same stranger they were to each other several years ago. Sounds are the same. My uncle asked me, "Won't it be nice to see the side of the city you can only see if you have money in your pocket?" when I went with him years ago.
I'd like to think I knew what he meant. I think, I hope I did.
Truth is- there is a certain part of ANY city you can only see with money in your pocket.
It's the safe streets, the inside of cabs, Broadway musicals and 5 star salads. And there's everything wonderful about those things, honestly.
Apparently what money could not get you was a good homeless friend to share HIS lunch, doormen who will save your life, friends with names you cannot pronounce but will spend hours roaming the streets to play their harmonica next to you, coffee from a street corner that tastes more like home than Starbucks ever could...
and here I was thinking bright lights would save me and give me memories in place of dreams that were bold and BUCK-eyed. Here I was annoyed at my mother's invitation in to her past when she, herself, had her own cock-eyed miracles she had survived.
Small town gave my mother friends that understand sitting on the porch and watering the lawn with their fathers, packs of wild dogs, packs of wild horses, Italian wedding cookies and Russian Easters.
Well, any way, Happy Birthday, Rosebud. I am sorry I did not come to see you. I don't know how to leave you. The nights I used to tuck you in and listen to you talk yourself to sleep...got so quiet once you moved. You don't talk at all anymore. Well, maybe inside you do. I think that...inside you do talk and it's brilliant.
And now I, am selfish, and I don't know how to leave you...and so I don't. And I'm so sorry.
But if I had come today...those are the things I would have said this time. And I would have told you how amazed I always was at your humility...the most beautiful room you ever saw was in a hotel.
And I would have sang Bill Bailey...and on the bench at City Park you would have sang it with me.
I love you.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Joy
Depression can make you want to crawl in to the laps of stone goddesses and it would feel like bed.
It's almost like a museum of sorts--where in an hour you can travel to Greece and then to a room in Frank Lloyd Wright's home and like your legs are always falling asleep...like you have an umbrella open against your thigh in the rain...but only when no one is looking.
It's a hard thing to understand because perhaps it's the most honest a person can be without helping it.
Words act as life preservers; little Styrofoam hearts sending "happy" out.
An incessant rain makes it feel like maybe that's the reason the day is not working, or maybe the reason you are not working...or maybe like the rain is the only thing that is working in the whole entire world.
December, January February...not every day has to be February.
And
Today
Is
March.
In the past few years the winter has not been so daunting, for which I am grateful.
It's not feeling sorry for yourself. You don't feel yourself, at all, actually.
And you can't just turn a mind off that never sleeps. It thinks you.
I find it easiest to judge others when I am...losing to February. But the truth is that my bathroom can be cleaner than the condition of my heart if I'm not sincere about keeping it clean...even in February. Lies come at you from everywhere, in every sense of the word. Once you believe the lie, it becomes your worldview. Once your worldview starts at the dead end lie your thoughts will only reiterate the place where they began...the lie.
"I am alone."
-something happens that feels-
"No one would understand this feeling."
So where are we now? ALONE.
Lame example, but you get the idea.
Sometimes you have to fight for what's true; and, that makes being tired so worth it. Joy is not a feeling. Joy is a gift that comes when you bring a sword for peace, it's a gift that comes with rest.
I learned, the hard way (almost always) that there is never a reason to be unkind. Not. Ever. Not even if "they did it first." Not even if I do not feel good. You see, meekness is power under control.
I also learned that just because something is true does not mean it's necessary to say.
1) Is it true?
2) Is it necessary?
3) Is it kind?
I have learned to be thankful for times of "winter" because it is a time where I am guaranteed to remember I cannot CANNOT do life based on my own merit or strength. I am relieved, more than any other time, that Jesus loves me.
I am not a victim of the cold. In 2002 I looked at the bare trees and it seemed to me they were raising their hands to God for morning, for sun, for tomorrow...and I decided that I should do the same.
Depression does not have to be train travel
from a nowhere land
to a place that
exists even less.
It does not have to claim a song
that stays in your
heart--sad.
It does not have to be weather that is
pounding inside somewhere
like pounding on the
piano
madly
inside of an object that
is pounding
madly inside of you.
You don't have to keep your eyes fixed on that place in the ceiling where it's slightly uneven.
It's almost like a museum of sorts--where in an hour you can travel to Greece and then to a room in Frank Lloyd Wright's home and like your legs are always falling asleep...like you have an umbrella open against your thigh in the rain...but only when no one is looking.
It's a hard thing to understand because perhaps it's the most honest a person can be without helping it.
Words act as life preservers; little Styrofoam hearts sending "happy" out.
An incessant rain makes it feel like maybe that's the reason the day is not working, or maybe the reason you are not working...or maybe like the rain is the only thing that is working in the whole entire world.
December, January February...not every day has to be February.
And
Today
Is
March.
In the past few years the winter has not been so daunting, for which I am grateful.
It's not feeling sorry for yourself. You don't feel yourself, at all, actually.
And you can't just turn a mind off that never sleeps. It thinks you.
I find it easiest to judge others when I am...losing to February. But the truth is that my bathroom can be cleaner than the condition of my heart if I'm not sincere about keeping it clean...even in February. Lies come at you from everywhere, in every sense of the word. Once you believe the lie, it becomes your worldview. Once your worldview starts at the dead end lie your thoughts will only reiterate the place where they began...the lie.
"I am alone."
-something happens that feels-
"No one would understand this feeling."
So where are we now? ALONE.
Lame example, but you get the idea.
Sometimes you have to fight for what's true; and, that makes being tired so worth it. Joy is not a feeling. Joy is a gift that comes when you bring a sword for peace, it's a gift that comes with rest.
I learned, the hard way (almost always) that there is never a reason to be unkind. Not. Ever. Not even if "they did it first." Not even if I do not feel good. You see, meekness is power under control.
I also learned that just because something is true does not mean it's necessary to say.
1) Is it true?
2) Is it necessary?
3) Is it kind?
I have learned to be thankful for times of "winter" because it is a time where I am guaranteed to remember I cannot CANNOT do life based on my own merit or strength. I am relieved, more than any other time, that Jesus loves me.
I am not a victim of the cold. In 2002 I looked at the bare trees and it seemed to me they were raising their hands to God for morning, for sun, for tomorrow...and I decided that I should do the same.
Depression does not have to be train travel
from a nowhere land
to a place that
exists even less.
It does not have to claim a song
that stays in your
heart--sad.
It does not have to be weather that is
pounding inside somewhere
like pounding on the
piano
madly
inside of an object that
is pounding
madly inside of you.
You don't have to keep your eyes fixed on that place in the ceiling where it's slightly uneven.
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