Restoration

I will cleanse them

from all the sin they have committed against me

and will forgive all of their sins of rebellion against me.

Then this city will bring me renown joy, praise and honor

before all the nations on earth that hear

of all the good things I do for it;

and they will be in awe

and will tremble at the abundant

prosperity and peace I provide for it.

- Jeremiah 33:8,9

I've come again,

amid deceptions and lost navigations,

to restoration.

Where I see desolation and waste and fault,

God shows me His power

in stark contrast to my broken beliefs.

Too confused and ashamed to even cry out,

I am confronted with the lies I've followed to this place.

Again and again,

my relationship with J has been healed

by God's infinite goodness.

All we desire is to glorify Him.

All we can do is follow and He will let it be.

He will let it be.

A Wretch Like Me

After the people
came the grace.
Slowly chipping away.
After the grace
came the light.
The light was in me
living, breathing.
But dark hates light.
The dark waits
in an alley,
like a lion hunting.
Like a whisper
but not in my ears,
in my skin.
Never as threatened
as then.
Sing loud to scare the lion
and sing to feed the light.

That freedom waits
that freedom to follow.
After the grace
after the light
and still in the life,
the breath in me.

The People Around Me

Thank God for community.

Thank God for turning my face to the people around me, always.

Thank God for working among them.

Thank God for touching my life through others.

Thank God for "coincidences" that bind me with to people around me.

Thank God for His patience and love and goodness.

Thank God that He wants to give that to me, so undeserved. 

The people around me are all dealing with variations of the same.

We're all on this Earth, here, with no intention of staying.

We're all living in what Anne Lamott calls the "tragic human condition."

We want to be close to God but we are called to be here and do His work and we get lost.

I'm okay with that, I'm okay with working and not feeling good... in my brain.

In my brain I know what I am fighting for, or really, who is fighting in me.

But my heart is so weak sometimes, it falls and fails and gets left in the dust.

Thank God for being there too,

when the world knocks us down and clouds the space around us.

He's in the dust around my friends' pain and my friends' confusion and my friends' doubt and my friends' complete failures.

He is absolutely in mine.

Rooster's an Owl

Being a morning person, I've always taken it upon myself to inform my friends that the phrase "Everything good happens after midnight" is horribly off.

Here, I feel like I own the morning. I love the silent presence of my roommates all asleep at 7 am and I love all the time I have to read and sit and sometimes do precisely nothing. For both physical and emotional reasons, I can't ever sleep past 7:30.

The other day I actually used that dusty snooze button. I had been up all nigh with my cough and 7 am wasn't going to happen. It was the strangest feeling, I felt like I was cheating on something. It was like skipping class, I felt both justified and guilty.

I've had my fair share of all-nighters, I mean, I did go to high school. But I get tired just thinking about them. I get tired from hearing people talk about staying up late. I can't seem to relate to the mentality that life happens in the dark. It's like a night club I stand outside of and stand on my toes to peer into.

Yesterday was especially hard because I knew I'd be up late, the idea was haunting me from the future. I haven't slept solid in two weeks because of a cough and after working into the midnight Tuesday, the last thing I wanted was to stay up on Wednesday.

I did it, though. I covered a CAPS meeting at 7 and proceeded to start a whole other broadcast at 11:00 pm! And although this may be a fleeting acceptance... I don't think it was horrible. I believe the guys I worked with seeped some of their energy into me. I absorbed it almost osmotically.

I didn't feel great about it this morning, but as time progresses I feel the rhythm. 

I feel like I was there when night spilled into morning and I haven't missed a beat. 

I feel so in tune with everything around me and the world's greater spinning amongst it. 

I feel like I've been squinting my whole life and now my eyes are fully open.

I feel the rush of life but I'm triple aware of it's fragility. 

Swelling tidal of

Life's great momentum, 'til it

Collides with the shore.

The Desert Place

Blessed be Your name 

In the land that is plentiful

Where your streams of abundance flow

Blessed be Your name

AND 

Blessed be Your name

When I'm found in the desert place

Though I walk through the wilderness

Blessed be Your name

That is one of my all-time favorite songs.

It's always relevant. It's always my cry-

that night and day and in joy or aches I would Bless His name.

So how do I loose sight of that?

Why am I shaken when I stop "feeling" my spirituality?

I have nothing to give to God that He doesn't already own.

I have nothing... I can leave with nothing.

The point is that I can still give myself to Him.

I want to joyfully give all of me, in all my nothingness, to God.

If I feel something- wonderful!

If I don't - Praises still to God!

I felt empty and nothing was filling me.

God spoke to me through Luisa, 

she was looking for God's face; seeking.

Luisa was looking for God's face. 

I wanted to, too.

I was incredibly blessed by community tonight. 

God showed me that I've become way too concerned with myself and my performance.

He is the one who makes it happen.

I wouldn't want it any other way.

Tonight, when we sang my favorite song, my very sore throat kept me from singing.

I closed my eyes and listened.

The voices around me, people I know and love praising God, that was His face!

I finally saw God's face.

Stripped of my voice, nothing to call out with.

Nothing to praise with.

I had nothing, I was nothing.

Surrounded by God's people,

By God's grace,

I saw His face!

Centering Prayer, Rain and Jam

When I first walked into my church's Centering Prayer session, my eyes had to adjust to the dim lighting in our normally-very-sunny chapel.

Six people, each a different age and color, sat in a small circle around an empty end table. They welcomed me.

I should have probably studied more on how to do a centering prayer before I came, because I wasn't in shape for their one hour session. But they explained it best as they could and even when I didn't feel exactly connected to God, I had the strongest sense of community. Community is a very Godly essence to me.

"We find it best to imagine our selves at the bottom of a river. Waves and boats and things are happening above and we notice them there but we don't get involved with them, we don't jump in the boat, we stay peaceful at the bottom of the water."

I've found this to be amazing advice as I bring centering prayer into a frequent practice. The discipline is to calm myself, my thoughts, my motivations, and open up to God. I don't think about anything (or I try not to) and I feel very at peace.

I hope to keep with this prayer because it's especially effective in my busy life. I like to start off my day with 15-20 minutes of this quietness and that consciousness lasts within me, throughout the day.

The amazing thing is that a friend of mine has been inspired to start this type of prayer, too. We talked about it on Thursday and we've both felt the same lasting peace from our discipline.

Thursday was a wonderful, rainy day, punctuated by the bright leaves in the sky and on the ground, beaten down by foot and rain. I formally met the guy who lives on the top floor of our flat as I was on my way to the grocery store. I was happy to walk in the rain because I was going for spices and I can accept a cloud or two during autumn.

I used the spices to make Souther Jam Cake, of which my roommates and friends all became quick fans. It was the beginning of this season where we are warm with friendship and baked goods. However it's still rainy today and my tolerance is running thin... I really hope my favorite season doesn't dully fade into winter.

Spiritual Memory

"And the children of Israel did so, just as Joshua commanded, and took up twelve stones from the midst of the Jordan, as the Lord had spoken to Joshua, according to the number of tribes of the children of Israel and carried them over with them to the place where they lodged."

-JOSHUA 4:8

God told His children to leave a spiritual marker along their journey. 

The Israelites spent forty years in the desert because of their doubt. When God miraculously parted the Jordan River and His children finally found their home, He asked them to leave these stones as a monument. He knew that even though they had experienced His power, they would soon doubt in the face of enemies to come. These many stones would be a faithful reminder of their personal witness of God's actions. What an amazing assignment God gave to the Israelites! 

*

I want to clearly remember when I've experienced God.

I want a stone, an anchor, something more durable than me. 

So often I forget what God has done in my life. 

So often I want to feel God and I have demands and expectations to feel Him.

So often I ask for these feelings when He has just spoken to me.

I've my fair share of mementos, but this blog will be another.

I value writing and although traditional ink and papyrus are more my style, this blog can be shared.

I don't know quite what I expect.

But I hope to be honest and not a facade - free and not trapped by commitment to write.

I have many hopes.