being

To be teachable. To be humble. To be repentant and to turn and change. To be empathetic and to know humanity. To love honestly and to love without black motives. To be sorry. To be real. To be good. To be simple. To be a martyr every day in succession. To embrace single-mindedness. To listen intently and hear loudly. To barely hear and still feel. To think clearly; to think at all. To want to know and be content to not. To pursue peace and still leave war with love. To confront in need and to forgive always. To call higher and be called higher.

To forget me and to know Him.

I mean to complain, but won't just the same. It feels like a betrayal, but little ever is. It feels like they opened the wardrobe doors and peeked through at the black minks and called them my heart. My head wants to defend, to close those doors and protect my heart, but if growth comes through hardships, bring them my way and start with something small, like this. It feels big, but mostly it feels like I make it big.

So, be quiet head and be still heart. Close the mouth and bury the body in the sand. Character always wins, but this time I'm not fighting.

expectation

There is brokeness and there is expectation; this is the paradox that is Christianity Cristlikeness.

Humbling Himself to death, even death on a cross, and still having a full assurance of the greater plan. descending into hell, yet still acknowledging the beauty of the resurrection forthcoming.

So I will sing. I will sing of Your mercies. They have led me straight through the valleys if only for the rivers of joy and that would be enough, but even in greater mercy, You have granted Eternity as a whetted thirst.

So while this pain swirls around and around and while the mountains cease to be moved, no matter how often or how fervently I say to them move, there is more. And should this valley continue; should I never see the restoration of the fallen city in my lifetime; should the rivers be few and mere trickles at times, this I know: I will sing of the mercies and I will see Eternity and I will know Christ by knowing a mystery.

This is how we know He loved us: All the other great stories still have a last chapter, an italicized The End and a last word, but ours never does.


You have led me
to the sadness,
I have carried this pain on a back,
bruised and broken
I'm crying out to You

I will sing of the mercies
That lead me through valleys
Of sorrow and rivers of joy

When death, like a gypsy,
Comes to steal what I love
I will still look to the heavens,
I will still seek Your face

But I fear You aren't listening,
Because there are no words,
Just the stillness and the hunger
For a faith that assures

I will sing of the mercies
That lead me through valleys
Of sorrow and rivers of joy
Alleluia

While we wait for a rescue
With our eyes tightly shut,
Face to the ground,
Using our hands to cover the fatal cut,
Though the pain is an ocean,
Tossing us around, around, around
You have calmed greater waters
And higher mountains have come down

I will sing of the mercies
That lead me through valleys
Of sorrow and rivers of joy

change

My heart is in my throat, the evidence of things unseen. The turmoil which accompanies unsettledness visits again and I feel like my greatest idol is, once again, on the altar of boiling point. Change comes and rips my finally content will to be satisfied, no matter what the circumstances, out and dares me to question the wisdom of newness and growth. My flesh screams and plays tug-of-war with the righteousness that is the Christian Life. I declare I will win no matter what the cost and still I never do.

So be prepared for the inevitable, the unexpected. Don't melt down the idol of constancy, only to pour it into the mold of consistency.

Everyone seems to be changing their online ambiance to reflect the real live autumn outside. Pumpkin and brown, golden and orange, spice and sage, clear sky blue and winter grey and suddenly my apple green doesn't seem conductive.

Put away your linen pants and sleeveless tanks, unpack the corduroys and wool. Skip the leather flip-flops and tie on your Martens. Button up your flannel and hide your hands in your pockets. The chill has come and with it only self found warmth.

But this will stay the same. It seems to be the only thing that does for me.

When I was younger my brothers, mum and I would spend three weeks in New England every autumn. We stayed in a Chalet with another family, also containing several boys. So ten boys and I would rake leaves, jump in them, hike in the woods, eat apples and tell ghost stories until too late every night for three glorious weeks each year. We would walk to the corner store in Dorset, Vermont, and savor sour patch kids. I bought my first pocket knife there, spending all the money I'd saved for so long, just for that occasion. And I read my still favorite book there for the first time. I saw the Morgan Horse farm and vowed to have a farm someday. I had my first kiss there and shot a BB gun on the hill. We played in the dumb waiter which passed through all four floors and I learned how to play pool in the attic, hidden behind a tapestry which had hung there since the Civil War. I took showers in the freezing water and we toasted marshmallows in the fireplace.

Every October I think about New England. I think about that Chalet and who is creating memories there right now. I think about a boy and I think about a book I haven't read in a long time. I remember my vow to have a farm and remind myself not to make vows. I remember the apples and I remember when the dumb waiter fell too quickly to the cellar floor.

I remember Autumn in New England.

batches

I haven't had a cup of chai in a while. I haven't read Austen or Kerouac for a long time. I haven't rhymed with L'engle. I haven't fallen asleep to Chopin or Gershwin in quite a few months and I haven't even thought about Les Miserables and how miserable I am at not ever seeing it on Broadway.

I'm not bemoaning my packed away spiral bound journals and I haven't missed most of my CD's. I missed a few of my books the other day, but that'll do, Lore, that'll do. I know I own a Kitchen Aid mixer, my very own, in red and white, but I've forgotten that it's mine and it's doubtful I'll use it soon. I know I have a few framed photographs and I know there is a nice wool sweater buried in the bottom of a chest.

Here's what I regret: All these years I've been looking at the things I loved so much, the things which make up my ingredients and make the batch a tasty one, and thought that those things were the things that made life sweet. But I was wrong. And I'm sad that it's not until now that I know that.

So I'm learning, again, about giving up and giving in. Not because He does it better than me, or because I'm tired of always messing up, but because life begins where death begins.

There's so much more to die for, I've barely just begun.

beatnik

They are trendy and I am a beatnik. I do like being a mel-phleg and I love Juliet. I think life is a tragedy, but I know eternity is worth that. I like my fellow birds and I have more than a feather for a brain. I haven't many friends and I like the ones I do have. I don't think what I write is too long and if it is verbose, I don't mind too much, it only means that I think about the same things for too long and that's okay with me.

But it's all pretty selfish in the long run.
In fact, it's all going to burn anyway.

So there.