The raspberry bushes throw their leaves up in surrender to the breeze, silver backs against their stubborn green counterparts. The wind isn't continuous, he ebbs and flows, sounding like the ocean in my ear. I mentally glance at the maple tree on my way home every day, one small branch of red bleeds into the whole. I wear a cardigan on the back porch, my toes perched on the edge of a ceramic pot. The pot holds a plant that will soon enough be housed in my bedroom again. The world around here shouts of autumn.

It's been a wet summer. The old folks say the wettest since 1926. I don't know. I'm just happy for all the green that still is. It's hard for me not to feel claustrophobic this time of the year. Soon fall will settle in and I will love her rich colors, spiced coffees and fodder for creative writing. But today, in the middle of August, the thought of rich colors fading to months of white makes me want to hold my breath, hold that thought, hold it all on pause: love today and not think about tomorrow.

But I wasn't built like that. For all my talk about today's portion, I know my nemesis when I see it. I know my propensity to borrow tomorrow before the sun sets tonight. I know that the quietness of my spirit looks like patience but is really fear. I know that when I enjoy today it is because I am afraid of tomorrow.

Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you;
not as the world gives do I give to you.
Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.
John 14.27

I don't know what that peace feels like. I know how to sort things out, process them, understand them, grasp them. I know how to make lists, pros and cons and ups and downs. I know how to mentally make decisions, enjoy today, not fear today. But I do not know how to let my heart be untroubled concerning tomorrow. I fear years of tomorrows, years of decisions, years of boredom, years of work, and years of winter.

Because I am looking for a peace that the world offers.

This summer fades slowly into autumn, given over to times and seasons. I find peace in today because today's world feels safe. I am feasting on the bread of this world, on false peace, on the certainty of thousands of predictable seasons past and thousands more to come. But His peace isn't like that. I don't think. I don't know. But I can't help but really think that His comparison of His peace to the world's isn't an accident. It's supposed to be different, to feel different, and to perhaps come cloaked in something different than predictability and safety.

He directs the seasons, but He is not a seasonal God, to be loved today and feared tomorrow.

So, Lord, if you're leaving and you're giving, I'm accepting. I want that sort of peace. Regardless of which way the wind is blowing.

While on the subject of questions and answers, the Doubting Disciple confuses himself with direct objects and directions. He can't be faulted, who of us hasn't looked more closely at a map than at the X marking the spot. We are wanderers, vagabonds, pilgrims, we all; trekking is the point, not the destination.

Thomas wanted to know The Way. That's all. Not where he was going, he'd grown used to disappointment; doubters do. He just wanted the roadmap, the path, the breadcrumbs dropped behind a Lord marking the way for His followers. A GPS set for Heaven.

Jesus didn't make things so simple: He said that He alone was The Way.

So I am a doubter I find. I stand with the best of them, begging the question, asking the question, disbelieving the answer--and why shouldn't I? The answer won't print out nicely with roadsigns and mileage markers. The answer is a Man. Or rather, think of it this way: a gate.

"No one comes to the Father, but through me."

So this week I am opening the gate, realizing that the roadmap has failed, the breadcrumbs have been eaten by blackbirds and the GPS has gone haywire. I need Him and Him alone. Not some secret password or society, and not faulty methodologies of repentance and renewal--I need Him.

I need to trust that I'll know how to get there, wherever there is, and that I'll know what there is when I get there. He's the way, the truth, and the life. And when He is my Way, my Truth, and the culmination of my Life is Him, I have a feeling I'll be surprised to finally have found myself There.

I am Oliver Twist and porridge, Paris Hilton and Gucci, Judas and 29 silver coins. I am Philip, the disciple who pleaded that just one more would be enough.

"Lord, just show us the Father and it will be enough for us."

He speaks for all of the disciples, all of us. We who are not satisfied with a God in Heaven, and less satisfied with His embodiment on earth. Our void is bigger than a God-shaped hole and less satiated than more than enough.

But what is more surprising (Because who are we kidding? Wouldn't we have asked the same? Don't we every day?) is the Rabbi's response. Not because it isn't true, but because it is ludicrous. They're the words of a madman, ridden with multiple personalities and narcissism:

"Do you not believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in Me?"

Whatever you ask, if it's in His name, He'll do it, He says.

So Lord, in Your name, I'm asking: just show me the Father. It will be enough. I won't waste the evidence of all that you've done, the testimonies and miracles. I won't feast on the manna, provision for today. I won't lay in my tears and my doubts, and I won't ask again, I promise.

Just one more thing will be enough.

Jesus gave credence to Philip's question, to Thomas's doubts, to Peter's wavering faith, though, He continued the dialogue. He answered ludicrous questions with ludicrous answers--so that they would keep asking. So that faith would still exercise. So that doubts would be quelled, but never fully satisfied. So that we would always need more. So that we would appreciate mystery and awe.

Oliver got his porridge and Hilton will die with her designers. Judas found that 30 pieces wasn't enough to keep his life and lost it too. I am finding that I cannot be satisfied, but that I can trust that He is Who He says He is.

"here is a mystery
a person." denise levertov

I grasp for the tenor of my heart, fingering the flesh and the feeling, the Spirit and the Living. I find nothing. I take measured breaths, an intermittent gauge, a test. The scales are leveled; nothing weighs nothing.

I mean and I purpose and I try and all I find at the day's end is a lot of nothing. I hold my breath, maybe good things come to those who wait. Maybe they don't, but what if they do?

I know to spit out the What Ifs of yesterday; they left sourness in my mouth, coldness in my heart, but I took comfort in the What Ifs of tomorrow. I used to think that disappointment was the cause of my melancholy, hopes that never saw fruition, dreams that never woke up. But today, while I take the pulse of my life, I find that Hope Deferred is Hope Suspended, Prolonged, Delayed, and this is why the sickness of my heart.

Gathering too much manna for today, I horde tomorrow's supply, stretching my hope too thin: it can't sustain. It isn't meant to. Today's portion for today. Hope Suspended, held taunt between today's unbending reality and tomorrow's nebulous future, makes the heart grow sick.

John 14 is my dwelling place this week. Learning to ask and not fear, abide and not run, helped by the Holy Spirit, not thinking I must be Its helper. He says that if we ask anything in His name, He will do it. He doesn't give timetables, we are human, bound by time and circumstance; He is God, free of constraints and tomorrows. He gives grace to the doubting, though: Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.

This comforts.

And so I find evidence around me. I pick up clues from my world. I catch myself believing in the evidence because the hope that there's more is too grand, too big, too overwhelming for today. I pick up white flakes that sustain my hunger, abase my desire. The taste is secondary to the provision. He provides, that is enough.

Holy Spirit, Helper, help me now to believe. To place the evidence on the scales of my heart--to weigh them heavily against the nothing of their counterpart. To know that You are present. You are here. You are speaking. You are providing.

And that You have, too: given evidence for today.
And that You will, too: give bright hope for tomorrow.

Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.

I tarry summer. A floating timeline, I notch days, perpendicular lines pointing to significance, days I won't remember next summer, but will remember every day until then. I prolong each day from here until winter settles.

We wake and walk in morning, the humid fog resting on fields. We eat blueberry pie for breakfast, playing scrabble over coffee and cream. I cram cucumbers into quart jars and pour brine over their white middles turning gold in tumeric tinted vinegar. She pulls weeds from the garden spread. I sweep the side porch and wipe wet summer dust from white rockers. I finger my potted plants: they've come a long way from baby days in Tennessee. He's mowing the lawn, raking the leftovers, polka dots of grass littering our lawn. We grill dinner. I cut pound cake. I drive through wet streets with the sun pouring through breaking clouds. I am pensive.

A few have asked "Why the silence?" and my answer is formulated, I've practiced it; I've lied it because I don't even know the truth.

The real answer is because Silence is the portion of this season. Partly because I haven't asked. Partly because I haven't heard. Partly because I don't know what to ask. Partly because He's not speaking.

Mostly because I don't know what to say.

Tonight I sat in a meeting and watched a girl talk about Spending Her Life. She and her team wore shirts that read Young, Single, Available. It's not a dating advertisement, it's a lifestyle. She and more than a hundred others are spending their lives sharing the gospel with their peers in a country that doesn't take kindly to gospel sharing. She cried some.

My heart hurt listening to her. I saw myself three, four, five years ago. Passion being my drive and radical living my aim. I was ready to be stoned to death for my faith and easily committed to cutting off the arm, plucking out the eye, tossing out the CD and abstaining from anything possibly sin related. I was radical. I was sold out. I wasn't letting anything hold me back from the very best that the Lord had for me.

Now I want a coffee-maker, a couch, and a backyard.

And instead of any traces of the radical or any hope of the coffee-maker and couch, I inhabit half of a bedroom and tell myself that being faithful with the small things is being radical too.

But it doesn't feel like it.

In a three weeks I'll be driving down to Tennessee for the wedding of two more of The Makeshift Family. Sara and Steve this time. Arguably two people I can't imagine my life without. Arguably two people who shouldn't live their lives without one another. My bridesmaid dress arrived in the mail today and it seemed real. Over Thanksgiving weekend two more will tie the knot in North Carolina, Cara and Amos. I'll put on my trekking shoes once again and witness beautiful covenant take place, still thankful that all of our relationships don't require formal ceremony to solidify.

Just life. Lived together. I like that.

The gulls fly en masse, a swarm of white and a sound of screams. What frightened them from their river shore I don't know, but they make an exit reminiscent of an audience after a bad play. I am sitting on the back stairs in the early afternoon sunlight. I snack on lime tortilla chips and homemade salsa, and I read Isaiah.

I like peace. I'm a secondborn, some people call it the peacemaker's position, some people call it avoidance. I think it's a little a both. Isaiah must not have been a secondborn--peace wasn't really his overall message. But it's still one of my favorite books of the Bible. I gravitate to it often, when the gospels fail to inspire and the epistles fail to chastise. I'm always up for a little excitement in the form of rebukes and prophecies.

Isaiah slips peace into all of his talk of forthcoming punishment and wrath. It's the reward, he says, and the roadmap. It's salvation and strength. Today, he says, it is righteousness. I like that. I like righteousness. My conscience likes righteousness. It's easier than, well, walking by the Spirit alone or sinning for a season of fun.

He says that the work of righteousness will be peace. And I stop here. Reread that line. A few times. Does that mean that righteousness will yield peace? That those who are righteous will have peace? That peace is righteousness? That righteousness is peace? None of those feel right. None of them seem right.

I sit and think for too long about that line. The binding of my Bible slips between my knees and I lay back on the cement, closing my eyes to the sunshine and gulls. I chew righteousness and peace like a round peppermint candy, rolling it around until all that's left is a skeleton of goodness.

I don't know what Isaiah was saying here, but here is what I absorb in my half-hour break on the back porch: Peace is not born of avoidance or surrender. Peace is work. It is righteousness at work. Righteousness at work looks like peace. We will and we order and we do it every single day.

This morning in our staff meeting he spoke about how our posture should always be to assume that the same Spirit at work in us is at work in others. This is work, is my first thought. I like to think it comes naturally to me, but the truth is, it doesn't. What comes naturally to me is to avoid situations where the seeming peace might be interrupted.

But peace is work. Righteousness yields peace. And Righteousness is work.

I have no master but Thee, no law but Thy will, no delight but Thyself, no wealth but that Thou givest, no good but that Thou blessest, no peace but that Thou bestowest. I am nothing but that Thou makest me. I have nothing but that I receive from Thee. I can be nothing but that grace adorns me. QUARRY ME DEEP, dear Lord, and then fill me to overflowing with living water. Valley of Vision

I drive early this morning, fog still lifting from the road and the rivers. I say that it looks like what I imagine England to look like, all deep green and misted. The rolling greens and spiraling gardens testify to their maker--we're growing, we are! With all the rain and intermittent sun, humidity and long summer days, they get plenty of all the things they need to flourish. Not too hot, not too dry, not too wet, not too windy. It has been a summer of perfect balance. They get what they need most when they need it most.

Unlike me and us.

I'm pestered by all this talk of balance in the Christian life. It has always brushed my shoulders with indignation, its lofty evenness spreading like hot gravy into every crevice on my plate of life. I am a legalist by nature--we all are, thinking that our way is right, that our apple is different. I bristle against balance and grasp for it at the same time. I feel the pendulum swing left and scramble for right. Always right.

Today in class he talked about being extreme, none of this cool modern idea of balance and political correctness. He talked about an extreme Christ, an extreme life and an extreme death. I think about how His food was the do the will of the One who sent Him--how He did what He saw His Father doing. How this is what made Christ extreme--not miracles or grace or love or death or consistency or balance.

He was extreme because His sustenance was doing all of the things He saw His Father doing.

But He still kept the cloak of the people wrapped around His shoulders, still with a rock for a pillow and an outstretched hand to a whore; still with righteous indignation in the temple and little children gathered to Him; still with a rebuke to His disciples and an eye on His mother; still with healing in one hand and a carpenter's hammer in the other; still God and still fully man.

He did what He saw His Father doing, not motivated by a method or principle or a denomination or politic or gene. He was confident of His sonship and never strove for balance.

Just more of God, however He chose to work that day.

Always seek peace between your heart
and God, but in this world, always be careful
to remain ever-restless, never satisfied,
and always abounding in the work of the Lord.
Jim Elliot

When my closest childhood friend and I were still sleeping over at one another's homes for recreation and not convenience, when we were wishing on glow-in-the-dark sticker stars, and when we were stuffing four years of memories in a metal Time Capsule, somewhere in between all of that, we used to quote Lewis Carroll to one another: "the time has come the Walrus said, to talk of many things..." We knew most of it by heart. Memorizing was in the blood of our friendship; we met as the two leads in a school play.

One year we saved hundreds of Calvin and Hobbes comic strips and sticky-tacked them to her bathroom wall. We used to collect banana stickers and coke tabs, I don't remember why. She was into collecting things--t-shirts and rocks and photos and things. She still is. I'm always awed by her collections. She makes mundane clutter look like art. And peace. Art and peace at the same time.

We lived less than a mile from one another, a bike ride or quick walk, but every few months we would have spontaneous Fun Mail Weeks where we'd package treasures in plastic bottles and Capri Sun boxes and band-aid tins and mail them to a mile away. It was so much more fun to get a tin plastered with first class stamps than anything else. I kept all the letters she wrote and stuffed in those odd canisters; they are packed away with the rest of my proof of life.

My family was her family, she and I stood in the delivery of my younger brother and watched first breaths together. Her family was my family, the scent of their home lingered on my clothes long after I left at night. If home for us is remembered in a scent, like laundry detergent or watermelon, then I feel most at home inside their aroma. Our families blended together and grew and ebbed. My brothers still talk about lullabies she sang to them and I'm not sure when her younger siblings became my friends too, but they did.

Her first camera was the mirror of my life. Chronicling everything we did together. She had more talent in a cheap film 35mm than anyone I knew. Her photos were alive: touchable. They still are, even if she's moved on to bigger and better equipment. The last time I was at her house I bent down and caught a glimpse of myself, seven years ago, in my favorite wool sweater. She shot it in the backyard of her old house, a graveyard, our playground. The other day I was packing some things up and pulled a photo out of the frame of my mirror: her and me on a South American adventure.

I remember little about the time surrounding my younger brother's death, save this: the night of April 19, 2000, my best friend lay beside me all night long, stroking my hair. I think she must have stayed awake all night because I drifted off and on, in and out, and every time I stirred she quieted me with her spirit. Every time. Through every moment of shocked disbelief that I have walked through in the past 12 years, through every elation and crushed disappointment, she has been constant.

She still sends me spontaneous mail, reminiscent of our Fun Mail Weeks. She is known to all by a nickname that my family pseudo-christened her with. She quotes me on her blog and makes me feel like a million bucks. She still likes to cuddle when we pass through our respective hometowns. She takes photos that stun me with their personality and depth. She loves people with absolute abandon and she loves them deeply and loyally. She loves God with a simple fervor I have never known anyone else to possess.

She is my friend. She is, to me, gold.

I drive home slowly, enjoying the now familiar detour, the roadside stands, and small peaks of blue in front of me. I am memorizing portions of Psalm 50 and singing scripture with my ipod. Reminding myself again of the sound of thanksgiving.

I think He wants sacrifice from me. I'm sure of it. I'm positive, always, that what I want can't ever be what He wants. I train myself to not want, because I've grown accustomed to sighing and handing it over to Him every time anyway. It's easier to not hope at all than it is to be disappointed by hope deferred. It's fear and a lack of faith.

It's sin. And my heart is sick.

It comes in slick, packaged neatly. It doesn't have the stink of legalism, putting on airs that make us better. It doesn't feel like asceticism, cowering under a cloak of emptiness. It sounds radical, appealing; it feels like liberation, throwing off the bonds of this world.

But this world is too much with us; late and soon: even sacrifice can be sin. We aren't so above that.

He is not glorified in my piety or my purity--He is displayed through these things: to him who orders his way right, I will show the salvation of God. Psalm 50.23 This is our testimony. This is our offering to the world.

He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me. Psalm 50.23 But our offering to Him is thanksgiving. Thanksgiving honors Him.

I close my eyes on Sunday and I quiet my heart, drown out five hundred voices, guitars, drums, and my head. I drop my head and my shoulders and admit that I am tired of giving. I admit that giving feels empty. I admit that giving feels joyless. And I hear Him say: but that is to them, what are you giving to Me?

I drive home slowly, my mouth forming words of thanksgiving. It is not what I give to Him, I am realizing, it it the acknowledgment of what He has given to me. This is the sacrifice of praise, the sacrifice of thanksgiving. This is what honors Him.

I overhear from the neighboring office today, "Yeah, there's this like worry gland in women when it comes to money..." I laughed and I'm sure said something smart back, if not in my head. I am a woman. I worry about money. I worry about not enough. I worry about too much. I just worry. And I don't know anything about glands.

What I know is that He satisfies.

I don't know it always: I kick myself on Sunday mornings, standing in the front row, desperate for a touch of God like the old days. Days when I wept because of His goodness, days when I shouted because of His worth, and days when I was broken by His faithfulness. I am not so easily persuaded these days.

But I am aware that none of the things after which I chase satisfy like He does.

I get so tired of chasing, expecting, and being disappointed--not because the result isn't what I wanted, but because it isn't Him.

I am satisfied by You alone
Just one touch from you, oh Lord
Reach within my heart and make it new
Oh I must have more of you

These are the words that pound through my speakers, that resonate in my car and heart this evening. Not because I mean them, but because I'm sure of them. Because sometimes I'm not sure of them, but I want to be sure of them. Because sometimes I don't want to be sure of them, but I want to want to be. I declare that I am satisfied by Him alone, because I know my propensity is to want more than Him alone.

I don't need more of anything; I need a heart change. A new heart.

Too often I try to refurbish, renovate, recycle the one I have, but what I need are His mercies new every morning. What I need is more of Him.

It is hot here, but as I watched channel 7 news tonight, heard the forecasted thunderstorms, and listened to Mr. Difranco talk about the sweltering 92 degrees that it is, I laughed inwardly. I am reminded of last summer and the summer before. The northeast is in me, in my blood and history, and I am in it. But my time spent in the south ruined me for the four full seasons I experience here. I sometimes would just prefer it to be summer for eight months a year and autumn for the final four. I just liked that.

I spent the Fourth of July with my three youngest brothers in Lake Placid. My aunt, who lives in Cape May, New Jersey (where other people vacation) was vacationing in my neck of the woods. I couldn't argue with her invitation to the four of us to join her and her brigade in the mountains to my right. We left early and spent the drive listening to Nickel Creek loudly, getting lost (we took back-roads the whole way), and teaching a spanking new 11 years old the basic principles of driving standard and (don't read this Mama) letting him have a go at the shift stick.

We arrived and spent the day getting properly sunburnt, paraded, hot-dogged, water-logged, and ice-creamed. It really was a treasure and, while the three of the slept, I couldn't keep the thankfulness from creeping out in the form of tears as I drove back through the Big Green to my dad's house. There were no fireworks or sparklers. There was no barbeque and no plethora of desserts featuring marshmellows. There was just us. Us and a favorite aunt. In mountains. Together.

If Independance Day is about being independant, I'll have none of it. If it's about being free, I can't think of a better way to spend it.

Personal pronoun confusion aside, I say this verse to myself much recently:

They ask Me for just decisions, they delight in the nearness of God.
Isaiah 58.2

A friend says to me today, "Can you be so desperate to not miss the will of God that you miss the will of God?" I nod my head from my side of the room, heaviness in my heart, not because I really believe it--I don't. Not ultimately. But it sure feels like it a lot of the time. I center my heart, center the Lord, center my desires, my pleas; I ask for just decisions in the same breath that I ask for His will--thinking that they must be the same. I stumble on theology, truths infused by experience, confirmed by scripture, seared by testing.

I think I'm asking for just decisions, for His will, and find that I'm just asking for it all to come out okay. For me. For us. For this. For you.

I'm asking more for the nearness of God.

Because His will seems far away, feels nebulous. What I need is His nearness. Like a child who trusts the hand that holds his, not the direction in which he heads. What I need is to ask for His will, but be content with His nearness. Delight in his nearness.

Last night I swung my feet back and forth talking about the moon, watching the moon, a sliver chased by its greater bulk. It set in the southeastern sky, its face turning orange, reflecting the still light horizon. The big dipper dipped and the little one made a showing too. I sat on a turning world in the dark watching falling bodies of light, reflections of light, shooting bursts of light, and felt small and stubborn.

Even the stars above, things that seem still, are still changing.

Ben Folds

I turn too because I am bound by gravity, not because I am fond of it---or of any sort of change for that matter. I am not.

So when my soul does feel the need to change, I take note and listen. Not to its prodding (my soul is unreliable and fickle), but to what it is saying. It is, after all, dictated to by my spirit and I have great respect for that. I've been feeling the need for change. Impatient for it recently. Waiting. Answering questions with shrugs and lopsided smiles, the sort that tell people that no I don't want to talk about it but I don't know what else to tell you. There are lists of things I'm waiting for, it's nothing in particular, and I'm not so foolish as to assume that even when things get checked off of that list that I will somehow be eternally satisfied.

My soul is a thirsty master.

I wake up this morning and stare at the red numbers to my right, send a text message, roll to my left and throw back the covers. I wash, rinse, repeat. I down coffee that tastes like the bottom of the pot and I make my soul do my bidding. I arrive at church, the worship team is playing to an audience of none, church doesn't start for another two and a half hours, I am measuring paper in my office, I sing along with the music from the sanctuary. I sit for a few minutes in one Sunday School class, reading over notes for children's church, and remember other things I should be doing. I head downstairs, grumbling in my head, smiling on my face. We pitch together and we make it happen. It happens. We are late to worship in the sanctuary. I leave as soon as the last chords end and from my classrooms of kindergarteners I hear clapping, laughing, music, announcements, and loud prayers from the open windows to the right. I play Red Light, Green Light. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. It is 12:30pm, still barely afternoon.

Life feels monotonous sometimes. Overwhelmingly same. And no matter how much I hate change, no matter how much I fear it and stand shaking my head at anyone who offers it, stillness is sometimes just as hard. But I am learning again that in the midst of stillness there's still change. Minute motions, things I tell my soul to do, ways I churn character out, all of this is because there's a bigger picture, one I can't see.

Unless I sit for a while staring at the details through a scope bigger than the details.

Also with moisture He loads the thick cloud;
He disperses the cloud of His lightning.
It changes direction, turning around by His guidance,
That it may do whatever He commands it
On the face of the inhabited earth.
Whether for correction, or for His world,
Or for lovingkindness, He causes it to happen.
Job 37.11-13

I jumped on the Facebook wagon gently, to say the least. I was a new student at Lee University and in a blasted hurry to store the sea of faces around me in some sort of organized system. Facebook was the newest social network (the only social network as far as I knew. I was always more suited to the real life, in your tangible face sort of interaction.) and I succumbed.

There have been numerous times over the past three years that I have regretted that leap, held my cursor over the Delete Profile button, but I never pressed it. Ignored the thing altogether, yes, but delete, no. And I'm glad for it, honestly. I am known for ignoring my Facebook Inbox, my sidebar of requests for all sorts of Very Strange Applications, and I let the Friend Requests pile up until it's more like sorting dirty laundry than it is like Christmas day. I am very good at being a very bad Facebooker.

But. I will say that I have found Facebook to be very, very useful in many ways. People I think of and wonder if they think of me, I find they do! they do! And then, suddenly, I find that I'm actually curious about what the heck the boy I babysat when I was eleven and he was five is up to now that he's a strapping 21 year old college jock. Or the mousy girl from down the road, she's a neonatal nurse now and no more mousy than a lioness in her element.

Occasionally I get a Friend Request (This is, to you non-Facebookers, when someone formally requests to be your friend, regardless of whether you have never met and therefore have no reason to be friends, or whether you are in real life Very Close Chums and Wouldn't Think Of Not Being Friends. You still have to make the formal Friend Request before it's official. It's a sad, sad world.) from someone who thinks they know me, or perhaps really does, but I don't know them. This is embarrassing. For me. And for them. But sometimes it can turn into a good thing.

The ways in which I have found Facebook to be useful are as follows:

I can find out what is going on minute by minute in the faithful status updaters: Susie Jones is trying to suck chocolate chips from her Blizzard through her Dairy Queen straw. Fascinating stuff that.

I can view, tag, untag, comment on, and otherwise enjoy dozens and dozens of flattering and very unflattering photos of people I know. This is fine blackmail. But I would never resort to blackmail. I'm just saying is all.

I can see who everyone considers to be their top friends and keep tabs on my Top Friend Status. (I was on the Top Friend List of nine other Facebookers last time I check. I'm not sure whether this is very popular or very wallflower.)

I can canvass reams of people very quickly to let them know about anything in the world I want to. Pretty much every person I know can know about anything I want them to know within seconds. This is very helpful. Ask any serious Facebooker. They know.

There are more ways I find Facebook helpful, but in case you noticed, this is not an essay toting the glories of Facebook. This is actually my attempt to assure myself that there are good things in the Facebook World. And to tell you that if we are not friends on Facebook then we are just not friends.

Just kidding.
Sort of.

Thunder rolls from over the Saint Lawrence and moves toward my perch on the side porch. She plays the piano inside and I still taste coffee in my mouth. It is nearly July, but you didn't hear it from me, why would you? It's beautiful and I can't say much else about that. I spent last evening with two true blues and, as we strolled from La Casbah to Scoops Ice Cream Stand, I stated quite happily that Potsdam is my favorite place in the world. And it is. I have lived in many places, loved most of them, visited all of them on occasion and always wait for that sense that I am coming home in each one. I never get it save when I come back here.

I'm not sure if it's the same in other parts of our country, but in the summer here our church is suspiciously sparse. Vacations aplenty and people take advantage of getting out of their winter best for five months before hibernation becomes imminent again. I think that logically it would follow that, since vacationers are also in plenty around here, somehow that would make up for the lack, but no, apparently church isn't high on the list of ways to relax. This occurs to me this morning, as I stand in the front row worshiping, surrounded by my family worshiping, surrounded by four (well, who's counting) walls, surrounded by hills of green, surrounded by a county filled with locals, tourists, students, and people who don't know. People who don't know that church is the best place to be anytime. (This from someone who spends forty-three hours a week there.)

The rain has started, the dramatic blue-black clouds rushing furiously, chasing the sun back from where she came. The wind pushes the porch swing in front of me slides from side to side, taunting me with her strength. Leaves fly by my face and goosebumps rise on my arms. I refuse to be so threatened. I was here first.

I am meditating on the Israelites today. And manna. And obedience. And manna. And the worth of six days. And manna. God told Moses that the children were to collect manna every day for six days, and on the sixth day there would be enough manna for the seventh. I'm sure it was an object lesson in Keeping the Sabbath Holy, but here is what sits on my mind today:

I will rain bread and they shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction. On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily. Exodus 16.4,5

The thought of God testing me makes me squirm in my white rocker on the side porch. I do not like the image of a God who tests me. I do not like to defend a God who tests people. I do not like to admit that I have been and continue to be tested by my God. But I didn't write the Bible and I didn't create mankind: He who tests us did and is. So there, it's out, God tested them, He tests us. He is not some doe-eyed white robed individual who stretches out his nail scarred hand and let's us write our own gospel.

I am a good student, though, and I know when I'm being tested. I'm sure the Israelites did too, after the third or fourth Sabbath of plenty. It's easier to trust when you know the routine. But while I know the routine, I don't know the end. Trust can't be in the manna arriving on time, it is in the God who says it will be. And God wasn't testing them so he could slap the hands of those who gathered an extra day's portion on the wrong day, He was testing their obedience day by day by day.

Here is my conclusion: we do not carry tomorrow's portion most days, we are collecting today's. But sometimes He instructs us, and we don't know why, to store up, to have a reserve--not because he wouldn't care for us if we found ourselves lacking, but because he wants our obedience. We deposit into the bank lessons, character, and faith, so that on that day when we need it, it is in plenty.

So we gather what we need for today, no more, no less. He instructs when we must gather for tomorrow too. Our only duty is to obey. He tests not because He is a hard schoolmaster, but because He is a wise one.

He sees the storm rolling in before we do.

I put my fingers over my pulse, feeling for signs of something. She says to me tonight that it's just a season of trusting, even if it feels like season of flux. In between. Limbo. Putting so many things on hold, not on purpose, on default. Autopilot. Going through motions, feeling the pulse that says there's life, but knowing that if out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks and fingers write, this heart is running on empty.

It's not that there aren't so many things to fill it. I won't complain--the fuel of this heart is rich and in plenty. It's just that that it's flowing slowly, refilling slowly, emptying slowly.

I stub my toe on fear, catch myself on passivity, and can't right myself again. I hang in mid-air, waiting for what? Something to change. Anything to change. People keep asking. I keep saying I don't know. What else is there to say, I'm not avoiding you, I honestly just don't know.

Mostly I don't know because the thought of knowing scares me more than this place of indecision. I circle my prey twenty times before I pounce with surety. I tread water, keeping myself afloat, doing breathing exercises, before I dive with full lungs to the underwater treasure. I remember when I was young, when all the teens around me were memorizing Bible verses and getting water baptized, someone asked my mother if she was worried about the (non-existent) state of my salvation; her reply? "When Lore commits to the Lord, she will do it 210 percent, you'll see." I never forgot that, through all the tumultuous teenage years, through anger, rebellion, fear, and finally curiosity, I knew my lot would be 210 percent.

I banked on it.

So here is what I bank on, here is what I place my hope in, here is where you'll find me someday: His purposes for me are beyond my todays, my tomorrows, and my poor vision; they are bigger than my indecision and fear; they produce more than my greatest dreams and they settle more than my largest debts.

But His purpose for me today is to put my fingers over my pulse, to feel life, and trust that He's building tomorrow from today.

It's the longest day of the year, the orange moon hovering on the horizon and Ben Folds rocking the suburbs. It's early morning, 1am; she sleeps beside me, her hand on my shoulder, he sleeps in the backseat. I am driving.

I confess I cried for more than an hour after getting in the car. I confess I was still wiping tears from my eyes four hours later while they slept. We drive north, to her apartment, and drive more north in the morning. Virginia is far away from home. I feel that acutely.

He squeezed my shoulders and kissed my cheek, "Anytime." he said. "You know that right? Anytime. Our home is your home." I nod my head against his shirt. She says the same when I hug her next, she always does. I am glad for their home, their home gave us Laura and now Laura is married to Tony. We take partial responsibility for that marriage.

I say to a dear one before we make the rounds, saying goodbye, "I used to think that home, Potsdam, was superior, but I've been humbled. It isn't superior, it's just other."

She says to me, before she falls asleep with her hand on my shoulder, "I like that you're crying, that this is hard. It because you love people and I don't know anyone else who loves them like you do." But it's the loving that hurts. Really.

Because we scattered last summer, all of us to different directions and purposes. And I didn't think it would hurt. I knew it would be hard. But hurt? We are grown up, we all. Grown-ups realize that growing up means we make sacrifices and changes. We realize that, we do. But growing up, I am realizing, still surprises me. I am 27 this year, closer to 30 than 18, but I still always feel 18. I still feel like we set our course and it ought to feel like a joy-ride.

But it's not always.

So many times in the past few days I stare at the people around me and am quiet in my heart. I am thankful, so deeply thankful, and I say it. Probably too many times. But I mean it every time. I am thankful.

And I don't understand, honestly, why we're scattered in so many different states. And I don't understand, honestly, why none of us have really found what we had together there. And I don't understand, really, why I never appreciated it as much as I do now. I somehow thought I would escape "the friends you make in college are the friends you have forever" cliche; after all, I was older, I already had a few good friends.

But I didn't escape it.

And as I watched her walk down the aisle and him choke back tears. As he enveloped me in a bear hug and as I caught her glance from across the table. As we laughed and cried and praised and our souls felt rest. As we three joined our voices, singing as they lit the unity candle. As I met two kindred spirits and wished for more time to talk. As he grabbed my hand last night and squeezed. As I lay on her bed, praying out her last night as a single woman and as I joked with a new friend about artists and musicians. As she rubbed the tension from my shoulders and as I smiled the tension from his eyes. As we all converged in three hotel rooms and played the hand game around a pedestal table. As we witnessed the engagement of two of us, a proposal that intentionally included the makeshift family. As I wept in front of each of them, unashamed of my deep love for them all, and as I said "I love you."

As I did all of this, I am thankful that I didn't escape it.

Because, if one is to have friends forever, these are the ones I want.

An article, a conversation, and late night reading material puts things on my mind. Last night I am struck again by how feminism has subtlety crept into me. I catch it, like a sweater on a branch, snared by its trap. Suddenly self-aware, femininity aware; desperate for flowered cottons and a quick application of mascara, hoping they will do the trick. Cover up the natural (we are sinful at heart), fast to point the finger (the serpent! he gave it to me!), looking more closely at the juice stained fingers, evidence that the fruit of the season tastes better than God ordained responsibilities.

The writer of Hebrews sandwiches a subtle warning between lauds of faith: [Moses] chose to endure...with the people of God, rather than enjoy sin for a season.

Sin is always in season.

Which is why feminism is a hard trap to avoid. It's in vogue along with the Little White Dress and flowing scarves. It's an easy pit to fall into--we are shown the tree and desire the fruit, forget what God said. And why not? We are women, we desire and are desirable. We lure and are easily lured.

But we weren't designed that way and the fruit wasn't designed to be eaten out of season. We rushed the process and we haven't stopped since that first bite. We think that freedom looks like independence and tastes sweet like sin in the moment. Feminism sneaks in when we grumble about our plot, thinking that another one looks more tillable. It slithers in and guilts us into slumped shoulders over plows we weren't meant to handle.

But we are women, strong pillars and able helpers. We are there to support the structure, not be the demise of it. We are there to be a good thing. (And, unless you are called to singleness, if you are a woman, you are called to be found: being a good thing precludes being a wife.)

But it shouldn't surprise us that out-of-season fruit grows in our manicured gardens, we are living in a fallen world and we are the first to take the bite. And so we are called to prune, to cut the snagging branches, to root out the stubborn weeds, and to deny the offer of what looks to be better in favor of what is.

"Most of those who try to find answers to these questions start at the wrong place. They start with themselves. They ask "Who am I?" "How do I really feel?" and they assume that enough people express their personal opinions in this subject we will somehow arrive at the truth in this matter. . . But this is no way to come to the truth. In order to learn what it means to be a woman, we must start with the One who made her."

Elisabeth Elliot

Website down. Send postcard. And money. No chocolate. Thank you.

This morning I think of the lame man who sat by the Gate of the Temple called Beautiful. I think of a man who knew nothing more than crippled and twisted extremities, and poverty. A man who thought the answer to his impairment was silver and gold. And I think of two men who wouldn't give him what he wanted if they could.

Because what he wanted wasn't even a portion of what God wanted for Him.

I position myself by the rich ones, the ones who enter the temple because they're worthy or they think they are. I set up camp outside the gold and ask for silver because I want to eat, I want to feed on something more than leftovers and spare change. I want a feast before my body wastes from lack of motion and debilitation.

But I haven't thought to ask for more.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, all of humanity knows this. We have grown so accustomed to deferred hopes and heartsickness that we have stopped hoping and we lie in our handicaps.

What was his? What is mine? (What is yours?)

Our handicap, all of us, is that we are not debilitated by circumstances and theology and family and pasts and sin and hopes and knowledge. Our handicap is that we do not expect what only God can give.

He wanted what only men could give, alms and loose change. Peter and John gave what only God could give, a hope and a future and healing.

What is our expectation? What is my hope? What have I asked for without prefaces and addendums? Where I have I positioned myself? And from Whom am I asking for handouts?

What is my measure?

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.

Ephesians 3:16-20

My measure is more than I'm asking for now.

If you asked me what I've been thinking about I couldn't tell you. I mean I could, but it's all in bullet form. A numerical list of motions throughout my day. Nothing expounded on, nothing explored, nothing of depth. Lots of thankfulness, some fear, a little frustration, learning to take and give and desire joy. Nothing rich, nothing real. But all of this sense of nothingness results in somethingness.

I remember a poem I read once by Rilke, a line that stays in my head:

And you wait, keep waiting for that one thing
which would infinitely enrich your life,
the powerful, uniquely uncommon
the awakening of dormant stones,
depths that would reveal you to yourself.

It stays in my head because it feels like me. I'm not waiting to be discovered, I promise, by anyone but me. I've bought into the poet's lie that to my own self be true! And I wait, keeping waiting for that one thing that would reveal me to me. That would make all the mess and order and disorder and life and hope and doubt and death make sense. It's subconscious, I know. If you asked I wouldn't say that. Never would I say that. I'm far too concerned with appearances and Abundant Life to say that. But I think it.

And this is what gets me in trouble.

I read this today from the Gospel of Mark: Take care what you listen to! By your standard of measure it will be measured to you and more will be given besides.

I've been listening to the wrong things. I've been measuring against the wrong things. My expectation is set at half-lifes, thinking I somehow have to build up to the original. God's portion control isn't like that. He wants to give us everything! I hold back, straddle the fence, tout church lingo "If God wills" because I'm afraid He's not. And what if He's not?

How would I know?

So instead I say, I preach, I ask, and I tremble, because What If He Will? What then?

What if my Dim Glass isn't enough to contain even a fraction of Who He Is and What He Does? What if my standard of measuring is one cup and He wants to give me two. Lord, I want two! I want my cup to overflow, but God, let my cup be ever expanding, always increasing, never filling and still overflowing.

And in that immersion of what You give, let me not be revealed to me, but let me reveal others to you.

Then I will be awakened, the dormant stones rolled away, and the surprise of Resurrection be that One Thing forever.

Tonight found the female two thirds of the family at the Village Green where we were marveled by bodies in purple spandex, golden retrievers, and a hundred little children inching as closely as they could to the stage. The spandexed bodies belonged to the members of Galumpha a modern drama dance troupe and wow us they did. And not just with the stunts they pulled with their muscles and extremities--their dazzling smiles put everything else to shame, and that was a tall order. Everything else was worth the wow alone!

One of the delights of living in the Northeast is that hamlets are in plenty and cities are scarcities--thus airports are too. So my yesterday afternoon was spent driving a far piece to Rochester to pick up one of my favorite people and her favorite boy. It was a lovely drive and one I didn't mind in the least. New York is more than some long islands and several million people rushing with cell phones and schedules, but most people don't know that. Allow me to enlighten you: New York is a great grand glorious state centered around a great grand glorious 6 million acres of Green. And, trust me, there was plenty of Green to be seen during my drive yesterday.

There was also a bad case of sore jaw by the time I arrived at home at 1:38am. My dear friend and I try to talk once a week on the phone, but somehow there is still more to say. We haven't lived in the same area for three years, one or the other of us keep moving, but subjects like child-training, holiness, relationships, futures and pasts are enough fodder for opinions and thoughts. We both agreed that we talked more in four hours than either of us had in a long time. It was lovely.

So is her beautiful boy.

One of the conversations we had centered briefly around the fact that she, and a growing number of my peers, are married folk now, parenting children and talking about menu-planning and the best brand of cloth diapers. My life is not so interesting. However (emphasis mine), there is not a shred of jealousy or discontentment in me when I say that. Someone asked me recently how I respond to the dwindling number of single females my age in my general circumference (1). My reply: I don't deal with it!

I count it a blessing that I can head over to one friend's house on Sunday nights and cradle twin boys while watching HGTV. I am thrilled that I am in a position to spend ten hours driving to pick up a friend from the airport. I am available at the drop of a hat to sit at the Little Yellow House with my favorite kids. I spend my days working at my favorite place in the world and during the school semesters I spend my evenings running to meetings and classes and coffee dates and home to sleep and up to my favorite place again.

This isn't to say that I don't feel loneliness, but I know they do too. This isn't to say that I don't feel harried and hurried, but I know they do too. This isn't to say that I don't feel useless and pointless, they sometimes do too. This is to say that it isn't about which season they're in and I'm not, this is about which season I am in and how I'm (finally) choosing to spend it blessing them in theirs.

Don't get me wrong, I haven't always felt this way; and I am not so naive as to think I'll always feel it so keenly--but today I do, and yesterday, and I purpose to act it tomorrow, even if I don't feel it.

That's what Willing and Ordering is all about.

I knew I would grow lazy because of my recent trend in posting the mundane, and I have. I have been sitting here trying desperately to come up with something more thought provoking than a one-sided conversation about the weather and your health, and I'm coming up dry.

But as a peace offering I'll give you at least this:

I am recently challenged by one reoccurring thought: Have I grown so accustomed to asking for God's best that I wouldn't know God's best if it sat on the front porch and split peas with me? I think I have. I am struck again by the fact that God doesn't just want our pious meager sacrifices, He wants our hearts. He wants us to be able to say that we stood firm, but we knew when brokenness and contrition were the order of the day.

I stand firm. I am resolute. I lock my jaw and my convictions and God help anyone who dares challenge them. I remember the times when I was so much like the wave tossed to and fro, and so desperate to just be radical for the Kingdom of Heaven. And I don't know how it happened, but now I find myself on the other side of that leap and desperate for a bit of pliability in my spirit. God, give me flexibility and joy in the process!

I am at the Little Yellow House with the kiddies I love so much. I don't babysit, honestly, so don't consider this advertising. But tonight when the Daddy of the house called and asked if I could come over for a few hours while he watched the Mama of the house and her sisters do a sister act in town, how could I say no? We read stories and played games by no other rules than the ones we made up and now they are mumbling themselves to sleep in the bedroom upstairs. I love them.

I am still looking for an apartment despite the complaints from the Mama of my house that she doesn't want me to leave. She has grown far too dependent on me and my crazy moods, and I think the only way we can break this is for me to move, and quickly! This morning, on a lazy Saturday morning, we sat in the family room and just talked for two hours, at the end of which she declared "But do you have to move? I know you need to, but do you have to?" To which I reply, "Something's gotta give."

The real reason I have to move is because we two have a robust addiction to Scrabble and can't go a day without playing it. And even when we do go a day without it, we still make words in our heads. And even further than that, we count up how much words we use during the day are worth. Futile -- 8. Utility --10. Lurking --12. This madness must stop!

This week reminds me of one of the things I loved about Tennessee: the heat. I was on the phone with a friend tonight and I said to him "I think where I live is just about the prettiest place on the planet!" and it is. Truly, I believe that. We get the fullest of four seasons, there's water, mountains, fields, pretty downtowns, and skies that regularly rival anything I've ever seen. But heat is something we are not accustomed to--so this week of sticky, hot humidity is being cherished by yours truly.

I love it.

On a related note: Tonight, while I am here, my dear family is out on the boats and other water apparatus at Norwood Lake. I love the water. I love the water. I love the water! Some people are picky about the dipping place of choice, only chlorinated pools for some or fresh waterfalls for others; wide, open lakes for some or the ocean for others. I care not. Honestly. My favorite thing about summer is the water.

This summer is my first summer in many years where I won't be lifeguarding. I'm turning over a new leaf! Offices painted with Silence and printers that run out of ink! Staff meetings and PDF files! Uncomfortable desk chairs and phone calls galore! The most water I'll see on a regular basis are the water-cooler jugs stacked in the closet. Oh well.

"I honestly have nothing creative to say" I say. She doesn't respond; we call it ignoring. She ignores me.

But I will say:

That I love the weather we're having around here. A few people have been grumbling about all the thunderstorms we're having, but you know, I don't mind. It's warm, a little unseasonably humid, hence the thunder and lightening, but I like it. It was one of the things I loved most about Tennessee--the intermittent rain and sun. And so even though the forecast is predicting no end in sight, I'm happy. We get peeks of the sun and it's warm; that's good enough for me.

That I love my job. I still get furrowed brows from people when they find out I have two degrees and I work at my church putting neither to good use, but really, trust me, I love my job. I think this today in our staff meeting. I think it later with a pretty girl at one desk and a funny guy at another desk and me at the third desk. I think it again half-way through my day when I sit back in my chair and let the breeze from our six foot windows brush across my face. I think it one last time when I lock our office door and peek in the window at Silence.

I never think those thoughts about a piece of paper with my name and two degrees on it. Never.

That there have been many, many, many times when I've been sad to seemingly be the last one to [fill in the blank] in my circle of friends. But recently I am so thankful that they've walked through the seasons in which I find myself currently. Today one called while she was on a walk with her beautiful boy and after only a few jumbled words out of my mouth she knew--she knew--exactly what to say. Most of the time I'm that person for other people, but I'm thankful when a few get to be that for me. I'm thankful to be last this time.

That after a four week "Can I do it? Yes I can!" from coffee, I realized that I am not actually addicted to coffee. I honestly like the flavor and that's really it. I did it! I went four weeks without it! I can do it again! Dare me! I can! But really, one of my favorite times of the day is waking up and drinking a cup while everyone around me drinks theirs too. So I'm drinking it again. But I sneak in a day or two here and there where I don't, just to make sure that I can.

And I can!

That my car battery has died every day this week. Now, I have a very good little car, plus it's a sage green Honda so that makes it better than good--that makes it best. People have their theories about why jumper cables are my recent best friends, but here's my theory: it's rained every day this week and I am very, very good about driving with my lights on in the rain. However, I am not very good at remembering to turn them off. What say you of this theory? I don't know if it's true and the problem is, I don't even remember to test it by intentionally leaving my lights on.

Do you know I'm just kidding?

That I really don't have anything creative to say, just information. That's all.

Today I spent the day in Silence. Many words were exchanged (trust me, plenty of words), but in Silence just the same.

Our office has been shrouded in green marble paper with an atlasesque border almost since we inhabited our property on Rt. 310. In any case, since day one of our employment there, we've vowed to change that ambient fixture. A few days ago we chose our color and today we brushed, rolled, and rebrushed it on blank walls.

The color is called Silence. And we like that.

This evening a crashing thunderstorm shook the house while we sat on armchairs and chatted about our day. We went exploring for a rainbow the moment the sun made the drops on the screens glisten and we found one behind the house. We are happy to make the rainbow the object of exploration and care little about pots of gold at the end. Our riches are found in wet toes spread in green grass and dark blue-grey horizons.

There is one bridge into the town where I work. Many rivers flow through this large county and, consequently, many bridges. But into this particular little town, only one bridge spans. This bridge closed this past week for "at least two years," which is what we are told by those who enjoy being mysterious (though I guarantee it's because they are in as much mystery as we are). Because of this the commute to and from work, and to any other little hamlet around Saint Lawrence County, is made several miles longer.

I confess, I'm one of the raucous few who roll my eyes every time someone talks about "The Bridge Being Out." It's true.

But driving home on the detour, the navy clouds gathering behind me and the clear blue and white billows in front of me, I slowly drive down the hill--because small in front of me are the breathtaking Adirondack Mountains--blue and green peaks making up the majority of New York State. And I am thankful that my path looks different from this vantage point.

In a few weeks I am headed down the Virginia where the Makeshift Family is reuniting for the marriage of our very own Laura Knopp and Tony Avnaim. Who'd a thunk? That's all I know to ask. Because when we all first converged we were a different lot. Different people heading different directions. Sure, we added some and lost some, but we once we did converge, we mostly stayed the same.

A couple of them are getting married to each other this year and that's so exciting you see. I think sometimes we get stuck in ruts when it comes to our social structures and it pains us to see anything change; like the game of Jenga, we pull out an integral piece and wait for the whole thing to crumble.

But the older I get and the more relationships I build (and therefore have more opportunity to disappoint and be disappointed), the more I realize that the dynamics we once had might never be the same, but why would we want them to be? When we can add and make them better?

So I'm excited to see the Fam together for a long weekend, but more than that, I'm excited to see two of them joined in covenant--a future and a hope. A testimony of three apartments and how they grew.

Until further notice, I am reverting to Old Lore style posts. Partly because, as I mentioned, I'm obsessed with noticing the mundane recently. And partly because my life is mundane recently.

Yesterday a strawberry rhubarb pie with a lattice topped crust was made. It is yummy. Only, I think, too sweet. I'm going to try and find another recipe with less sugar. If anyone has any great recipes feel free to call this an opportunity to stop lurking and offer something in return for all your past lurking. You know who you are.

A conversation around the mid-afternoon mismash meal reminded me of another conversation that occurred yesterday morning, which reminded me of another conversation a few months ago: I am very good at encouraging other people to do things I myself won't do. In this afternoon's case, fifteen minutes of art a day. In yesterday morning's case, poetry writing. In February's case, the fact that I promised to write for 30 straight days and didn't make good on that promise (I plead the broken finger).

This reminded me of a prophetic word shouted over me a few months ago. It was given a few weeks before the big Doozie and, somehow, got a bit overlooked in the processing I did over the three page transcript I came away with from said Doozie. Here's a piec