Push the Clouds Away

The prime time to go home for break was about 4 days ago.

I'm ready. I'm past ready.

One can only bear the anticipation before long

before it sours in the stomach.

Too many questions.

Too many cares.

Too much darn awareness.

Just want to push it all away.

Some things I don't want to be different.

Some things I don't want to change.

Yet all has been affected.

There's a big part of me that just wants out.

The last 4 months can't be erased.

If I'm really honest I don't want them to be.

There is brutality in blessings sometimes.

I need a mental break.

But one can't turn off the mind.

I need an emotional break.

But one can't turn off the heart.

I need a physical break.

But I need to get home.

I need a spiritual break.

-break is an interesting word here.

but that is only found in God.

in resting.

in giving up control.

The spirit within me longs for life to the full.

I am not content.

yet this is all of life.

for we were made for more than what we are.

and so we wait. and strive. and anguish.

I'm tired of Advent.

Ready for Christmas. -body and soul.

Memoirs of a Semester

Now dawns the day of my final classes.

Papers done. Vacation not yet in grasp.

4.5 months. a blink. an eternity.

Discovering myself.

Discovering the other.

Discovering God anew.

Desert for dinner on Monday nights.

head pounding from crying all day.

questioning, trying, failing.

Living with 5 beautiful girls

in a dwelling of safety, of peace, of love.

God knew exactly what I would need.

Learning to embrace mystery.

Risk. Fear. Pain.

Possibility.

Learning to be and live from being.

Encountering the other face to face.

True hope born from darkness.

Music in the night.

4.5 months. a blink. an eternity.

Not a task accomplished.

A journey began.

Waiting

I follow my breath

In....

out...

waiting.

restless but still.

trying to dwell.

Not taking control.

Not manipulating.

Not orchestrating.

Just waiting.

Just being.

I follow my breath.

in...

out...

Called to be still and know

that I am not God.

Only in knowing God

can I be changed.

Not in doing. Not in striving.

Just in being. in His presence

waiting.

waiting for Him to come near

to blow off the cloud that envelops me

named Fear.

He'll hold out His hand,

and ask me to dance.

But first I need to wait.

Be still enough for Him to draw closer.

So He can change me

and give me courage to dance.

And so I wait

and follow my breath.

in......

out.....

in....

out....

Music in the Night

My whole life I've been used to seeing.

Taking it all in. Making sense of it.

Categorizing. Analyzing.

Looking for hidden things.

Connecting things in patterns.

My mind has well-worn byways the thoughts travel down.

My eyes see. I recognize things, people, patterns.

Yet this last few months I've been thrown into the dark.

All the familiar things I'm used to seeing around me are questioned

as I reach out to feel them and find them changed.

or find in my lack of seeing a need to change.

Darkness still surrounds me.

The more I squint into the blackness, the darker it becomes.

This throws my world into chaos.

I cannot order it.

I cannot make sense of it.

I cannot control it.

I've been trying to rest in this dark place.

to be still. to feel. to expect surprise and not with dread.

and as I sit and try to connect to my heart and not my eyes.

I become aware.

of a beauty that swells and dips. that clangs and soothes.

I hear the strains that I can't make sense of or control.

I hear the music in the night.

my own soul.

The Shift

A turning. change. unexplainable difference.

Within a weight now gone.

Feet on the ground pointed now towards you

not pointed to heaven, looking down.

The case of my skin over muscle and bone.

A face--now mine to own.

The throat connecting the mind and heart

not severed and silent and sore.

A voice is birthed when join the two.

It builds within me.......I let it forth.

So here I sit in my own skin.

So here I speak with my own voice.

I meet the I that dwells within.

I meet the eye that dwells within.

The Quest

Lost in darkness and shadow

yet seeking still.

Wondering where God is

and what the heck this means.

Why did I feel so compelled to come here

when all this now seems bleak?

Waiting for a revelation.

Hungering.

Screaming.

Desperate.

Grasping at air.

Yet I'm haunted by the echo:

"He's doing a new thing"

Must I now sing a new song?

Hunger for richer food than what I picture?

Scream for answers from a God till now unknown?

Do I hope for old revelation in a new time?

The old wineskins cannot bear the new wine.

So here I stand

to embrace the Mystery

that's already overtaken me.

I'll walk the quest.

Shadowlands

When black and white are diluted into grayness

When what's obvious in the light is throw into doubt

When the presumed straight path throws a hairpin turn

Then you know you're in the shadowlands.

Is it evil? is it good?

Some unhelpful mingling of the two?

an image that shifts depending on stance?

Fear is the only sun that shines.

Passing of time the only hope.

When what you seek to reach for

glides softly and damningly through your fingers

When you suddenly don't know who you are,

but are powerless to do anything than just to be

When your only plea is for a hand to grasp yours in the darkness

and surprisingly...it does. Flesh to flesh

a friend's? a brother's? God's?

It matters not. You are not alone.

and two voices join to sing the song of the shadowlands.

In the Desert

In the twilight

my eyes scan the horizon

pleading to behold you,

but all I see

are mirages in front of me.

It's okay

if you are a cloud by day

and cloak yourself in mystery and play.

I can seek you out then

and have energy to find you.

But at night,

when darkness blinds,

I need you

to be the fire in the night.

Let me see your passion

and may that pull me through

and guide me back to you.

Brokenness

Does brokenness betray beauty?

I look at me and that’s all I see.

In all I thought was glorious I see the depths of pain.

In all I thought was mysterious I see the veil of fear.

In all I thought was beautiful I see a coping with brokenness.

Is all beauty a covering? A justification of pain?

I cannot believe it.

There is beauty in a sunset.

There is beauty in a face.

Neither born of broken things.

Creation’s heart exposed in glory.

Can I believe the same of my heart?

Of yours?

Where is the hope of glory?

Where is the adventure of mystery?

Where is the purity of beauty?

When uncovered in the light of honesty

all I see is the brokenness. The fear. The pain.

Is beauty born only of these things?

Is it then really beauty at all?

My beauty has become ugly to me.

Sad to me.

Hush, you who would still this cry.

This is I, me, myself.

Do not silence my struggle.

Do not try to encourage away my harsh eyes.

Do not try to soften the sharp edges,

Then I may slip on them,

and not be able to climb

to a new place

of seeing, of knowing, of being.

Hear my voice

In it’s rawness.

For brokenness must come to term

that beauty may be born.

Born and loved.