I've had a few thoughts since my last post. And I don't think the issue is so much about criticism as it is about walls. walls. Resons to walk away. Reaons to say no. Reasons to stay in my shell. I didn't go anywhere for church yesterday and it was extremely refreshing. Maybe more refreshing than I thought it would be. freeing. And honestly, something in me just wants to stay in seclusion for a while. After all the thinking that I have been doing, I am realizing that the core of what I want to do is just stay where I am-- to stop trying so hard. And part of me feels like this might be one of the most unhealthy desires of all, but another part of me feels at rest for the first time in a long time in this area. Just being okay with whatever I am. Letting these new sights gel, sink in. You know that period when all you need is a few moments of unadultarated honesty. Maybe I should back up a little and unpack that.. but I don't think I will.

I am just realizing that as much as I like to pretend like I don't,
I live a shrink-wrapped life.
I am afraid of being touched
Fingers coming close to open wounds
Someone getting close
Like for real close
Scares the hell out of me

Saying things to someone's face
Lips moving and the whole deal
Saying what I really think
What I really feel
The fear of being seen
Eye contact
The very thought leaves me scathed

I sat in a room
With a coffetable
A couple of chairs
And I imagined myself crawling undrneath
And feeling much more comfortable there
Actually visualized
The crawling underneath

The thought of your eyes scanning these words
Scares me
Knowing that you will know
and Somehow I keep writing
And I will click "publish" when I'm done

but there is a reason this background is black
A reason

But today I sat here
Wondering
Maybe I don't realy want community
Maybe I only look for it
becuase I'm supposed to
Someone told me it is supposedly better

But today I sat here
And thought to myself
Crawling under this desk
Seems mighty appealing
Safe and warm

No one can touch me.
And you know?
I think I have felt this way for a long time
It isn't new
But it's the first time I've felt it
The first time I have let my skin tingle
At the thought of it.

I do what people tell me to do
What is "right"
What looks good
What feels reasonable
So I do things that seem brave

I put out my hand, I say
"Hi, I'm Heidi."
And proceed to have normal conversations
But I'm secretly looking for an exit
I can small talk
Becuase I don't like things getting too deep

(that would entail something like
admitting that I really hope you like me enough
To keep knocking
and keep calling
or at least show up
becuase I sincerily doubt anyone will)

I talk about being deep
And feeling deep things
And knowing people deeply
So I don't actually have to do it

Okay, so that might be tinted with some lie
but parts of it are true
Maybe I think
If I talk about it long enough
Write enough
Then maybe this hurt inside will disappear
like intellectualizing really can do

Like maybe if I pretend the walls aren't really that hard
One of these times I will walk through
Like a ghost
Like that day Jesus ate the fish
but my forehead will stay numb
From all the times I've knocked up against the brick

And I wonder if I stop building the walls
What will I do with my hands
It seems to be the only skill I know

But I keep hearing this stuff
about what you are supposed to do
What people do
like saying "I'm fine,"
and "Pass the salt please"
and "Thanks for the ride"

And I try it
And it sounds real nice
Real pleasant
But I keep wondering
Why this room is so cold
Why my whole body is as stiff as a board
And why breathing is so hard

And why no one else is in this room
Made of rough red brick
Even though it is so warm
So small
So comfortable.

And I try hard
I do my best to be honest
and Seek honesty
To be brave to really say what I want to say
but there is still something
This hard place-- like grissle
That brushes it off
Yeah right. I'll never see them again
The duck's back is already soaked
so what's the use

And I imagine you'll have pity on me
And you'll say something like
"you poor thing."
And I hate that the most
Maybe becuase it is the finger
Touching the wound

so there it is. on the table. I'm glad this is a process becuase i am definately not there yet.

So, Question. Why does my critical nature seem to continually emerge, popping its immoveable little head so high up? Last night I attended the Intervarsity meeting at BSU and sat there thinking to myself, "If I am only doing this to meet other people, why do I put myself through sitting here, letting one more person talk at me." I don't know if that is clear to people who aren't inside my head, but I just got this sense that it doesn't make much sense to listen to one more person tell me what I'm supposed to be, what I'm supposed to do when all I really want is some people to hang out with now and again.

Church services. I ususally get really frustrated by them. And I hate the way I feel, sitting there, analyzing, criticizing, watching the clock, waiting until they get done saying the same words in the same order than I feel like I have heard on at least twenty other occasions. Words that just become a mush of sounds. Which pocket should I put this new information in? I feel like a jerk to ask this question, but I just find it really stupid sometimes. And maybe I'm just showing what generation I am truly a part of, or maybe I'm just revealing that I am really prideful and criticial and judgemental, but I'm really frustrated by it.

And I think honestly too, I think something in me just gets really angry about it. I am angry at people who just get up and say the same trite stuff about what we are supposed to do "becuase the Bible said so" without adressing deeper wounds that keep you from the simple thing of approaching others in the first place. Its like this premise that we are supposed to do all these things while ignoring our own humanity just because we carry a certain label. Or people who take the easy way out with the same pat answers, filling time with a sermon just because that is what you are supposed to do on Sunday morning.

For a while, maybe a span of about two weeks, I found myself being able to put all of that aside and just say, "God, what are you wanting to speak to me today," but I feel like that quiet sense of listening has been interrupted and I'm confused again. I'm angry-- I feel it boiling down below. I push it down, but i still feel it bubbling and I would like to cool it. Somehow.

I've been feeling a little discouraged this week. Down. Last night, as I walked out to the muddy parking lot as rain poured down, I realized I've been making a lot of mental to-do lists for other people. That is, the thoughts that consume me are what is the next thing I must do to fulfill the expectations of this person or what deadline am I trying to meet this time. And I feel like if someone else were to audit my time-management, they would wag their finger, say, "why aren't you done with my project yet?" Classes, working on this project for Dive World, books to be read, on and on it seems to go. And I wonder to myself, who am I doing all this for? I know in one sense, everything I'm doing is for myself, but I feel like it is really for myself so that later it will be for the satisfaction of others. Resumes and future employers. Experience to please someone else tomorrow. Its tiring and confusing.

Overall, there is this nagging feeling that makes me feel like I'm letting myself down somehow. Most of all, I don't feel like doing much art right now. It feels like just one more thing that I have to do-- one more thing that I have to keep up on when I don't really want to be doing anything else at all right now. I've been thinking a lot about this quote from Miles Davis I read last friday:

"If I ever feel I am getting to the poinst where i'm playing it safe, I'll stop. That's all I can tell you about how I plan for the future."

I have been mulling this over and over and over espeically in respect to my art and feeling a little ashamed. I went to an Artist lecture that Jennifer Scott-McGlaughlin gave last fall that was extremely inspiring in which she said, "If I ever find myself using the same colors over and over, I force myself to be reinvented." I feel like right now as far as art is concerned, I'm playing it safe, I'm falling back on what I already know, not trying all that much new. And I get really frustrated about that, but I think the truth of it is that I don't want to feel like I have to do anything at the moment. But having to do things is also my comfort zone I think-- I don't know. It's this weird tension between not fulfilling commitments, and being consumed with productivity.

What I really want is for someone to say, "it is okay for you to say no. It is okay to let that go." But the thing is I don't feel like I have many people around me saying much of anything these days. And maybe it is something that I have to learn to stand on my own in.

There are also a few other things that I have been mulling like mushy, clunky apples these past few weeks. Due to the nature of the content, I'm not really sure how I am okay with posting them here, but nevertheless, I am.

I've been thinking a lot about the way I relate to people, about how I approach (or don't approach) people. Thinking about the fact that I don't really trust people-- like when I make an appointment with someone, there is this part of me-- located somewhere near the back of my stomache-- that expects them not to show up, to cancel, for something to come up. It is a strange sort of feeling that I get that I am really noticing. THe other day I was surfing for the net for local churches here with young adult groups that meet sometime other than weeknights, and I suddenly got this really strange feeling-- a very strong that feeling that maybe my problem isn't so much that meeting people is really challenging here, but moreso that I don't really want to. There is this part of me that doesn't really want to be known. This part of me that really doesn't want to risk it at all. And I put on this face that I am really working hard at it, but the hard work is really avoiding it. Maybe. Probably.

Another pattern. As I've written before, I found this coffeehouse that I like to frequent, and my spending time there has sort of awakened something else. I've been going there to study for about three weeks, met a couple of people, and more lately, I am more hesitant to just go becuase I fear my anonymity has been shattered. It feels like there are more opportunities for people to get close. Opportunities for people to ask me questions. And it scares me. Even though that is something I also long for-- to be known in that way. It is a very strange thing.

I am finding that I really do hide behind my accomplishments, my abilities, the parts about me that have a good face. Something in me wants to project, to win people over by my resume. Like I still have to prove that I am likeable becuase of the things I can do, the things about me that I have worked so hard to be.

So I'm feeling a little tired of myself right now. I'm tired of trying hard to pull things together. Tired of being brave. You see, I have no problem appraching people, introducing myself, being brave in that way, but the challenge is trusting that they will care. Trusting that they will want to put forth any effort of building a relationship. I feel like it is a strange dialogue that I find myself engaging in. And I'm tired. Where is the relief?

It seems as though this week has marked a bit of a turning point. Appropriately for most turning points, I am unsure about where I have just been or where I am gonig, but nevertheless I am going. Maybe it is the magical shift from 19 to 20. Ha. Somehow that doesn't really seem like an actual fork in the road, but it makes for some nice mysticism, right? Right. So back to the nevertheless, this week feels different and I'm not totally sure what to make of it.

Honestly, I feel like it sort of began with the Wednesday Afternoon Question: "So, how is your social life?" .. ... .. Social life. Hm. That is an interesting propsition in a sort of comical way, I think to myself. That followed by an flood of admissions about how I feel about myself and other people and what sort of thing that does to a person, which proceeded all sorts of introverted questions regarding trust, fear, and what I really want out of relationships. really want. And then a few questions about what I am not actually willing to go through to obtain that. A few people who have observed my countenence for an extent exceeding five minutes seem to identify these things as walls or obstacles. Insightful, I say to myself. Sounds about right.

And yet still, these ideas that have stumbled out into the clear bright air seem to be met with such passages as afore published. Little whisperings that prayers have been heard time has ripened these cries of confusion and hiding, bringing things into the light, out of bottom cupboards of secret hutches And the diologue that continues inside of me follows along paths of "Really? Me? Now?" coupled with little sighs of "I'll belive it when I see it, oh Silent One."

But something seems to have changed. My days spent by myself are suddenly becoming filled with long, tedious to-do lists that have nothing to do with my spirit and nothing to do with breathing and nothing to do with what I really want to do at all. And I'm not sure what to do with those things, but the lists are getting lonely and the drives are getting too quiet, the same CDs getting old. This past week a few encounters with real, live people have been a little confusing, I must admit. Thinking to myself that spending the day with people has thrown off my rhythm sort of brings up worry like steam out of the gutter.

Relationships. What are they? I am used to my actual encounters with people being few and far between-- I have grown accustomed to being blown off, not actually expecting a call back when I say, "call me back," and have long abandoned the dream of friends that just call up to hang out. And that brings up this little piece of hardness in the bottom part of my throat that I want to push back down-- that's all I know how to do with it. I mean, what are my expectations supposed to be? We're all busy. But I mean, is it just me, or what is my role here? What is the etiquite? Sorry to inconvenience you. Uh? I feel like my judgement is off and I have no skill in reading you or me or us, whatever that is.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm feeling a little lonely and lonliness coupled with confusion never really turns out well, I've found. And I look at my life and I don't feel like the same girl who arrived in this strange pastel land forty-three days ago. My hair has grown out a little and my room is arranged differently. The dimensions of things begin to change when you learn people's names and they learn yours and you go places that feel familiar and homey and full of comforatble hope-- and yet you have no idea what lies ahead at all. But suddenly, I'm not just here exploring like a silent wanderer, but there are people around who know my name and my face and I am in wonder about where those names and faces are going to lead. I feel like this warm strange differentness can't be labeled or symbolized in arbitrary terms yet, but I suppose that characterizes the liminality of it all, doesn't it?

I think about the to-do list for tomorrow and realize I'm not sure I want these lists to be my life right now. I wish things were more wishy-washy, less dated, less easily written down on narrow pads of lined paper. All I know something is different. And I like the different, but I think I fear that it too will become routine and it too will be one more thing for the next narrow line. new air. New breath enters the lungs. And maybe it is just for this moment to enjoy.

three things


"He turned the Desert into pools of water
and the parched ground into flowing springs

"... whoever is wise, let him heed these things
and consider the great love of the Lord."

[ps 107]

"I will praise you oh Lord, among the nations;
I will sing of you among the peoples.

For great is your love, higher than the heavens
Your faithfulness reaches to the skies

Save us and help us with your right hand,
that those you love may be delivered."


[ps 108]

"But godliness with contentment is great gain.

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor put thier hops in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment."

[1 tim 6]

"But she, out of her poverty, put in everything-- all she had to live on"

[mark 12]

I will bring pools of water to your parched land


I will teach you to love like me by teaching you how I love you


So put it all in the middle and set your sights on me. I will be enough for you. I will provide even for your enjoyment

"Hear my pryaer, O lord;
let my cry for hlep come to you.

...You will arise and have compassion on Zion,
For it is time to show favor to her;
the appointed time has come.

... for her stones are dear to your servants;
he very dust moves them to pity.

... He will respond to the prayer of the destitute
he will not despise thier plea. "

[ps 102]

"Behold, I will create
new heavens and a new earth
The former things will not be remembered
nor will they come to mind."

[Is 65]

"Before they call I will answer
while they are still speaking I will hear."

"For as rain and snow fall from the heavens
and return not again but water the earth

Bringing forth life and giving growth,
seed for sowing and bread for eating,

So is my word that goes forth from my mouth;
it will not return to me empty;

But I will accomplish that which I have purposed,
and prosper in that for which I sent it."

[Is 55]



For it is time to show favor to her; the appointed time has come

amazed at how loved I am

I've been meaning to write a little bit of a update-- something a little less abstract for those of you who are just wondering what I am doing with myself these days. The first thing I want to say though, is a thank you. Over the past month I have felt so incredibly loved-- so many messages of being missed and appreciated. I admit I have been amazed at how many calls and messages and postcards and packages I have gotten. I often find myself asking, "why me?" So thank you. Thanks for the calls and cards and packages for my birthday and just whenever. It means a lot.

The past week has been particularly busy with lots of schoolwork and other little pieces of assignments, so I am looking forward to a little reprieve and a return to some time to think about osmething other than time management. I am still waiting for a call back from Rembrandt's regarding my interview two weeks ago (and my follow up inquiry last week). The good news on that front however, is that I will most likely be doing some window painting for Dive World, a scuba shop in Boise. I also got a call today for an interview working for the Service Learning Office on campus interview students about the experiences with Service Learning and doing some writing about it. I think this job has everything that I would want in a job, with the exclusion of building relationships with coworkers. But so far, it still looks like the best prospect. We'll see how the interview goes I suppose. At the rate Rembrandt's is going, they are loosing my vote of confidence as each day passes by.

In other news-- I am going to try to attend another church this weekend in hopes of making some new connections with people my age, so we'll see how that goes. Talking to Gary yesterday has made me realize how little time I really do spend with other people. It hasn't really bothered me all that much, but I definately crave the "college life" often. It has been less most recently as I have talked to so many people from home and around this week due to my birthday and the holidays. That and I think a lot of days can be a little emotionally draining for me, so it has been nice just to chill and let my brain veg a bit.

I haven't been doing all that much with the Art Institute recently other than working at the elementary school a couple times a week, but hopefully I will find more time for that soon, especially since the afterschool program at the elementary school has ended. I also hope to be able to make a few paintings to sell as well. We'll see.

Anyway, that is all the major news for now. I am looking forward to tomorrow, which will be the first day in a couple of weeks that I haven't really had to do anything or had anything planned. a bit of a "day off."

I've been doing some thinking about community, about myself, about life and what that means with other people. interacting with them. Sitting next to them. Looking them in the eye and talking. Calling and leaving messages and waiting for them to call back. Writing emails, iming, sitting together on the couch. Asking each other really hard questions and being able to tell each other really hard things like, "When you do _______, it makes me feel_______." Knowing what to say and what not to say or if you just shouldn't say anything at all. I've been thinking about what the words, "individualistic" and "isolated" mean and how to define "community" in a concrete, picturesque way.

In my communication class, it talkes a great deal about "intercultural communication." In doing so, the author of the text brings up all sorts of examples about what makes American culture from others and how we as Americans communcate as a result of our society that puts so much emphasis on individuality. The question that has been rattling around in my brain for the past few weeks or so has been this:

If we were made to be in community, how do you solve the problem of living in the lie of individuality by yourself?

In other words, how do you live a life of community in a world so saturated with the thought of every-man-for-himself that it seems like no one else is really climbing out of thier own plexi-gladd box? If our entire culture seems to have this cancer of isolation, is it possible to break free in the midst of it? How do you do it? Is the trick finding just one other person who will do it with you until others start to catch on? What do you do when that person keeps forgetting to return your phone calls or still has an over-packed schedule so that it all just seems like lip-service or maybe it just doesn't apply to you in the area of actual priority.

That's the first question. And I suppose that I have stumbled around a few semo-reasonable answers awash in a sea of jello, but it still sort of nags at the back of your head. Community isn't really a movement that you can start yourself. (although the question then remains is that is there any movement that can really roll out of a one-man show?).

Last week, I was talking to a dear friend and she said that as she was praying for me, she was really sensing that God was saying that this time is one in which he is longing to teach me that He is Enough. Based on some thoughts and heart-thumps I had been having, this observation that she made makes a great deal of sense, but it brings up another question I've been wrestling with for a while now. I've heard this idea many times before, God is enough. God is all you need. Let God be your everything. So the abstract vagueness of those statements aside, I just have always wondered at the tension between this idea and our intrinsic need for community. I mean, in the garden, for a long time, it was just God and Adam, but God himself said something was missing. So when we say God is enough for me, is this something different from what was going on in the garden before Eve came along? How does allowing God to be enough for you colide with living in community? Can we, in our isolated American culture justify ourselves by saying "God is enough?" I don't understand.

Today I've been finding myself struggling with trust. I woke up this morning thinking, "What if this person doesn't come through? What if they forget about me and I'm stranded?" My car is in the shop today and they told me they could have it done by 3-- it's 4:30 now. And I find myself thinking, "What if they don't call?" Something in me today is tense with fear. I feel like my mouth has been clamped shut too long and my eyes are becomming sunken in. It is a very strange feeling.

But the question sort of hangs out there. What if someone doesn't come through? I can easily say, "I can let that go. I can forgive that. No big deal, it's not like they owe me anything." But something in me today is sort of boiling up from the deep. Memories of all the times people didn't come through. Fears that this one time, I just am not that important. I get dilusional, i think, sometimes when I am alone too long. But still. THere is this rock in the pit of my stomache. My legs tense and I have to bounce my leg up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down until the phone rings, until they walk through the door. Why?

I suppose this last part isn't really a question so much as the others are. But still. Trusting is hard.

I feel like I'm sort of walking through this door of seeing that the way that hearts come together is usually with a clash, a disasterous bump that throws mud and guts and shrapnal everywhere. And I think we must have this innate sense of that becuase it seems like we hold ourselves away more often than not. Who wants to go there really? Who is brave enough? Who wants to get brave enough.

And I wonder what keeps me at arm's length. I mean, for a long time I think I have been hearing this voice say to me, "Don't get to close. that is not the place for you." Like I replay this tape in my mind where I am standing there hearing someone say, "How dare you assume that you would have that place in my life." Like I don't have the right to belong, to really know another person. "All you get to do is watch." Something like that. Walls.

A few weeks ago, I was thinking about the walls that I put up. I wonder sometimes if there are barriers that I have put around my heart that keep my wondering eyes sunken in and my mouth closed tight. Walls that I like becuase they keep me warm like a blanket, but people read as "back off." Walls that keep me from smiling my real smile and hugging the people that I really want to hug.

So questions. No answers today, it seems. Embarking on a journey is fearful, strange and very trying. I think sometimes it takes all we have just to keep from looking away. It takes all we have to keep from looking away.

Learning what I love, how to love, what is love

I've been mulling over a desire to post something more "real" for about a week or so, but I think I have been a little afraid of attempting to put all of this that I am learning down on "paper" becuase I feel like it is too big, too three-dimensional for the poor justice that I will do it here is this space. That and being swamped with reading and homework for this ridiculas class among other things. Nevertheless, I will attempt to put a little down, as I have been bursting to share.

So Love. As they say, Absence makes the heart grow fonder, or as that quoation from the old Joni Mitchell song says, "You never know what you got till its gone." I'm finding it to be true. Being away has opened my eyes to see what I really love, helped me to see who my closest friends really are (and that I have a few), and the things that really matter to me. Being away from everything, out in the "desert"a bit, gives a great deal of clarity about how things are off in the distance that you just came from. Sort of like when you step back from a painting, you realize what you are really creating as opposed to the illusion that you have had your face smashed into for so long. Sort of like when your senses stop "sensing" when you are imersed for too long and then you leave the room and come back in and realize you've been living in a stench, a cloud, or with rose-colored glasses.

I miss home. And that is the lovely thing too, isn't it? A while back, I posted a little about having lost a sense of what home is. For the first time in a long time, I can say with certainty where home is. And I can't really give you a street adress at the moment, but I can tell you who's arms home is found in with a great deal of confidence.

It has been so encouraging to me to see all the people in my life who really love me a lot. People that I took for granted before. But its funny, going away has actually strengthened so many relationships. I am learning so much that the glue that makes relationships so strong are experiences we have together, places we journey together. Curtains we pick out together, choices we make along the road, advice sought from those who have already been down the road once. When you consider the possibility of being physically separated from someone for seven months, suddenly things start turning new colors and having new little details that you forgot about before. And even though I no one came with me to Idaho in body, I feel like so many are here with me, routing for me, cheering me on, praying for me, seeking God as to what he would have me here for.

I don't really feel worthy most of the time, to be really honest. Sometimes its hard becuase I don't feel much like I deserve it. I live a lot of my life seeking the hard road becuase I just figure that is where I am supposed to be. And you-- all of you-- just loving me along the way makes it all so pleasant and sometimes it feels wrong. I have an urge to pay you back, this feeling of obligation to recipricate. But I know I can't. Somewhere swimming down there, I know that it is futal to try to match it. That and rude. So its humbling. When I get so much love, I don't get to take all the credit for shouldering this grand burden all on my own. It feels a little like my accomplishment is diminished if I'm not miserable through it all. I have an urge to laugh a little writing this.

And so I am learning to accept love that I cannot repay. Learning to accept love that I cannot repay. Its humbling, but it is beautiful in the breath that it breathes into my lungs when I just take it. I feel like the way I see love is changing a little. Little by little. Sometimes (acutally about 97% of the time) I have a hard time really saying how I feel about someone else to their face. If someone says, "I love you, Heidi," my gut sort of revolts a little and I suddenly become very uncomfortable with how I am to respond. I freeze. Not becuase I have a hard time believing them, but it immediately brings up this thing in me that tells me that I am supposed to have some sort of reciprical response. So I say nothing. I do nothing. I say, "okay," walk out the door, say goodbye and hang up the phone. Why is this? I don't know. But I am finding that for the first time in my life I have the clarity to decide how I feel, what to say, how to respond. A little. I'd just really like to be free of that little tick of fear that digs its little legs into my skin and paralyses me.

Love. My past few posts have been about this place of learning just to be quiet and hear the voice of God. And since I've been in that state, I am hearing God gently call my heart into a deeper realization of his love. A week ago, I sat in a chair amid about 500 other people at the Vineyard and I don't really remember what the teacher was talking about, but I distinctively remember God saying to my heart, "If nothing else, I have brought you to this place so that you will understand my love for you." And it sort of stopped me. "This is my body that was broken for you," he said to me, "And this is my blood that has been spilled for you Heidi." Me. His blood for me.

Its funny becuase you know, I've heard this before. I've heard "God loves me" quite loudly and deeply before, in fact. But I think I have forgotten. I have forgotten somewhere along my chaotic life of classes and working and resume builing that this is really the point. How if I miss this, I miss the whole thing. I am here to know the love of a God wrapped in speldor.

Splendor. That's the other thing. As I have been asking the spirit to stop me in the places that He wants to speak in his word, I keep stopping on the word Splendor. I am facinated with it. I am reminded again about the wonder of this awe-inspiring God. I am finding myself returning again to this beautiful rumination on the simple beauty of God that we will never fully comprehend on this earth. The wonder of his beauty in the tree outside my window, in the mountains, in the rain, in the color of this desk I sit at now, at the sunset and the clouds. The simple reality of gravity, the way lights twinkle on a dark night. I could go on infinately.

So I am mulling over that. Considering just how great God really is and that somehow he still loves me. That all he wants to do with me is penetrate my heart with the reality of his delight in me. Imagine. Me. Loved. And there is nothingI can do to repay it. THere is enough wonder in that alone. So I'll leave you with that.

why is it that the more work we have to do, the more we tend to procrastinate?... I'm dying to post something real, but don't have time yet... four chapters... seriously? thumbs down.

Our God Reigns

40 million babies lost to Gods great orphanage,
It’s a modern day genocide and a modern day disgrace
If this is a human right then why aren’t we free?
The only freedom we have is in a man nailed to a tree.

100 million faces, staring at the sky,
Wondering if this HIV will ever pass us by.
The devil stole the rain and hope trickles down the plug,
But still my Chinese take away could pay for someone’s drugs.

Our God reigns, Our God reigns,
Forever your kingdom reigns.

The west has found a gun and it’s loaded with ‘unsure’
Nip and tuck if you have the bucks in a race to find a cure.
Psalm one hundred and thirty nine is the conscience to our selfish crime,
God didn’t screw up when he made you,
He’s a father who loves to parade you.

Yes he reigns, yes you reign, yes you reign,
For there is only one true God,
But we’ve lost the reins on this world,
Forgive us all, forgive us please,
As we fight for this broken world on our knees.

Written by Delirious? ©2005 Curious? Music UK


God didn’t screw up when he made you,
He’s a father who loves to parade you.

uhm. yeah.

mixed

I feel full of emotion tonight. Like something in me wants to burst, something dripping, spilling, or maybe just full to the brim-- thick like syrup. I feel heavy and I feel light all at once. I feel like rejoicing and also like crying out. I want to cry hOw?! Why? what.... Thank you. Change me. Move me. Rock me, sing me to sleep. In awe, yet asking for wonder. question eyes. How will I untangle all of this? Tomorrow another day. Another day exploring in the great abyss of quiet solitude. Life is good, but proves a great challenge. Hurt and doing what I can to heal. Holding longings in a cup heavy with expectation and pressure to pour them out. To watch them splash to the ground, penetrating the soil and watching new life spring new and green. Feeling a little trampled, invisible but still searching for words. Invisible. See-through and unsure of what color to paint the transparency. Red or blue? What is the compliment? Getting little tastes of doing that which I love, hoping for more, but unsure how to procede. Little tastes-- like small drops of sugar on your oustretched tongue with the empty bottle in full view. Being far and learning what I really love.... mixed.

for those of you requesting my adress...

If you don't have my new adress and are dying to send me any assortment of birthday presents, postcards, &/or money, you can just send those to my old Fort Colins adress and it will be forwarded to me (just make sure you adress it to my name). If you don't have that adress, then you can a)send me an email or b)ask someone who does know it (such as Angelina or my sister). Thanks, by the way, for all of your encouraging mail and requests to send mail! I feel quite loved indeed!

a bit more on the subject

I feel like I've been writing about a lot of the same idea for the past three or four posts, but I seem to be in this space where things are just getting more and more refined-- sort of like in those rock tumbler toys you get when you are a kid to turn your everday driveway stones into precious gems. So here's another tumble.

Listening. A few weeks ago, I sat here, in my room, over there in the corner and as I reflected on what I had come here for, I prayed that God would really fill this longing in my soul just to hear. That I would find the quiet in my soul just to listen for the spirit. And funny how he answers those prayers. Something about promises of seeking and finding.

As part of my program here, I have begun doing what is called the "daily office," which is basically going through the Book of Common prayer from the Order of Saint Claire. And I have been told not to "conquer" anything, but just to listen. To allow the Spirit to stop me where I need to stop. And I am finding such freedom simply in that one release. That this time I spend each day is not to master anything. The time I spend in the word isn't about me proving myself as a spirtual giant through how I spent my time (appearances counting, not what is being changed in my heart). I can walk away having done nothing intellectually, but just running my spirit over the words and focusing on what my heart really wants to say. Grab on to the answers to the questions my heart asks but my mind will not allow.

The expanse of time proceeding the most recent I can remember simply asking that God would penetrate me with his word before opening it in the morning. And honestly, I have forgotten about that small request until these past few weeks. The past year or more has consisted of me sitting down with my journal or with the Bible and thinking, "I have ten minutes right now, hurry and try to sqeeze something out of this becuase it's what I'm supposed to do." Or I would go to church hoping that some great speaker would be visiting so that I could be spoon-fed the things that only God knew my heart was longing for. No wonder I was feeling dry.

So I've started over a little. Clean slate. First, I had to forgive myself for intelectualizing God's holy word, reducing God's wonder to formula, and had to get over the pride to admit that is what I had been doing.

And something is happening in me. Since I have begun to loosen my grip on my approach to the word, I find my grip on my life is loosening. If I don't have to seek out the one asnwer that is going to make the adgenda for the whole day work out, suddenly, I don't have to worry about the day either. I'm not worried on writing a theological lesson plan and so I don't have to write out an adgenda for the next six months either. I don't have much of a systematic approach to the time I spend listening to the spirit other than I make sure I do it at some point in the day becuase I know on tuesday someone is going to be asking me about it. And as "old school" as that sounds, it makes me do it and once I sit down and begin, I find it difficult to stop... some days. Some days I do finish becuase I know it is what I am supposed to do and some days I rejoice when there are only two readings instead of three. Some days I rejoice that there are four readings. But I am also freed. All I have to do is go through and listen for the things that I "like." The things that hit my heart in the soft spot.

And just being able to feel that thud on my heart at all is what makes me feel like living. This morning in worship we sang a song called "Thank you." I'm not really sure what the words to the song were anymore, but I do know that a majority of them consisted simply of "thank you." And I remember standing there, thinking, How long has it been since I have said thank you, Lord, for your love? I think even more the question was How long has it been since I have realized that you have love for me that I can say thank you for. I think that it has been a long time since I was not too tense to remember that above all, I am simply and deeply loved by God. I have forgotten that this way that I live my life is not the life of mechanized things I ought to do becuase somehow it makes everything work right, but I live for the sake of loving and being loved.

Sometimes I find myself asking Why am I here? I mean, why did I leave Colorado to come here? And this morning, this is what I heard: You have come that you might know my love. Oh yeah. I suppose I forgot. I think I have forgotten about wonder. I have forgotten about what it means to be in awe of God. There has been a lot of pressure to remember that, and I think it was crushed under the weight.

I've been thinking about what my life looks like these days with a lot of time spent on thinking, contemplating. A lot of time when I am just in my car, or just alone. And how I feel like being away has allowed me to clear my head quite a bit. And I am spending a lot more time in God's word that I think I ever have and thinking about how things might change when I get busier, hopefully getting a job soon, working more with the art institute, classes get ramped up. And I've been thinking, wondering if it is possible for these things to not become so much routine and monotonous. I mean, that is the challenge, isn't it? But I am learning slowly, quietly that the way we allow God to has his way, his adventurous way in us is simply if we allow him to have that place in us. For me to remember that my reason for being here is not to get through a couple of credits, and it is not for me to gain the experience to put on my resume, and it is not for me to get a few paychecks, but I am here to know God's love for me in a bit of a deeper way. And it isn't about me planning out my life for the next ten years, or even the next ten minutes, but simply listening to the Spirit, breathing him like air, and allowing him to stop me when he wants me to see a little piece of awe. Maybe.

I don't usually write much about politics or things like that, but this article, highlighted by Mike Devries really caught me. I was especially intrigued by Dr. Jensen's statement, "It's a bit misleading." I'm not really sure what is so misleading. Is to say Jesus loves Osama any more "misleading" than to say "God bless America?" Just a thought.

It feels like it has been a while since I wrote some here. I think it really has only been a few days, but nevertheless. It seems as each week goes by, things begin to settle on me like dust. New thoughts, new ideas, new peace. I'm not really sure if I have anything all that deep or specific to say here. I am learning just how to be quiet. Learning how to stop analyzing, over-thinking and just letting things be what they are. Letting things hit my heart where they fall. For the first time in a long time just listening for the spirit.

I am realizing that it has been quite a while since I really let things speak to my heart. It has been a very long time since I sat down with the word and heard anything but the reading over of to-do lists. But for the first time in a very long time, it feels deeper than just sitting in a chair for ten minutes. Trying not to conquer anything. Or not trying to conquer anything. Either way.

"Cleaning the beach," as I've been told. Taking time while the tide is out to clean things up. It feels like the first time in a long time I have the clarity that I've been longing for. I suddenly see the weak parts of me that the Enemy likes to use to knock my feet out from under me when I am not looking. More and more I look back on my busy life that I tried to squeeze a little spiritual awareness into and see why thinking and feeling was so impossible.

Sometimes I am tempted to reach for that business again. I realized that it is hard being here sometimes becuase concrete proof or results are a bit ellusive. I get to thinking, "How am I going to justify this period in my life to scholarship donors and future employers?" And I panic. I go back to the comfortable, yet crippling voice that says, "You must measure up. But you will never be enough." Never be enough. "You have no money," the voice says, "So compensate." That's really being honest.

How much of our lives really are driven by our monetary value? Really. How much? How much do I really believe that what I can afford is my measure? I know in my heart that is irrelevant, but it seems like more of a challenge to convince other people. (maybe the challenge is really convincing myself that other people don't need to be convinced either.) I don't really like writing about this becuase it makes me feel incredibly vulnerable and in danger of sounding like the problem myself.

But this is what I am realizing about myself. I am continually just trying to be enough. And I'm learning that this is much too elusive of a goal.

My soul finds rest in God alone-- more on that later.