Double Happy Honesty Cup

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listen to me, you Islands;
hear this, you distant nations:
Before I was born, the Lord called me;
From birth he has made mention of my name
He made my mouth like a polished arrow
and concealed me in his quiver
He said to me, "You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will display my splendor."
But I said, "I have labored to no purpose;
I have spent my strength in vain for nothin
Yet what is due me is in the Lord's hand,
and my reward is with God

And now the Lord says--
He who formed me in the woed to be his servant
to bring Jacob back to him
and gather Israel back to himself
For I am honored in the eyes of the Lord
and God has been my strength
He says:
"It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
To restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept
I will also make yo a light for the gentiels
that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth
this is what the Lord says--
the redeemer and Holy One of Israel--
to him who was despised and abhored by the nation
to be the servant of rulers:
"Kings will see you and rise up
princes will see and bow down
because of the Lord, who is faithful
The Holy One of Isreal, who has chosen you

This is what the Lord says:
"in the time of my favor I will answer you
And in the day of salvation I will help you
I will keep you and will make you
to be a covenant for the people
to restore the Land
and to reassign its desolate inheritances

To say to the captives: "Come out"
and to those in darkness, "Be Free!"

Isaiah 61

A few things:

I don't think I need this space very much anymore. Did I write this before? I can't remember. It is still true though. I don't. I started it because I wanted someone to see me. To hear me. To know me. I don't really know how much it met that need over the last six and a half years, but what I do know now is that there are other ways. And they are better.

I was driving the curve this morning and reached something of an epiphany:: There are just a lot of other things I want to do more. And that doesn't make me a failure and it doesn't make me a bad person. It just means... well, I haven't gotten that far.

I came here to do the thing that I always find ways to put off. And now I am putting it off. Because I have other things on my mind and I am too tired to care that much. I suppose it becomes a problem when the things I want to do more include the simple act of thinking about something else.

I was practicing a Quaker prayer of receiving and releasing several weeks ago and I felt the weight of a teaching job placed in my had-- easy as that. But it seems too good to be true and so I don't really want to believe it. That attachment and disappointment thing again. But I suppose He loves us enough and it is possible. And he doesn't seem to be browbeating me nearly as much as... well... me.

There are certain coping mechanisms that I used to find quite comforting that I now find repulsive to consider. I sit and there is the red hot burn of vulnerability and ache and I try to cover it all up again, but it doesn't seem to cover anymore. My new heart doesn't seem to fit the pieces of the old one. He promised that he would replace the thornbush with the pine. And apparently He wasn't lying about that either.

But that also means that I am carrying around all of this gentle, new skin. You know the kind, like when you totally burn all the layers off and then it begins to grow back softer in that little spot. And there are a thousand things, sensitive to the touch-- feeling with nerves I never knew I had. Like sunlight to the dilated eye of the yesterday blind. It feels like hurt and fear, but maybe its just poignant, real. The walls are down and the callouses have taken flight.