The wind is howling tonight, and I have been thinking: you can never go home. I am reading a story about a little girl who is learning about life and how hard it is through radical socialist parents in the 30s. I realized that even at that young age we are looking for home. I remember feeling I was always out of place, that I never fit in, even in my family. My shoes were either too big or too small.
And, I can never go home.
Home is a memory, ancient and ageless, one that I was born with, one that I ache with even now. Home is a beating heart inside someone else, home is a ethereal place that cannot be reached on this plane. Why do I ache for it when the wind blows? Is it because the wind is a constant reminder of my wandering heart? Because I am blown this way and that? I have an anchor, but my rope is probably too long and I feel I am getting lost at sea. Home is being known, and resting in love there. Home is knowing just as deeply and trusting and being trusted. Home is a solid place for your heart to be grounded. Home is the hope that keeps me aloft. My constant hope and desire for a home keeps me changing, and asking to be changed. Home is safety and rest. Home is challenge and shelter. Home is the place where you are reminded why you live and breath. Home is where you gain your strength, home is peace.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Thursday, November 02, 2006
My response to your Question
I wish I had the ability to make broken people whole. To heal the broken hearted and to free people from the fears that hold them sway. I crave these things for myself and I feel it bleeding from the emotional pores of the people around me everyday. I am aware. I am some sort of incense of prayer in the aching of my soul.
That’s how I am doing this morning. I wrote it because it comes out better when I write.How are you this morning? (Honestly)
That’s how I am doing this morning. I wrote it because it comes out better when I write.How are you this morning? (Honestly)
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Prayer: Stones
Prayer. It weighs on me like a stone sometimes. Most times these days.
It’s not that I don’t want to pray. I just don’t know how. How do I pray? All I really do is cry and ache these days, and call it prayer. What is prayer if it is not birthed from that? I guess there is the faithful prayer, and the disciplined prayer, but these autumn days are filled with aching and crying.
There is a girl that works with me, not in close proximity but on the floor I am on. She wants to be a He. And has taken steps in that direction. She is also only in her early 20’s. She known by a man’s name around the office, but I found out the other day that her real name is Leah. When I heard that my heart just sank and I couldn’t help but ache for her. Ache for my God, the God who is my Father and the Father of everything living to come and be her Father. To come and hold her like He holds me sometimes. To tell her it’s going to be okay and that she is beautiful.
She’s not even a convincible he. I have more facial hair than she does, and my voice is deeper. I’ve had shorter hair and well. Were it not for this tell-tell body of mine, I would pull of a much better man than she. But I have also been incredibly healed in so many of my sexuality questions. So much of my feminity and desire for wholeness as a woman has only recently happened.
My housemate was just talking to me about a woman she knows, let’s call her “Susan”, who was kicked out of her parents house at the rip old age of 13. And was left to fend for herself all these years. She’s in her 30’s now and has a pre adolescent son who has some developmental disorders. She is also the victim of everyone’s rejection of her. To this day. And my beautiful friend was sitting on the couch crying because she doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t even know how to pray for her any more. Susan used to live with my housemate, but the Lord strongly told her that it was time for Susan to have her own house. So my housemate obeyed and stopped (in whatever way) enabling Susan in her brokenness. But Susan has been a victim for so long that she knows no other way of living.
This weighs on my heart like a stone. This ache breaks my heart because I have no answers. I know the only answer is for Jesus to break through (like I so desperately need in some deep dark areas of my own life) and deliver her from her wretchedness into her true identity as a daughter of the King. But how does that happen when a person (like myself) is more comfortable living in the slop of self-pity and loathing than in donning robes of righteousness and crowns of glory and playing the part of reality?
There really was no answer I could give my housemate as she wept over Susan longing for God to do something. There is no answer because I found myself relating so closely with her description of this broken woman. And I ache for that deliverance in my own temple of flesh and bone, but I’m struggling to let in the light that will make it day.
These muscles of righteousness and purity have been far out of use. I just wonder how it will turn out. For me, for Susan, and for Leah. I feel it is times like this that I become prayer. I am them, she is me. I ache for deliverance for her, I ache for me. Surely one of us, maybe even all of us will see the Hand of God someday. I just hope that I can keep my heart before him and not run away, like I so often do.
Monday, October 02, 2006
i am...portland (8 minute stream)
I hear bells and strings and laughter. I hear the sound of falling water, and engines, and restless hearts. I feel the stirrings of some underground subterranean ache that was birthed long ago in the very heart of this place.
I hear this city. I love this city. I AM this city. So broken, forgotten, abandoned, yet found and tenderly cared for, though it/I doesn't/don't even know it.
I am green, I am a constant drizzle of thought, emotion, turning inside.
I am a cloudy day and oh my god, when I'm sunny, how glorious am I!
I am brokenness, I am healing, I am poor and I am dirty, but I am loved.
I am a childs' laughter, the friendly bark of a dog.
I am the center without knowing it.
I am happiness in running, I am loneliness personified, I am rejection, and I am rejected.
I pray when I ache and ache to pray. I cry, I sing, I don't laugh enough.
I am the beauty in the trees, the seasons become me, though the rainy ones are longer than most.
I am wisdom, I am light, I am warmth, I am a big fat fight. Wouldn't you like to be me?
I am the cramp in your hand when you are trying to write, I'm the music on the page that holds the secret to your favorite song, but you can't read.
I am a loud boisterous voice of profanity, I am the clanging bells of alarm, I am early morning sanity, and late afternoon breakdowns.
I am a pumpkin patch, warm and green, but lumpy.
I am autumn, I am spring, I am winter and I love to sing. Call me summer when you are wet and cold and I'll wrap around you like your favorite coat.
I hear this city. I love this city. I AM this city. So broken, forgotten, abandoned, yet found and tenderly cared for, though it/I doesn't/don't even know it.
I am green, I am a constant drizzle of thought, emotion, turning inside.
I am a cloudy day and oh my god, when I'm sunny, how glorious am I!
I am brokenness, I am healing, I am poor and I am dirty, but I am loved.
I am a childs' laughter, the friendly bark of a dog.
I am the center without knowing it.
I am happiness in running, I am loneliness personified, I am rejection, and I am rejected.
I pray when I ache and ache to pray. I cry, I sing, I don't laugh enough.
I am the beauty in the trees, the seasons become me, though the rainy ones are longer than most.
I am wisdom, I am light, I am warmth, I am a big fat fight. Wouldn't you like to be me?
I am the cramp in your hand when you are trying to write, I'm the music on the page that holds the secret to your favorite song, but you can't read.
I am a loud boisterous voice of profanity, I am the clanging bells of alarm, I am early morning sanity, and late afternoon breakdowns.
I am a pumpkin patch, warm and green, but lumpy.
I am autumn, I am spring, I am winter and I love to sing. Call me summer when you are wet and cold and I'll wrap around you like your favorite coat.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
I just need a song
I am working now. I am attempting the travel business again. We'll see how it goes.
I got off work today, standing at my bus stop I decided to hang out in the Square for a while. I was just feeling some stuff.
I bought myself a small latte and sat next to the waterfall fountains and drowned out the noise of downtown for a while. Knitting, of course. Because knitting is what I do now.
As I sat there I watched various people, and there are a varied bunch on the square, I felt this ache, this groan of prayer come from somewhere deep inside. At one point I literally thought about standing up right where I was and singing at the top of my lungs because I couldn't take it anymore. I figured that no one would hear me above the roar of the waterfalls and I didn't know what to sing anyway. (maybe one day I won't have these dismissive thoughts and I'll actually do something that nuts) I just sat there and prayed inside of myself. Not really even sure what I was praying. It's like that verse in Romans (I think) about the Spirit inside of us helping us with groanings too deep for words because we can't utter them. That is how intense it felt.
Everytime I am on the Square I feel this. I decided to go home because I wanted to worship so bad. I am desparate for a piano to play here. We have a keyboard at the house, but it is not the same. Anyway, I get on the bus and it's like this vacuum for feeling. You are smushed together with dozens of people trying to breathe and you miss something about your heart on the way home. It almost feels like this thing lifted once we got out of the downtown area. So by the time I get home I'm not so achy. I ended up telling my housemate that I was in desperate need to worship and as it turns out, so was she. So we did. It was dry and not real refreshing. I felt like I was trying to hard or something. I don't know how to not just go to my default when I worship.
Anyway, all that to say. I am hopeful that Jesus is on His way to showing me about his heart for the poor and the fatherless in this city. I can't escape it. It has gripped me in a way that not much in my life has up to this point. I am scared and excited about this season coming up. These are the city streets he's been calling me into for the last 5 years of my life. I'm going to find him here. In the eyes of the broken, the fatherless, the prostitute, the stinky. I am them. He is mine, that makes me me, and them me.
Pray for me to be brave. To be "bold with strength in my soul" Ps 138. I know that one day I will sing on these streets. I just need a song.
I got off work today, standing at my bus stop I decided to hang out in the Square for a while. I was just feeling some stuff.
I bought myself a small latte and sat next to the waterfall fountains and drowned out the noise of downtown for a while. Knitting, of course. Because knitting is what I do now.
As I sat there I watched various people, and there are a varied bunch on the square, I felt this ache, this groan of prayer come from somewhere deep inside. At one point I literally thought about standing up right where I was and singing at the top of my lungs because I couldn't take it anymore. I figured that no one would hear me above the roar of the waterfalls and I didn't know what to sing anyway. (maybe one day I won't have these dismissive thoughts and I'll actually do something that nuts) I just sat there and prayed inside of myself. Not really even sure what I was praying. It's like that verse in Romans (I think) about the Spirit inside of us helping us with groanings too deep for words because we can't utter them. That is how intense it felt.
Everytime I am on the Square I feel this. I decided to go home because I wanted to worship so bad. I am desparate for a piano to play here. We have a keyboard at the house, but it is not the same. Anyway, I get on the bus and it's like this vacuum for feeling. You are smushed together with dozens of people trying to breathe and you miss something about your heart on the way home. It almost feels like this thing lifted once we got out of the downtown area. So by the time I get home I'm not so achy. I ended up telling my housemate that I was in desperate need to worship and as it turns out, so was she. So we did. It was dry and not real refreshing. I felt like I was trying to hard or something. I don't know how to not just go to my default when I worship.
Anyway, all that to say. I am hopeful that Jesus is on His way to showing me about his heart for the poor and the fatherless in this city. I can't escape it. It has gripped me in a way that not much in my life has up to this point. I am scared and excited about this season coming up. These are the city streets he's been calling me into for the last 5 years of my life. I'm going to find him here. In the eyes of the broken, the fatherless, the prostitute, the stinky. I am them. He is mine, that makes me me, and them me.
Pray for me to be brave. To be "bold with strength in my soul" Ps 138. I know that one day I will sing on these streets. I just need a song.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Explanation
"If you don't know what an extrovert is thinking/feeling, you haven't listened.
If you don't know what an introvert is thinking/feeling, you haven't asked."
If you don't know what an introvert is thinking/feeling, you haven't asked."
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Simply
“Help me to simply live”
This is the last line of the journal entry I just made. I am shedding something. Something complicated. Shedding some false sense of self, of security, of pride. I realize that this means that a lot will change. I’ve been waiting for it. Expecting it. Afraid of it, and excited for it all at the same time. Maybe this is the Kingdom of God being birthed in me. I’m ready for it. I am pregnant with Hope. Maybe I have been all this time. Maybe its time for her to be born. For Hope to become a substance in my life. Hope is the very thing I have hoped for. For a reason outside of myself to live, for something to give my heart over to.
So here it is. The change of my life, to carry and foster Hope inside of me so that others can meet Her. To let her be alive.
Excerpts from Galatians 4.
But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir…My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you…Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman's son." Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.
This is the last line of the journal entry I just made. I am shedding something. Something complicated. Shedding some false sense of self, of security, of pride. I realize that this means that a lot will change. I’ve been waiting for it. Expecting it. Afraid of it, and excited for it all at the same time. Maybe this is the Kingdom of God being birthed in me. I’m ready for it. I am pregnant with Hope. Maybe I have been all this time. Maybe its time for her to be born. For Hope to become a substance in my life. Hope is the very thing I have hoped for. For a reason outside of myself to live, for something to give my heart over to.
So here it is. The change of my life, to carry and foster Hope inside of me so that others can meet Her. To let her be alive.
Excerpts from Galatians 4.
But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir…My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you…Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman's son." Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.
Friday, August 04, 2006
panelled room
It's not what it sounds. Or maybe it is exactly as it sounds. I am living in a fully panelled room right now. For the next few days as things are being rearranged in my new house I'm downstairs in a room that is floor to ceiling (and ceiling) panelling. It smells like fir to me. I could be wrong. My nose is off these days.
Upstairs if the doors are open it smells like cedar. The ocean must be tied to every molecule of cedar because when it's wet it smells like the salty air when you get close to the ocean. I'd forgotten how the trees up here retain that salty smell.
I must admit: I'm a chicken.
Upstairs if the doors are open it smells like cedar. The ocean must be tied to every molecule of cedar because when it's wet it smells like the salty air when you get close to the ocean. I'd forgotten how the trees up here retain that salty smell.
I must admit: I'm a chicken.
Monday, June 19, 2006
lines
The lines on my face say more than I would like them to some times. There has been a gradual downward shift in the shape of my mouth over my years here in Kansas City. I noticed it a few months ago and wondered about it. What had changed in me so much that caused my whole face to be more attracted by gravity than it used to be? I don't laugh as much as I used to.My friend Kristen told me that my contagious laughter made me bearable, because I am so melancholy the rest of the time. But when I laugh, the whole world laughs with me. I don't want to lose that part of myself. I have felt this last year in Kansas City weigh on me more than any other year I've lived here. I've become serious. And I guess I am sort of torn between serious and "grown up". I'm not that comfortable with being "grown up", and truth be told I pretty much suck at the refinements of it, i.e. suitable conversation for parties, making people comfortable when you first meet them, etc. Neither am I comfortable with being serious, in general. I guess I can't help but make jokes at every turn, sometimes it becomes compulsive, and I can't turn it off.
There is this new person I met. A brother of a friend of mine, and I don't know what my problem is, but I keep attacking, I keep pushing, and making combative verbal gestures. I don't mean it! I don't want to do it! Why can't I just be a normal 27 year old female that can "be", and not act like a threatened little 12 year old. I really like this guy, he is hilarious, doesn't deserve my abuse. Don't get me wrong. He said: "sarcasm is my love language", so he is sort of asking for it.
I am a witty and charming person. I enjoy being with people, especially funny people. There is a switch that flips, less now than when I was younger, and turns me into this bitch-machine that become inarticulate and combative, reduced to cussing and crude hand signals. WHO IS THAT? The worst version of myself, that's for sure!
This is me right before I moved to Kansas City. My dad was taking pictures of me and my best friend Missy. I don't even remember what we were laughing about.
I miss the people in my life that make me laugh like this. They have all moved away, and I will never live in the same city as them again. I hate that about life. I'm sorry but I do. It just makes me want to get to heaven all the more. I have a great theory that when we get to heaven (after a millennium of freaking out at how beautiful God really is) we will have these private screening rooms of different events in history. There is going to be a whole room of "funniest moments" and I will be howling and rolling on the ground with Jesus at some of these moments in my life and in other peoples lives. At least there I won't have to worry about peeing my pants.
This is a list(not comprehensive) of the funniest people I know, in no particular order:
Jeremiah Gonda
Jeremiah LaCoille
Amber Fannin
Heather Ayres
Gretchen Bourquin
Bret Bourquin
Rachel Liegghio
Samuel Sullivant
Colin Walker
Jason Henderson
Luke Sullivant
Joel Sorge
Prestidge Boys (I'm assuming the ones I haven't met are just as funny)
David Blackwell
Adam Short
Sarah Cox
Pamela Merwin
Kristen Curry
Tikva Twomey
Shannon Vinson
Gabriel Kellmer
Alissa Parker
Nate Haas
Greg Buckman
Jesse Robertson
Donald Carter
Jim Walker
Linda Walker
Missy Lee
Karen Stacey
David Rosen
Chris Dupre and Gary Wiens (together)
Stuart Graves
Leah Morgan
this is a short list of people that have made my life more bearable by making me laugh hysterically at least a few times, enough for me to consider them funny.
Best of all. Anna Walker. I make myself laugh more than anyone knows.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
a whole lot I don't know about yet
Man and Wife, just say it, Man and Wife...
They never said, "I do".
richer, poorer, in sickness and in health, thick and thin, babies, death, lies and forgiveness...however it goes.
I am disturbed. I have become accutely aware of the lack of followthrough in relationship lately. I don't know how I am going to say all of this, I apologize for it's roughness.
I have cried over my friends marriages more in the last week then I have ever thought possible. For the first time I am seeing with differant eyes the lies that we are brought up believing are truths. And as I watch the unravelling effect that reality has on real life marriages it makes me sick.
Ideals. Optimisim, "hope", "faith", all these words that might describe someone who is nieve enough to think that the princess gets her prince and they live happily ever after.
Let me state: I am getting the cynisim knocked out of me right now, even as I attempt to write some thoughts about this. It all started last week after I watched the interaction of a married couple that I know in front of all these people at thier daughters birthday party. I ached inside when I left. I groaned. I got angry. I began spouting poison about how marriage never works and how its all a big sham from the beginning. God never meant it to work out, it was just pain and brokenness magnified. As I was spewing these vile lies I felt deep inside of me this tug to go to Jesus about it and repent for accusing God of not being good.
I broke down in my car. drapped over my steering wheel weeping, repenting for taking the imperfect and blaming God for it. I set my heart to live and not to take in the poison that I had been from my childhood watching my own broken parents struggle with what marriage was.
I think something changed inside of me. I think that God flipped a switch in me. I prayed for mercy on my friends who were hurting each other. I begged God to protect them and to show himself to them.
a day later, on my birthday, my friend got a phone call from her boyfriend and he broke up with her, stating something like insanity for his case. (thank you very much for your perfect timing) And it began to strike me that something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong. I had an appointment with my counsellor on my birthday and it was something we talked about. About marriage and relationships, etc. and the piece of massive truth that has since been totally unravelling me was this: At the moment of seeing sin (someone procreating sin in someone elses life, etc.) there are two options for a response. The first, being the godly one, is that you can see the situation as it is, feel the impact of sin and fallenness in people's lives and grieve, with Jesus, about it...which often times I have discovered leads into intercession for those people/that situation. The second, being the ungodly response, is that you take what you see and you swallow it whole as "life experiance", and you let it sink deep into you. Usually this produces a deep anger and rage about the unfairness of life, about the seeming lack of God's providentual hand in our lives, and worst of all it becomes a part of you in deep levels that you don't understand and you begin to create a world view around these things you percieve as truth, and cynisim sets in. Oh the depths of depravity that need Jesus!
I have done this my WHOLE life up to now! It has literally mutilated my body, interfered with my relationships, with family, with my hopes for the future, and I haven't trusted God because of MY persceptions of a situtation (as though I have the ENTIRE picture!).
Since I ran face first into this wall of truth I've literally become a ball of mush. You could poke me and I would probably start crying. I've known for a long time that grief (and my avoidence of it) was a big part of my healing, and now it is as if the perverbial snowball has begun its decent down a snowy mountian.
The amazing thing to me about all of this is how absolutly freeing it is. In the moments that I have been faced with the choice of whether to grieve about something or get cynical and I choose greif, I have experianced such an amazing lightness of heart afterward. It is as though I do not carry it, whereas, every other time in the past because of my ungodly responses I've become the bearer of a burden that was never mine in the first place.
As I said before, this is all very rough, which I guess everything I write is. I hope you'll forgive my lack of articulation, and hear the heart behind this. I hope that Jesus can get to the places inside of you where you've become the unlawful bearer of burdens that were never yours to begin with.
And I really hope that this really does radically change my entire life so that people who know me will be in total awe of what God can do. Cause if he can make me compassionate and not cynical, than you ought to know it is a miracle!
They never said, "I do".
richer, poorer, in sickness and in health, thick and thin, babies, death, lies and forgiveness...however it goes.
I am disturbed. I have become accutely aware of the lack of followthrough in relationship lately. I don't know how I am going to say all of this, I apologize for it's roughness.
I have cried over my friends marriages more in the last week then I have ever thought possible. For the first time I am seeing with differant eyes the lies that we are brought up believing are truths. And as I watch the unravelling effect that reality has on real life marriages it makes me sick.
Ideals. Optimisim, "hope", "faith", all these words that might describe someone who is nieve enough to think that the princess gets her prince and they live happily ever after.
Let me state: I am getting the cynisim knocked out of me right now, even as I attempt to write some thoughts about this. It all started last week after I watched the interaction of a married couple that I know in front of all these people at thier daughters birthday party. I ached inside when I left. I groaned. I got angry. I began spouting poison about how marriage never works and how its all a big sham from the beginning. God never meant it to work out, it was just pain and brokenness magnified. As I was spewing these vile lies I felt deep inside of me this tug to go to Jesus about it and repent for accusing God of not being good.
I broke down in my car. drapped over my steering wheel weeping, repenting for taking the imperfect and blaming God for it. I set my heart to live and not to take in the poison that I had been from my childhood watching my own broken parents struggle with what marriage was.
I think something changed inside of me. I think that God flipped a switch in me. I prayed for mercy on my friends who were hurting each other. I begged God to protect them and to show himself to them.
a day later, on my birthday, my friend got a phone call from her boyfriend and he broke up with her, stating something like insanity for his case. (thank you very much for your perfect timing) And it began to strike me that something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong. I had an appointment with my counsellor on my birthday and it was something we talked about. About marriage and relationships, etc. and the piece of massive truth that has since been totally unravelling me was this: At the moment of seeing sin (someone procreating sin in someone elses life, etc.) there are two options for a response. The first, being the godly one, is that you can see the situation as it is, feel the impact of sin and fallenness in people's lives and grieve, with Jesus, about it...which often times I have discovered leads into intercession for those people/that situation. The second, being the ungodly response, is that you take what you see and you swallow it whole as "life experiance", and you let it sink deep into you. Usually this produces a deep anger and rage about the unfairness of life, about the seeming lack of God's providentual hand in our lives, and worst of all it becomes a part of you in deep levels that you don't understand and you begin to create a world view around these things you percieve as truth, and cynisim sets in. Oh the depths of depravity that need Jesus!
I have done this my WHOLE life up to now! It has literally mutilated my body, interfered with my relationships, with family, with my hopes for the future, and I haven't trusted God because of MY persceptions of a situtation (as though I have the ENTIRE picture!).
Since I ran face first into this wall of truth I've literally become a ball of mush. You could poke me and I would probably start crying. I've known for a long time that grief (and my avoidence of it) was a big part of my healing, and now it is as if the perverbial snowball has begun its decent down a snowy mountian.
The amazing thing to me about all of this is how absolutly freeing it is. In the moments that I have been faced with the choice of whether to grieve about something or get cynical and I choose greif, I have experianced such an amazing lightness of heart afterward. It is as though I do not carry it, whereas, every other time in the past because of my ungodly responses I've become the bearer of a burden that was never mine in the first place.
As I said before, this is all very rough, which I guess everything I write is. I hope you'll forgive my lack of articulation, and hear the heart behind this. I hope that Jesus can get to the places inside of you where you've become the unlawful bearer of burdens that were never yours to begin with.
And I really hope that this really does radically change my entire life so that people who know me will be in total awe of what God can do. Cause if he can make me compassionate and not cynical, than you ought to know it is a miracle!
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Ah, the great Mundane...and Superhero's
These are un-extraordinary times. It seems to me that life goes on tick after tock, breath after beat, and there is no accounting for taste. I am sure someone somewhere is experiencing some exhilarating portion of life. Maybe my friends in China. Maybe people in Africa. Maybe it’s just the Adam Cox’s in life that get all the good stories.
I want to live. What does it mean to live, really live? When will I find the thing, the people that win over my heart indefinitely and cause me to live inside? Maybe I am the problem. I feel somehow that it is not likely. Seems that everyone I know is struggling. It used to be so exciting when I was younger. So much of the world seemed conquerable. Now, I am conquered. By some weathering force of time, I feel as though I have become a part of the worn away terra where I exist.
Confession: I want to be a superhero. I want super powers and I want to save the world with them, and I want all of the attention, for at least a little while. I’ve wanted it my whole life. Zorro, Mighty Mouse, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aqua Man, Spiderman, He-Man, She-Ra, Wolverine, Rogue, Storm, the list is extensive. I love comic book movies and I always look for hidden meanings in them. Maybe God will talk to me through this one, and tell me that I am going to supernaturally have a healing web come from my wrist or a super utility belt of truth and justice will fall from the heavens and I will have the cure for redundancy all at once.
I want to live. What does it mean to live, really live? When will I find the thing, the people that win over my heart indefinitely and cause me to live inside? Maybe I am the problem. I feel somehow that it is not likely. Seems that everyone I know is struggling. It used to be so exciting when I was younger. So much of the world seemed conquerable. Now, I am conquered. By some weathering force of time, I feel as though I have become a part of the worn away terra where I exist.
Confession: I want to be a superhero. I want super powers and I want to save the world with them, and I want all of the attention, for at least a little while. I’ve wanted it my whole life. Zorro, Mighty Mouse, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aqua Man, Spiderman, He-Man, She-Ra, Wolverine, Rogue, Storm, the list is extensive. I love comic book movies and I always look for hidden meanings in them. Maybe God will talk to me through this one, and tell me that I am going to supernaturally have a healing web come from my wrist or a super utility belt of truth and justice will fall from the heavens and I will have the cure for redundancy all at once.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Homeward Bound, an Increadable Journey
Cheesey title I know. What can one do? I am going to try my hand at posting something to this blog of mine. It's been a while. My creative juices have been all but non-existant lately.
I have made a decision to move back to where the trees are higher than pride, where the earth smells like the garden of Eden, and where I was formed from it's dust and ashes. Not to the "exact" place of my formation, but near enough to it to be a short journey for a visit.
My 7 plus years in Kansas City have been...amazing. As I sell all of my possessions in a rash move to clear my life of clutter, I can't help but try to wrap all my memories, lessons, relationships, joy and pain into one neat pile. It doesn't work. I have to resign to the untidiness of history and how it doesn't all just iron out neatly when you look back.
Ophelia, my piano, was moved out of my apartment today. I played her one last time this morning, tried to sing, but my voice is so jacked up from being ill that I could barely squeak out some notes from some familiar songs. They came, those three broken men, to take away one of the only things that has kept my heart alive in the last 14 months. I am scared. I am nervous and excited. Like a little kid going to 1st grade for the first time. The anticipation of a new city, the big questions about my future, the fear of risking BIG again. I could just pee myself at the enormity of it all. But I'm graduating out of my graveyard, I'm sheding my fears and insecurites like a butterfly sheds its cocoon that has been so safe and transforming. I'm going to live. I AM GOING TO LIVE!! I AM GOING TO LIVE!!! SO HELP ME GOD!
Back to where the trees know me by heart, back to where shore air mingles with my sighing. I have never lived like this before. Never trusted like this before.
Leaving Kansas City is like leaving a family behind. I came here orphaned, and I am leaving fathered, mothered, sistered, brothered. There are going to be nights of racous laughter, and intense weeping this summer. As I say goodbye to my own memorial, to my own shrine. I'm leaving with regrets of the people I loved badly and hurt with the best intentions, I'm sorry. I'm leaving with a legacy of shedding a hard shell. I hope I'm leaving hope behind. Kansas City is not the end. You don't just come here to die and be left. There is a resurrection!
I hope that what I have learned here stays with me along with all the people that have loved me so well here.
My failures are abundant and not hard to spot, but I hope that from them comes strength and grace.
Colin, I'm moving to Portland. You wanna come??
Love always,
Anna Joy Walker
I have made a decision to move back to where the trees are higher than pride, where the earth smells like the garden of Eden, and where I was formed from it's dust and ashes. Not to the "exact" place of my formation, but near enough to it to be a short journey for a visit.
My 7 plus years in Kansas City have been...amazing. As I sell all of my possessions in a rash move to clear my life of clutter, I can't help but try to wrap all my memories, lessons, relationships, joy and pain into one neat pile. It doesn't work. I have to resign to the untidiness of history and how it doesn't all just iron out neatly when you look back.
Ophelia, my piano, was moved out of my apartment today. I played her one last time this morning, tried to sing, but my voice is so jacked up from being ill that I could barely squeak out some notes from some familiar songs. They came, those three broken men, to take away one of the only things that has kept my heart alive in the last 14 months. I am scared. I am nervous and excited. Like a little kid going to 1st grade for the first time. The anticipation of a new city, the big questions about my future, the fear of risking BIG again. I could just pee myself at the enormity of it all. But I'm graduating out of my graveyard, I'm sheding my fears and insecurites like a butterfly sheds its cocoon that has been so safe and transforming. I'm going to live. I AM GOING TO LIVE!! I AM GOING TO LIVE!!! SO HELP ME GOD!
Back to where the trees know me by heart, back to where shore air mingles with my sighing. I have never lived like this before. Never trusted like this before.
Leaving Kansas City is like leaving a family behind. I came here orphaned, and I am leaving fathered, mothered, sistered, brothered. There are going to be nights of racous laughter, and intense weeping this summer. As I say goodbye to my own memorial, to my own shrine. I'm leaving with regrets of the people I loved badly and hurt with the best intentions, I'm sorry. I'm leaving with a legacy of shedding a hard shell. I hope I'm leaving hope behind. Kansas City is not the end. You don't just come here to die and be left. There is a resurrection!
I hope that what I have learned here stays with me along with all the people that have loved me so well here.
My failures are abundant and not hard to spot, but I hope that from them comes strength and grace.
Colin, I'm moving to Portland. You wanna come??
Love always,
Anna Joy Walker
Thursday, May 18, 2006
nearing 27
Its midnight. I’m trying. Trying to write, trying to live outside of my boundaries. Trying to love Jesus. I’m not actually doing anything that would be said as “loving Jesus”, but in my heart I am aware.
My season is changing. I have felt it in my heart, heard it on the wind, smelt it in rain. My twenty-seventh birthday is coming up so soon, and I remembered thinking about being 27 when I was a little girl, normally it was when we were talking about our dreams and our lives as far as what big things we were going to do at certain ages. My big age was 27 and 28, unlike my friends, whose big ages were 20 and 21. Maybe I knew back then that it would take me a while to grow up and become stable, in some sense of the word, or maybe I was just prophetic. With that in mind, I was thinking about these last years in KC and how difficult it has been. And I was asking the Lord about all of it, about the meaning behind the pain, etc. I was asking him what was in store for me for this next year of my life labeled 27. We came back to Isaiah 62. I bawled my way through it again, this time out of The Message.
Here it is. Still, I love Jesus. Still, worship is my favorite expression. Still, I need Him. Still, He is so good. Through all of our years together, still he wants me. Still, he fights for me. Still, he is worthy. Still he is beautiful.
My season is changing. I have felt it in my heart, heard it on the wind, smelt it in rain. My twenty-seventh birthday is coming up so soon, and I remembered thinking about being 27 when I was a little girl, normally it was when we were talking about our dreams and our lives as far as what big things we were going to do at certain ages. My big age was 27 and 28, unlike my friends, whose big ages were 20 and 21. Maybe I knew back then that it would take me a while to grow up and become stable, in some sense of the word, or maybe I was just prophetic. With that in mind, I was thinking about these last years in KC and how difficult it has been. And I was asking the Lord about all of it, about the meaning behind the pain, etc. I was asking him what was in store for me for this next year of my life labeled 27. We came back to Isaiah 62. I bawled my way through it again, this time out of The Message.
Here it is. Still, I love Jesus. Still, worship is my favorite expression. Still, I need Him. Still, He is so good. Through all of our years together, still he wants me. Still, he fights for me. Still, he is worthy. Still he is beautiful.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
new things
Rapidly I am moving toward the end of my last week here at this florecent enduced insanity, called an "office job". White walled tomb of hope defered, busted open by the ringing of my little black phone. Sleek and sophisticated as it is, added to by the voice on the other end telling me that Jesu heard my cry and is "reassigning" me, to a place that I can sing loudly at! HA!
Okay, so enough of this cryptic message. I just wanted to let you, my BR family, know that just as I was at the cliff ready to jump off Aslan pounced on me and told me to go another way...(again with the dorky cryptic stuff, gosh!)
Let's try that again.
Some of you may know how unhappy with my J O B I have been. It so funny to me how this thing that earns us a living is called by the same name as the tested man in the bible, that kept begging for some kind of repreve and justification regarding his righteousness and how he did not "deserve" this punishment that was being put on him, and YAH came in a whirlwind, and told Job to not be so impressed with himself and his wonderful heart...and Out of the Whirlwind he asked Job all these essential questions about the Creation of the universe and about cool animals, and Job just sits there dumb, and comes to the conclusion that God is waaaaaayyyy bigger then his "JOB reality"....
So maybe that's what happened to me. Maybe I was lamenting my undeserved "dark night" claiming God's perfection outloud, but in my heart loathing it because I didn't see the end from the beginning like He does...So after asking me some hard questions, I think he may be letting the dawn peak through (again), maybe this time, it will turn into full-fledged day!!
I got offered a new JOB out of the blue. Something that I love to do, something with coffee...ha! who'd have guessed. Something with art and community and other things that I love. Something I can make a living off of!! This whole story seems crazy and surreal to me, luckily I had no children that died, and don't have to deal with the doubling of those either.
(SORRY!!! haha)
She may be weary, women do get weary, wearing the same shabby dress, and when she's weary, try a little tenderness. She may be waiting, just anticipating things she may never possess, while she's without them, try a little tenderness. Its not just sentimental, she has her grief and her cares, but a word so soft and gentle, makes it easier to bear. You won't regret, women don't forget it, love is their whole happiness, and its oh so easy, try a little tenderness.
thanks Jesu
SEE YOU FOLKS TONIGHT AT 7PM!!
Forgive my ramblings if you are too straight laced to follow along...If you are, just come see me, I'll help you learn...(so will bustos, he's good at noodling, (what is noodling?? I have no idea, except it is the term I have only just now come up with to describe the way that bustos has a knack to weedle (another word) his way into peoples lives and hearts and help them get out of thier ruts (thanks Brian)))
progressively excited!
anna joy
Okay, so enough of this cryptic message. I just wanted to let you, my BR family, know that just as I was at the cliff ready to jump off Aslan pounced on me and told me to go another way...(again with the dorky cryptic stuff, gosh!)
Let's try that again.
Some of you may know how unhappy with my J O B I have been. It so funny to me how this thing that earns us a living is called by the same name as the tested man in the bible, that kept begging for some kind of repreve and justification regarding his righteousness and how he did not "deserve" this punishment that was being put on him, and YAH came in a whirlwind, and told Job to not be so impressed with himself and his wonderful heart...and Out of the Whirlwind he asked Job all these essential questions about the Creation of the universe and about cool animals, and Job just sits there dumb, and comes to the conclusion that God is waaaaaayyyy bigger then his "JOB reality"....
So maybe that's what happened to me. Maybe I was lamenting my undeserved "dark night" claiming God's perfection outloud, but in my heart loathing it because I didn't see the end from the beginning like He does...So after asking me some hard questions, I think he may be letting the dawn peak through (again), maybe this time, it will turn into full-fledged day!!
I got offered a new JOB out of the blue. Something that I love to do, something with coffee...ha! who'd have guessed. Something with art and community and other things that I love. Something I can make a living off of!! This whole story seems crazy and surreal to me, luckily I had no children that died, and don't have to deal with the doubling of those either.
(SORRY!!! haha)
She may be weary, women do get weary, wearing the same shabby dress, and when she's weary, try a little tenderness. She may be waiting, just anticipating things she may never possess, while she's without them, try a little tenderness. Its not just sentimental, she has her grief and her cares, but a word so soft and gentle, makes it easier to bear. You won't regret, women don't forget it, love is their whole happiness, and its oh so easy, try a little tenderness.
thanks Jesu
SEE YOU FOLKS TONIGHT AT 7PM!!
Forgive my ramblings if you are too straight laced to follow along...If you are, just come see me, I'll help you learn...(so will bustos, he's good at noodling, (what is noodling?? I have no idea, except it is the term I have only just now come up with to describe the way that bustos has a knack to weedle (another word) his way into peoples lives and hearts and help them get out of thier ruts (thanks Brian)))
progressively excited!
anna joy
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