I wear a torn place on my sleeve || John

Behold, I will do something new,
  Now it will spring forth;
  Will you not be aware of it?
  I will even make a roadway in the wilderness,
  Rivers in the desert.

Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation...

I wear a torn place on my sleeve.
It isn't as simple as that.


John

I weep a lot these days. They'd laugh if they could hear me say that, the men who travelled with me in the desert. "Really now, John?" They'd say, pounding nails for the tents into ground. "You, a weeping man? Where's the repent and fire business?"

Or maybe not. They had been there too, the first time I really wept before men.

My mother, when she was alive, would look at me with those sad brown eyes, turned golden by sun and by age and say, "John what is wrong?" I can't even count how many times she'd said that while I was growing up, because I did not weep. My mother was special that way. She always knew things. She saw things that others shut their eyes to, like how I never wept.

I miss mother, I think, with tears in my eyes. My father too. I think of them often these days, now that I see.

I remember being a much younger man and my father telling me about the child I was born to herald. He said love a lot, with his cloudy voice. "Father, I'm a man." I'd say. "Not some simpering magician, a prophet, Father. A prophet's passion must leave no room for silly love."

He wept at that.

For a long time, while I fought Herod among the lions in the desert, I told myself the same thing. I'd pound in the nails for my tent and say, "God is just."

I met the child, you know. The one my father used to tell me about, the Christ. He came to me as I shouted and my heart grew full of fire as I stood in the river, wet with the  Jordan and with teh sweat of righteous anger.

Oh no, Lord. I am unworthy to even untie your sandals.

I all of a sudden understood my parents in that moment. All of a sudden, my eyes were full of tears and I knew what was wrong with me when my mother asked. It was the same thing that my father had tried to ask me.

What is love?

Look how far I've come. I'm not sure if it is blood or tears running down my face. Far cry from the voice crying in the wilderness, I'm reduced to counting nails in the prison door, counting time by the shadows of the sun and times my enemy has asked me who I am now. What I am now.

My insides are being eaten away and my enemy exults and what do I do? I weep.

I weep for Herod and for the hungry fire of my enemy eating with pain at his soul.

I weep for the girl who dances while she asks for my death as a game and the way that she will one day weep in bitterness because her childhood has been stolen in fear.

I weep for my disciples, who laugh and preach and sing the psalms, but who will fall to pieces like a jar when I am gone. They just don't know. Please God, they don't know what they're doing.

Mostly, I weep for the child. My father was right. Love isn't what I thought it was. What love is this? He is my friend.

And I tremble as I think this.

I know him.

I weep.

I am just a voice, Child. I am yours, save me.

Somewhere, I think he weeps too, and there is glory in his tears.

My enemy is trembling now. I can see the devouring fire in his belly and I choose to stand and laugh amidst my tears.

This is called love, my enemy.

A dove alights.

I hear my Savior say, Thy strength indeed is small.

My head, my head

Tears fail not.

A nail falls like a pin dropping

And

i

with

it



Love is a  new thing.
(to be continued)

(Isaiah 43:19, Anais Nin's Henry and June, and W.S. Merwin's The Nails provide the epigraph.)

Do not believe your heart
(It lies)
Trust not your eyes
(For you, sweet child, are blind)
The world crumbles like stale bread
And you are made of dust
Not wisdom
So do not weep
And do not mourn
Though the hearse drives over your boots
And your lover spits acid at you, saying,
You never loved me and I hate you for your falsehood
You must smile and soldier
You must be quite all right
Though everything be wrong and you
Forget everything in tears
Two things you can believe
The silent stars
And Me.

Dear Bathsheba [[remorse and resurrection]]

...Oh, beloved Bathsheba. Do not leave me here, alone with the moon. I love you, my dear, oh, I love you...

God, how I miss you. 

I'm very alone here, Abba. When I saw her bathing on the roof, I loved her. She loved me, too, God, I know she did. We were beautiful together, admit it. She was sad and she was lonely, and I was scared and I was misunderstood. I was so afraid to lose her.  You've taken me away so many times from the ones I love. I was afraid you would do it again, God, that once again, you'd cast me away from the ones I love. I loved them, God. I promise I did. 

I think that was why I snatched her up the way I did, I just didn't want to lose her, the way I lost all the others I loved most. I know, I know, it was wrong of me to be so afraid.

I wasn't trying to hurt her, the pretty, weeping girl that night. I wasn't trying to hurt you either, I swear it. Oh, how I didn't want to give her up. I miss her, my beloved Bathsheba. It wasn't her fault, of course, the dark way I loved her, the way my love turned to murder.

Oh, God, I can't even think about that. My heart will break all over again and I think I had just salvaged enough of it to say I'm sorry. I am. I'm so so sorry.

How you must despise me. My family does. My whole kingdom does. I despise myself, most of all my bitter-stained heart. 

I'm alone with the moon again. I'm a mass of contradictions, you know - the king after God's heart and the one who killed for a bitter love.

Give me my harp, my dear, I need to sing a short song. Or maybe it will be a long one.

You're my beloved now, the real one, you who never left me alone with the outside darkness (saying I'm sorry and then trying to forget over and over). You've kept my hands gathered, and for the last time, taken hyssop and ground it into my heart, into my eyes, into my hands.

I'm aflame now, and I'm weeping and there is resurrection. My heart died when we parted, you and I, and I buried it when I said goodbye to her, but now, create in me a clean heart, a new one, O God, and resurrect - renew - a right spirit within me. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love.

Because, I'm sorry isn't going to work when you're alone with the moon. Because, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Summer and Blue

“Hello.” said the boy with the blue eyes. It was raining and his brown hair ran down his face with the rainwater.

“Hi.” said the girl with the summer smile. Her hair was not running anywhere. She held a polka dot umbrella over her head and stood in its spotlight.

The boy with the blue eyes smiled, but it was a sad, February smile. “We don’t know each other, do we?” The smile turned to frost, and the summer girl watched, perplexed and teary-eyed as he turned into an ice ghost before her.

The summer girl had seen a ghost before. That’s how she knew the boy with the blue eyes was one.

She lived in an industrial-strength box in the middle of a petulant city. The sky was a perplexing shade of brown and the people there were all little silent-movie black-and-white executives. They wore combed hair, conservative ties and carried briefcases with locks on them. The reason they had locks on the their briefcases was that they carried weeks of July and August, packaged in dandelion fluff and wishes, in them.

Summer is very heavy.

Every evening at the very same time, in the very same way, the executives would sit down at their mouldering kitchen tables with a glass of strong autumn in one hand and their briefcase in the other and they would open them and smell their summer weeks and look at the yellow sun in a briefcase where it doesn’t need to shine except to keep awake.

The girl with the summer smile had always been told she was born at that time of day and when she had made her first sound – a self-conscious hiccup – she had accidentally swallowed a sunbeam and that it was always trying to run away when she smiled.

In reality, the reason she smiled like summer is that when she had first got her briefcase full of July and August, she had looked at the sun so often she had begun to turn into summer itself. When the others found out, they put her in a very industrial little box house and told her about the ritual of seeing summer only once a night.

So she listened and met the ghost boy in the wallpaper.

He was translucent with tiny teeth and a mass of hair. “Hello.” he said as he rose from the oily industrial wallpaper.

She was still too young to run away from either ghosts or strange boys.

She was not afraid of him.

So they became friends until he left her to go to the capacious attic where he turned into a pile of bones with a heartbeat.

She cried.

When she could come to her senses and abandon the drudgery of walking under a brown sky with a briefcase, she climbed the cobwebs to the attic, and, stifling the Niagara Falls inside her lungs, she found the bones and embraced them for she embraced the ghost boy’s memory. She tripped on a wooden puppet on the way down.

She grew to despise both attics and puppets.

Standing here in the rain looking at the blue-eyed boy made of ice, she was reminded unpleasantly of the ghost boy’s heap of bones in the attic.

She lowered her eyebrows. “I defy you, Death.” she said to the February clouds. “I know you mean harm only and I see where caring got me last time.”

She turned from the boy with blue eyes and the sound of her shoes was like rain. And rain was raining. And the boy was making noises silently, and his eyes were blue, and his cheeks were running blue and his chin was raining blue and he was crying and there was rain. He was unmoved still – she knew because she heard no footsteps behind her – but he was blue with ice and blue with rain and blue with crying.

She looked down at the crackling sidewalk and observed her feet, made of smoke and coffee stains. She observed her transparent hands and her tears fell through her – his tears too. All of a sudden, things were plain and sunflowers grew – she was a ghost. Even less than a mouldering heap of bones piled up without a soul in an attic, she was a ghost.

Both. No wonder she had not run from the wallpaper boy. Ghosts. How could she remember the wallpaper boy, if she and the blue-eyed boy are so of smoke and ice. There is no marriage of fire and water. There is no love in ghosts.

And the blue-eyed boy’s tears met hers and they turned to blood and the blood ran off them. She turned around as he turns toward her and their blood vapor hands meet.

Blood turns to water and they fall into stars. They are alive and summer meets blue and we call it Love.

White Bird

White Bird

Once upon a time, there was a little bird. All of white, she dressed herself in the morning and the songs of half-forgotten cemeteries, all crying out. She was a very young little bird, her downy feathers not quite finding flight. That didn’t stop her from believing that the sky could not contain her joy.

“I only know that when you play with Thelma, you always get the worst of it. That is why I say, be careful.” said Mother.

The little white bird flew along the lines of the trees. She crossed them like barbed wire and landed among the wild yellow lilies. Each one grasped at her with their feline paws and, among them, she knew she had a home. But the joy of the sky was still uncontainable, and something inside of her cried out that there had to be more than this. The lilies wiped their mouths with their sleeves and turned to devour another bite of her tail.

And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.
And from all across the world, Max smelled good things to eat, and so he gave up being king of where the wild things are. But the wild things cried, “Oh, please don’t go! We’ll eat you up! We love you so!”
But Max said, “No.” And he climbed aboard his private boat…

White birds
are
harder to
chew
than
wolves are

You are not a hen. You are not a kitten. You are not a cow. You are not a car, or a plane, or a Snort. You are a bird, and you are my mother.

The white bird couldn’t escape the gnawing grip of the tiger lilies. Her wings, now clipped by their maws, were tainted red by their bloodstained teeth. Her tail was caught among the green leaves. No one could see her any longer. But reality set in and the traps were broken. The sunrise gobbled up the night and she didn’t want to leave the warm embrace of the bloodied flowers…

Once upon a time, there was a princess –
“Was the princess you?
- and she fell in love –
“Was it hard to do?”
- it was very easy!
“Was he strong and handsome?
“Was he big and tall?”
There’s no one like him, anywhere at all…

iloveyou
crytheweeds
iloveyou
crythebluebonnets
iloveyou
criesthesun
iloveyou
crythetigerlilies

“I know who you are,” the man said, “for I made you. I built the tower and set it in motion. I planted the meadow, put fish in the ocean. I’ve seen you fall down in the mud and the goo. I’ve seen all you’ve done and all you will do. Here’s what you look like. Here’s how I see you. Put this in your pack and you’ll find it will free you from all of the pictures and all of the lies that others make up just to cut down your size.”

Suffocated by the words of the flowers and the desire of the skies, the white bird died…

And Max sailed back through a day, and in and out of weeks, and almost over a year to his very own room, where he found his supper waiting for him

And it was still hot.

Wings fly on.
Beating in her chest.
Maybe it’s her muscles straining to fly.
Maybe her heartbeat.
Only wild things love me,
She sings.
Until the sun
Eats her up
In his enthusiasm to see her
And the joy of the sky
Embraces a
White hand.

{Featuring selections from
A Bargain for Frances, by Russel Hoban
Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak
Are You My Mother?, by P.D. Eastman
The Disney classic, Snow White
A Snoodle’s Tale, by Phil Vischer
Original piece, “White Bird” by Catey Yuen}

Two Poems on One Day (Two/ little bits and pieces)

Two

Two planes passed each other in the night

Two silent blinking heartbeats

Two longing believingly hopeful lights

A pilot stops to find a star to eat

Two planes and no delight

Two fireflies passed each other, full of fright

They blink, they cover their mouths

The moon's fear is far too bright

They fall to the ground, careful not to arouse

Two fireflies would never find a might

Two yellow-spiced winds passed each other on the right

Briefly they intoxicate their own poisons

They vomit up their hearing and sight

They turn their blind eyes from wish and reason

Two yellow-spiced winds are always a fight

Two white birds passed each other in flight

Both too tired to want or demand

Their heartbeats and wings fill with breathful white

For just a moment, they hold hands

And two white birds are all quite

little bits and pieces

little bits and pieces

All of life was a map with a key

and it was torn up into

little bits and pieces

I objectify and fragment

I lust and I lose

My vision is a stained glass crackled mirror

Dropped by demons into my eyes

Who are you?

I see only long slender fingers

I hear only the squalling of your singing

I'm distressed by my love

of little bits and pieces

Whole
Half

None

I'll be the white capped head of hair

I'll blend into the green eyeliner

No one will find me

And no one will care

And we'll call the silence freedom

And we'll be free

little bits and pieces

of glass and seashells only cut my hands

but if I were invisible, I wouldn't have to worry

about the little bits and pieces

who like to follow me

I'm a mother duck, you see

And the whole of the earth is my duckling

I spit my bill on the ground

Because I'm disgusted

I peck my bony feet till they're

little bits and pieces

My eyelashes all fell out

And I lost my fingers

In the white lake

Beauty is lust

And vision is fr agmented

All is

little bits and pieces

drowning me

Have you seen the little rainstorm?

I put it in a jar

Swirlingly, it whispers

It is full of seaweed, the raw winds of oceanic

Mindsets (when minds are full of pufferfishwhich eat their neighbors

and refuse to see the waves above their heads asanything but

symmetry and empty seashells)

Oh how the pickled skybirds do make me swing

My hands in deathly frustration

Why is the sky so big?

Why am I a jellyfish?

Did you not promise me I would be an angelic

Jellyfish are purposeless and hideous

I am consumed by the pufferfish struggles

I am distraught by the fact

Of the ocean drowning me

drowning me

drowning me

I. am. so. confused. by. grace.

drowning me

drowning me

Lift up your heads, O ye

drowning me

drowning me

Who shall ascend the hill

drowning me

drowning me

Who is the king of glory

drowning me

drowning me

Waves sound like

drowning me

grace

Expectation.

(Warning: the thoughts contained in this post are typically irrationally and abstract. And it's been worked on for weeks. And all that.)

Okay... so I'm pathetic about posting. I hope to become better about this. And since my last "creative" poem about... well, whatever that poem is about, a lot has happened.

I am a high school graduate. This is a weird thought for me. I'm graduated early (at 16, as opposed to 17 or 18, I suppose). I think this is not so much because I'm graduated, but because of expectation, which is something I've been thinking about a lot.

When a girl graduates high school, there are a few different groups of people who all have different expectations. One camp expects me to go to a university on a nice scholarship (for? I'm still not entirely sure I understand all of the scholarships that are out there.) get my degree and have a nice, illustrious career until I'm twenty-five or thirty, and then think about settling down. Another group says I should get married. The end. Now. (At sixteen? Perhaps they mean court now, and get married on my eighteenth birthday.) Others combine those ideas, throwing in a few twists like traveling, working on political campaigns (me?), picking up sewing or cake decorating, nannying, and other sundry hobbies.

They all ask me, "What are you going to do now?" as if the graduation of high school means some sort of drastic switch where I abandon everything I used to do and start doing something else. I really just want to hold steady on the course, to finish well what I began and then see what seasons God transitions me to.

But people don't expect this.

What is the value of expectation? As a naturally compliant person, I tend to follow peoples' expectations on me, which makes it rather frustrating when some expectations are in direct opposition to each other. I suppose this is why God is teaching me and guiding me, and not all of these people. It's made me careful to evaluate the expectations I have on myself and on others.

I think the most dangerous expectations I have are on myself - I must stay up till 1 tonight to finish my American Literature curriculum, I must pass four tests per month, I must finish YSG by next January, I must learn, I must be, I must be better. Discouraging, yes? I think all of us struggle with expectation, whether ours or others'. It can easily take our eyes off of the God who is to be trusted and obeyed, and onto what we think we ought to do or be.

I am learning a lot of what it means to love, and to have faith. Faith is not an easy thing for me - I am a creature of compassion and joy, not of faith! But I think I am learning.

So what am I going to do? I am learning still. I think that I will finish college this year, continue teaching, maybe travel a little more. Then, next year, I think I will see about traveling and teaching together. But this is God's business.

I expect God's glory, and that is all.

Until the Dusk Is Here

Something I was thinking about this past week...

Until the Dusk Is Here

I am... alone here

I am... grieved

Where did you go?

When light and darkness wed

Here, their heroic bouquet

Tossed far away

Won't someone come take me away?

This is nothingness, there is no here

No lilies grow in the dark, our bouquet

Is scrap iron and disappointed, grieved

Glances toward the pain and joy, wed

Take me away! {where will I go?}

Isolation: my desire to flee and go

Thing I fear not to go away

Happy jitters true fear when I wed

Myself to the starless smog here

Captive by enthused and now grieved

Here I bury the bones of my bouquet

Falling away from my gentle bouquet

Longing to fly, to flee, to go

Hoping to remedy the grieved

Wishing I didn't need to run away

Grieving for a time I wasn't here

Singing toward the day we'll wed

Today, grace and truth are wed

The Bridegroom hands me the bouquet

-I realize now how dark it is here

How silent - we go

Out of the net, far and away

My heart is star, not grieved

In the distance, thou art grieved

For those you see to bones and darkness wed

But we are not so far away

We shall together resurrect our bouquet

In light, we shall skip and sing and go

Until the dusk is here

You and I shall go see the grieved

We shall wed so far away

Toss to the sunset our broken bouquet until the dusk is here

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."

Paradox: on Maundy Thursday

Then came the Day of the Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed...

Afraid, I walked
In gloomy streets
God, O God, pass over me...So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, "Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it."

We walk together
He and I, we saw
On every corner, a face
Ah, how we should have known it
For it was the face of him

They said to him, "Where will you have us prepare it?"

Sadness
Glory
On his brow
Where is a place for this man?
I can not find him

He said to them, "Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters,"

Water, I thirst
Why can not this void within be quenched?
I will follow you
Where are you?
Where are you taking me?"And tell the master of the house, 'The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?'

In the corner of the room,
There is a vase
-We are all fearful -
In it, still, still his face
Why do I not recognize it?

And he said to them, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer."

Everywhere, I see guilt
And faces
Faces, I see them, I am
Afraid, I do not know who this is
I earnestly desire to be in your kingdom, Teacher
I would not be afraid there

And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying,^"> "This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me."

Broken, like my heart
I do not see anything but this unknown face
Who are you?
I remember, Lord, but
Why, why indeed, would I need to?

And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him.

I see more clearly here in the dark
Here you are!
I see the face and I know you.
And here you come to leave us all
Paradox
I don't understand, but tomorrow
Tomorrow, I will see
Tomorrow I will understand
Now I know in part
Perhaps I will understand as I am understood
What a sad, sad story
To see your face in prayer
Here among the Olive Trees
You are, I recognize, your face
In paradox

As I Am Known

I've realized something. All adults struggle with confidence. We all live as half-people, showing our one face to the light, hiding the other in the darkness. We live just flashing hints of the other side, but so infrequently that others don't even know it's there.

Why is this? All children are born with a natural confidence. Having worked with them for years, I can tell you that if you compliment any (verbal) child between the ages of 2 and 5, he or she will always respond with 'yes', 'I know', or 'I'm good at that'. It's genuinely felt, too. Perhaps a young child's self-confidence is a little extreme, but still, why does none of that carry over into later childhood and adulthood?

Why is it that one can appear so poised, and feel so empty inside? Why do you say, 'I'm beautiful', 'I'm awesome' and think, 'I'm ugly', 'I'm worthless'? Why do you applaud achievement, and yet never even realize that you have things worth applauding too? Why do you compare yourself to a dead body, and find yourself wanting?

I've been reading up on reactive attachment disorder, and I've noticed that as people, we've all developed this. Reactive attachment disorder is defined as a disorder that occurs when a child wasn't given proper attention, care, and love as a child and infant, and consequently has learned that they are unworthy of love, that all people are unworthy of love.

RAD kids can sometimes be withdrawn, destructive, detached, but often, especially as they get older, they pretend they're normal to fit in. They can be particularly charming, but it's not true. Inside, this is just a way they function - but inside, they're just expressing particular disdain for the world around them. And aren't we the same, experiencing this same spiritual RAD?

Every one of us was born desperately hungry for love. And as we grow up, we realize that we aren't ever going to find it. Even the most loving family, the mostly godly home, the most receptive friends can't replace the ache that every human feels - that dull throb that cries out for someone who will care about them, no matter what. We try to fill that hole by forcing love, but it only gets worse. Finally, we react to the situation in the way that we think is most logical - we withdraw. No one can love us, no one deserves us to love them. We detach and see the world as an empty, hollow shell. Why bother with anything else? People no longer hold charm. Their gentle murmurs as they whisper together are as quiet and meaningless as wind in dry grass. Their peacock displays are gaudy, and ugly. And you are no better.

But by ignoring what is true, the water under the surface, the rumbling under the shell, we haven't made it go away. Our confidence doesn't affect the fact that we want to know others, and we want to be known by others. Something in our circles of understanding cries out, "I was made for more than this! I want to live! I want to be beyond myself!" But who shall deliver us from this body of death? How can we hide! How can we fight! And yet we do.

I realize something else now. This longing for perfect love explains one thing clearly to me: we were created for perfect love, and there is a Creator who is willing. We long for what is beyond us because we were created for something beyond.

My dear friend often quotes this verse to me, and today I realize its potency:
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know, just as I also am known.

I want to be known as I am known in perfection. I will live my life as a whole person - more than a shell, or waters swiftly moving, but as a statue that is not broken.

May I encourage you to be full? Be, and I will love you. But nonetheless, Christ is love, and God is truth. Is this not the confidence we have in him?

In Haiti

Dust
It stung my eyes cough cough
The sky is opened above me
Where is the house
I'm confused
Gasping clutching Mother- mother -
Scream
The pigs move past the women scream
We cry out
There is blood on my dress
There is bile on the stones

Fear
How could this be?
Where are you, God?
So far away, what can I do
What can I do
What can I do?
Hundred miles pass in blue
Between you and I
My arms are aching
Aching to hold you.

Cursing the sun cursing
The light handling what I can
No more house no more sky
No sky just dust
I can't breathe can't cry can't speak
I hate you where are you when I need you
Why aren't you here for me why didn't you stop this
Why weren't your hands there to cradle me
God o God o God I can't feel you
Then where are you

Praising the Son praising
The Light and truth
The Shepherd was there, he cradled the lambs
I can't feel him, and his staff pains me
I just want to cry, I have no praise in my heart
But in my soul, maybe, in my spirit
I can find a wailing voice
Even if I have no words, I praise you
You were there, when I couldn't be
Hold her
Rock her to sleep
Tousle her hair
Sing over her:
Blessed be your name when I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed be your name.
I will sing, I will shout

Burning sun blistering water
Tears in my eyes
Blood in my hair
Over me
Blessed be your name when I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed be your name.
Your name is a strong and might tower
It did not collapse when the earth shook
I run to the tower I ascend
The stairs cavernously
Nothing can shake you nothing
I am safe here
I feel your arms around me
I know your name
You are here
Blessed be your name.

Please be in prayer for the victims of the 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti. Already the poorest country in the western hemisphere, they've consistently had natural, social and political adoptions. More people in Haiti are chronically malnourished than anywhere else in this half of the world, and with the earthquake, less food and water is available. The streets are littered with dead, and many are still trapped under rubble. Haitian adoptions are slow, unsteady and strewn with deceit and corruption. This earthquake could make things more difficult. Dozens of countries have rushed to Haiti's aid, but their support will not be enough. We need to be in prayer that the spiritual elements of the Haiti disaster will be covered, not just the physical. The country is dedicated to Voodoo, and God feels far off to these precious children of his today. When we are inadequate, Christ shows strongest. Please lift these little ones up in prayer in the coming days, weeks and months.

When Angels Sing

Today is one of those days. You know the kind - where you have to get five million things done but just want to go on watching and rambling about spider webs.

I don't particularly like spider webs, actually, but I do enjoy the snow that is trickling from the white sky today. I somehow have a split vision in my mind of Christmas - half of me thinks of the traditional white Christmas (which is what I'm having here in my homestate). The other half sees instead of snow, sand, instead of pines, palms, and instead of a warm home a cold rock wall. And then I shudder and thank God.

Christmas has always been my favorite time of year. Starting in November, I eagerly anticipate its arrival. But it's been a unique Christmas.

I think I've grown up a lot in the last year. I think I'm beginning to perceive more like an adult and less like a child. What does this all have to do with Christmas? I don't really know. Maybe just my perception. I remember my thoughts last year on Christmas. This year, they have clarified, and at the same time, grown more ambiguous.

I've been thinking a lot about joy. I love joy. I think it is one of the most important qualities to be possessed. I've also been thinking a lot about pain. This is going to sound cliche, but I really think pain and joy go hand in hand - true joy, that is. I think joy is being able to see past the darkness and embrace the light, celebrate it.

A lot of people right now are in the midst of some very black darkness. They are surrounded by death, disease, despair, depression, brokenness, strife, malice. The dawn seems far away, doesn't it?

But it's not. In fact, light has already come. Many years ago, a light entered the world, and it's been trying to get him out of it ever since. But much as they try, the light can not be quenched. It hungers, it thirsts, for the inevitable - that one day, the dawn will come, all darkness will flee, and we will be standing in the sun.

I think when that happens, we'll look all around us and see the garish colors of past attractions, the decay and decadence all around us. But it will pale in comparison, it will fade away in the greatness of the light, that bright light.

So I have hope this Christmas, because I know that the darkest part of night is right before the sun rises. I have great peace because I know that, very, very soon, I will dance in the dawn. And I have much joy because this is a celebration of love! pure love, and great love, and love at first sight. Did you ever think about that? I hadn't. I know God loved me at first sight... before that! He loved me before there was sight.

For lo! the days are hastening on,

By prophets seen of old,

When with the ever-circling years

Shall come the time foretold,

When the new heaven and earth shall own

The Prince of Peace, their King,

And the whole world send back the song

Which now the angels sing.

Merry Christmas, everyone. May Christ's glad tidings of great joy, his love which embraces the world, his hope which waits just behind the curtain, and his peace which passes all understanding bring you closer to him this Christmas.

No, I'm Not Dead

Sorry I didn't update in such an outrageously long time (and it truly is outrageous). School. Kills. My. Blog.

Here's a devotional I wrote for RTF:

I got back from a Christian speech and leadership camp in Tennessee just a few short weeks ago. I was exhilarated – and at the same time, discouraged. Looking ahead to the humdrum ways of real, regular high school living sounded remarkably unappealing. After a time of really focusing on God, it didn’t seem fitting that I should shove myself back into the routine of my regular year.

I’ve probably already made it very clear that I’m not all that into change. I’ve had the same haircut for five years, keep a calendar to help me manage my routine, and don’t like to mix up my daily schedule much. So I came up with a brilliant solution to my dilemma: I’d simply replicate my summer and try to stay in the same mental state as during my break.

A great idea, until I realized that it was an impossible goal. Ecclesiastes 3:1 states that there is a season for everything. By pushing my past season into my present season, I was only setting myself up for disappointment.

Here are some tips and tricks to transitioning into the real world that I found helpful:

Accept that change is going to happen. That was my biggest problem – denying that God had something else in mind for this season in my life. When I became excited about the new steps I would be taking, whether those be school-related, family-related, or church-related, I realized that I didn’t have to hold on to the things that were now past me.

Be excited - God’s doing something new! If you like to hold onto the familiar because it worked or you enjoyed it, be encouraged that God pushes you into new and fantastic things. If you’re determined to go along with whatever God has in mind for this new season in your life, you’re sure to be better prepared to do what he calls you to do.

Combine both new and old. If you’re not the kind of person who stays in a rut for long, be sure that you don’t toss out the great experiences you had this summer. Balance looking forward to the new, and remembering and learning from the old.

I hope you all have a great start to your school year!

Experiences

My thoughts about Flood the Five conference, which I taught with two of my favorite speakers and an intern from the organization I speak with (in no particular order... kind of like the conference itself)...

- Nylons are evil. I had to wear them all three days of the conference, and I ran them the very first day, and then had to cleverly hide the runs the rest of the week.

- My gift is in the UNDER TWELVE YEARS OLD category. Which is a good thing, because, I was the only one who preferred the Beginning Public Speaking kids.
(Story:
I was running a group of 12-15 twelve & up kids and they all HATED ME. Two of them ran as soon as they realized I was their instructor. Another two spent the entire time trying to tell me that they were older and therefore way cooler than me. I had one defense, though... my twelve-year-old sister Joss with her high-heeled shoe.)

-It is so much fun to do something out of your comfort zone with a bunch of people who are also pushed out of their comfort zones. Seriously. Cowardice loves company, but courage requires it. It was a blast to work with all but one person who had never done anything like this before.

-Giggling is for late at night. Quick story here:
A
friend and I were really, really, really tired after the second day of the conference. We hadn't seen our other friend all day or much in the past three weeks and we'd been running things together all day. We were a disaster waiting to happen. We decided we missed our other friend. We decided we should find something to tease him about.... but we couldn't think of anything. So we wandered around the sanctuary talking about how much we'd missed our friend and how we needed coffee (or tea, in my case.) As we wandered, we noticed that our friend was trying to fold down a table. And struggling. A lot. He was getting very frustrated with it, getting to the point where he was holding it upside down and kicking it.

(Editor's comment: Just to clarify, this friend is absolutely great. He is a genius. Truly. It's scary to talk to him because he's too smart for his own good. He WON Impromptu speaking for our forensics league for the whole country, and placed in Extemp and debate. REALLY smart. Just table-challenged.)

My friend and I glance at each other, and that momentary glance illuminated our thoughts all too clearly. We were thinking:

(insert echoey thought sounds)

He is a genius, but he can't fold tables.

And in a moment of sheer insanity and utter exhaustion, we simultaneously began to shriek. Hysterically. Couldn't stop laughing.

AND IT WASN'T EVEN FUNNY. We were just tired.

This lasted until the table folded and we saw that our friend was glaring at us viciously, which, despite his usually calm and gentlemanly demeanor, was a sure sign that we had three seconds to shut up or he would hit us both. Hard.

We stopped.

-Some kids are hilarious! One of the speech games we did was a group interpretation - where a group of kids act out a story together. My group did Jack and the Beanstalk. But we had really, really random things happen, like:
We double-cast Jack and Jill. Jack was played by Jack and Jack Be Nimble. Jill had her very own stunt double. It was amazing.
Our narrator was Rappin' Red Riding Hood.

Go figure.

- I have the sweetest friends ever.

-One of the cutest things I've ever seen is to watch two generally private people completely brag their little sisters. It was so sweet.

-Stretching yourself is a good thing. It was so neat to be trained by Mrs. Moon, who founded the organization sponsoring the conference, but the real learning and the real experiences took place when I was actually out there, figuring out what works with shy kids or how to focus 13-year-olds. It was in growing past the fact that I either used to or still do have (I can't decide which ) an irrational fear of teenagers. It was in the experience.

Loved it! Hopefully I'll have a brain and then I can write something deep and profound...

Maybe.

Noah

Drip. Drip.
I do not understand the water
That falls like a birdsong on my face
You say it cleanses
Then why is the dirt pouring on
Me?

You chose me. You chose this
Dark creaking beast to be my Shelter
In a long storm. I didn’t
Choose it for myself.
Why me? I am not
Good or Beautiful and I did not
Know you then. I hardly know you now.

Unworthy is a good word.
It’s who I am right now in the face of
This Great Flood that threatens me
But somehow, you protect.
How is it you could love a fool like me?

Is this who I am? More than just the
Earth on my face or the water in my hands,
I am made in your image
These eyes are to see destruction and live
These hands to cradle in love like you do
This heart to beat like yours
Is this who I am?

Unworthy is a good word.
But that is not who I am.

(This poem was up on Real Teen Faith earlier this week, but I decided I'd post it here too. I have too much to do to come up with something new with my poor decrepit old brain right now.
Note to self: Do not make the mistake of telling a Type A person that you are Type A and are the only person in the state the week before you're hosting a conference. It doesn't work out well. Sparks of illumination, C.
P.S. The conference mentioned there is the Institute for Cultural Communicators Flood the Five conference. I get to help teach, which is both scary and exciting. It's fantastic - and, if you live in my state (CO) then this is an excellent opportunity (Don't let the fact that I'm teaching scare you away - to counterbalance my inexperience, we'll have some wonderful speakers, including the debate National Champion from a few years ago). Check it out at: http://www.instituteforculturalcommunicators.org/.
Sparks of illumination, C.)

Around... Sort of

Pretty much the title sums it up. I'm around.... sort of. Since I haven't been posting much, I'll give you my life in a nutshell, which can, roughly, be summed up in my life this past week.

Last Friday: I was commandeered into service by a lady who is half my height but twice my gumption. I spent an hour guarding a door for our homeschool graduation.
(Me: Seth! Let me in!
Seth: NO! Go away.
Me, fifteen minutes later: SETH! They're attacking me with pencils!
Seth: NO! You are obsessed! Go away!
Seth's mom: CATEY! Let people in there before they kill you with pencils!)

Saturday: Duo practice. With a guy who hates this kind of speech. Both of our first times. Ever.
(Me: We need to keep the line!
Shane: NO! We need to cut the line!
Me: I'm the interper!
Shane: I'm in charge!)

Sunday: Dad leaves. World ends.
(Me, while frantically trying to figure out how in the world I'm going to get the speech to work without the line Shane cut: Sam! SSSSSHHHH!
Sam: WAAAAH!!!!!!!
Me, while still frantically trying to figure out how in the world I'm going to get the speech to work without the line Shane cut: WAAAAH!)

Monday: We are plunged into madness and chaos of the most devious nature.
(Me: Okay, so Mrs. B will pick us up and take us to Chapter, and there Carli will do her interp, Joss will do her interp, and I'll do my interp with Shane, despite the fact that I have no clue how to live without the line he cut, and then Mom will pick us up, take us to Costco while Joss does VBS practice, then we'll pick up the dog from the vet, go home and have dinner. Anything I forgot?
Mom: Yeah. Sam's running a fever and hasn't stopped crying all day.)

Tuesday: Sam will not stop crying. Oh yeah. And laundry. Lots and lots of laundry.
(Me, while still trying to figure out how to get the speech to work without the line that Shane cut, since we mysteriously didn't get to do it the day before, and foldng a mile-high pile of laundry: When does Daddy get home? Soon?)

Wednesday: Sam is not sick. So why is he such a mess?
(Sam: WAAAAAH!
Me, while still folding the mile-high pile of laundry and trying to figure out how to get the speech to work without the line that Shane cut: WAAAH! Tell me Daddy's getting home soon!

Thursday: Performed speech - in the middle of nowhere while still trying to figure out how to give this speech without the line that Shane cut.
(Me, after driving to this tiny church in the middle of nowhere: Yeah, I'm here to work on a speech.
Kaitlin: Aren't you competing next year?
Me: Yes. But I'm working on one with Shane. It's a duo.
Kaitlin: You are lying to me.
Me: No... seriously
Kaitlin: You have done the impossible.
Me, under my breath: Not quite. Figuring out how to give this speech without the line Shane cut is doing the impossible...)

Today: DADDY'S HOME!!!! And putting the line that Shane cut BACK into my speech!
(Me: I'm right! You may be in charge, but I'm right! And that line is SO going back in the speech!)

Yes, so, essentially, that's been my life. Sound interesting? It was. In retrospect.

And, in addition to all that, I'm up on:

Kids of Faith Online Magazine: the summer issue is up! We have some fabulous stuff in this one, including but not limited to: a brand new contributor (Alyssa!), a review of Do Hard Things (the review was recommended by the Harris brothers, who are the authors of the book!) and (if I do say so myself) the very best installment of Beneath a Dark Sky yet.

Real Teen Faith: my Squire CWG mentor's site. Read my devo about summer training, if you like.

Echoes in ink,
C.

The Smell of Thought

I wanted to hope for a gift
Something set free from a cage with wings
And desperately, I hoped to gain
Something that would free me too

But I could not be freed
Until I could learn to give
And though I hated the inscrutable wind
I tried to scream my whispered warning

To it as I longed for pale sunsets
And words that would give me
Some sort of wish
That would give me hope

But hope is a quality quickly fleeting
And though I loathed the smell
Of thought, I thought
And thought of things

That no mortal should ever think of
No mere man should ever write of
But I did, because the cage demanded
Escape, and escape was of the outside world

And the outside world held disgust
And I wanted to understand that disgust
And find a way to make it beautiful
For it was not wrong to write

About wrong, because for wrong to be
Right must be, for hate to be,
Love must triumph. And I made
It triumph in every thought

And though I loathed the smell of
Blood, I thought of blood and water
And how the sky would pour forth stars
And damage the unsuspecting earth below

And I wondered how long it would be
Before another thinker would enter and
Think the dark and troubled thoughts I thought
But none would come for they feared

That light would never be back.
Except for one, and that was of
Another time, another year, moment
And dimension, and I longed

For another thought, a thought of joy
And a thought that would remove this
Elephant from my chest and
Let my heart beat freely again

It did not come and I drowned.
Darkness is not unlike water and water
Makes one drown when it is all around
And suddenly, light and darkness

Made their solemn dance around me
Like a wedding march, marrying themselves together
I screamed.
Because I was drowned and I

Could not see or breathe…
But it was not the end.
Light and dark are two means
To kill and to birth

And to embrace the light from
The side of the dark
As a great illumination watches
Is to find a joy that cannot be found

To fight an enemy that cannot be killed
To find a way that does not exist
To eat from the hand that made you
To know a God who cannot be known.

I keep writing poetry. Once again, I'm trying to improve my contest entry, and this one isn't even the right form, so I decided to post it. Poetry is a raw art and is a language of thought, best understood when overheard, I've decided.This one was just expression of something I can't understand. But I'm trying. Echoes in ink, C.

Sestina

She sits with her back to the bitter wind
The quiet cries of the pale in her hand
The little bird’s trusting muffled song
From within the shifting of his wings
Makes silent rufflings in the shadows
In the bird’s hushed-gentle throat.

The girl looks down and clears her throat.
As her mother follows the wayward wind
Into the paths of darkness, painful shadows
With her destiny in the palm of her hand
And, soaring on a devil’s wings
Distorts the girl’s pure playful song.

The little girl wishes she could sing a song
Like the bird’s, but the dust pains her throat
Instead, she holds the bird’s steady wings
Keeping him from flying into the wind
Stubborn, she holds bird and mother in hand,
She will not let them cross the shadows.

For a moment, she heard the silent shadows
Speak, and their words were the words of a song
That treasure held in conniving hand
Is a knife pushed down magician’s throat
But treasure thrown to the wiles of the wind
Is treasure that will grow bold white wings.

And if the treasure has strong white wings
Then it will call out creatures of the shadows
Who praise the glory of the wind
Whose ears will hail no sudden song
That rises from a sainted throat
But hopeful whisperings of moon at hand

The girl raises her freckled hand
And, arbitrarily, bird tests his wings
A joyful song in the girl’s one throat
As her mother glides in hidden shadows
And both join in the bird’s free song
They see now beauty in the free wind.

The girl holds the shadows like clay in her hand
And the gifted wings fly like the song
In her brave throat and float above the forgetful wind.

I wrote this poem for a contest, but I didn't like it in context enough to submit it as my entry. I wrote a better one that will be my entry. This one is just a pretty thought. I hope you enjoy it. Echoes in ink, C.

Curtain

"How strange that the Lord should wait until the day before Sabbath for his curtain to tear!" Zechariah made a buzzing sound in his throat. Since the cough had taken hold, his humming had grown steadily weaker.

Judah reached up to take the curtain from the old priest. The temple had stood, solid, since the days of Zerubbabel, and the curtain, as a general rule, had been no exception. It had certainly been strange for the curtain to tear from top to bottom on the stormiest day Galilee had seen since Judah could remember, indeed, the day before the Sabbath.

"Why do you think the Lord chose last Friday for the curtain to tear?" Judah asked, a grin quirking the corners of his mouth. He handed the torn curtain to a Levite who stood nearby to attend to it.

Zechariah smiled more broadly, a laugh gurgling in his throat, his full brown beard twitching. "Who knows? The Lord works in mysterious ways, my boy."

Judah laughed too. Though he was supposed to be too old for playing, this was still his favorite game. Growing up in the temple had not been easy, but Judah had found hope and happiness in his favorite priest, a man who was like his father. They had played the game they played now every day for years, asking questions of each other about the God they both served. Why do you think God chose to use a boy to slay the giant, Zechariah?

He still remembered the answer to that one. Zechariah had replied that boys are weak, boys are clumsy and small, and God wanted his people to know that He had won the victory, not little David.

Judah looked up to Zechariah, still standing on the ladder, staring up at the blanket which was to temporarily replace the curtain. Judah thought if Zechariah tried, he could pierce the woolen blanket with his fierce glance and see the Lord's place.

But Zechariah would never blaspheme like that.

Reminded of their old game, Judah said, "Zechariah? Why do we have a curtain before the Holy of Holies?"

The priest heaved his bulk off the ladder and sat down on the floor next to Judah. "You know the answer, don't you?"

True, Judah knew the answer. God was too holy for the ordinary people. Only the High Priest was allowed behind the curtain.

"But why the High Priest only? Why couldn't the ordinary people go through some sort of ritual to pass behind the curtain and make their own offerings to the Lord?" Judah said. A thread brushed past him. He caught it in his hand and stared into its forgiving fibers.

"God ordained for it to be the High Priest. He has been necessarily purified."

Here came the second phase of the game - trying to see how much they could get the other to prove before he said, 'It's the Lord's mystery," which was always the end to their game.

"The Weeping Prophet says the heart is desperately wicked. All hearts. Not just the ordinary people and the sinners."

"The Lord also says he will create in us a pure heart."

Judah frowned at the thread. "Why would God make it so that the ordinary people can't know him?"

"He is holy, my son."

Judah looked up. "Does he not love us, Zechariah?"

Zechariah looked away for a long time, and for a moment, Judah thought their game had ended sadly. It was quiet, the only sound the wailing of a crowd of mourners outside the temple.

"Oh yes." Zechariah said, startling Judah out of the silence. "He loves us very much. Where does it say that, my son?"

"In the Torah."

"Yes."

"How could he love us if he is never with us?" Judah said, quietly.

Zechariah looked away again. "It's the Lord's mystery."

---

Judah sat outside, on the street. It was stiflingly warm, sticky, and his shirt was sticking to him, not at all pleasantly.

In the distance, the call of a peacock, mimicking the mourners who still stood outside.

Women. So many women in this crowd. They were moving past him now. Good. He couldn't stand the sound of their hopeless, ululating cries. They made his skin crawl.

It was so warm, so lulling and warm. He felt himself begin to relax into waxy half-slumber.

But someone was shouting, breaking him from his very comfortable dream.

"He is alive!"

A female voice, happy. He opened one eye, recognized her as a woman he had seen in the temple on occasion. An older lady, respectable, quiet.

It seemed to him that something was unfortunate about her, but he couldn't quite place it.

"He's alive!"

Who's alive, woman? and would you be quiet? I'm trying to rest.

He felt like saying it, but he didn't.

"Jesus is alive!" Something about that name stuck with him.

Oh. That was the unfortunate thing, wasn't it? Her name was Mary. She was the one with the maniac blasphemer prophet as her son.

Alive? He couldn't be alive. Wasn't he the one who had died, the day of the storm?

The day the curtain tore?

He had listened the man speak once. He had called himself the good shepherd. He was a carpenter, this Jesus, but he called himself a shepherd. What did that make Judah? A sheep?

The thought had struck him as funny when he first heard it. Now, it seemed vaguely familiar, and faintly disturbing. What was it the prophet Isaiah said?

We all...

we all like sheep...

We all like sheep have gone astray; each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

Who is the He in this verse, Zechariah?

It's the Lord's mystery.

"The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."

Judah could hear that voice, that perfect voice, in his mind still.

But I don't understand. You are a carpenter, not a shepherd. And you're dead.

"Jesus is alive!" The woman's shouts mingled with the mourners.

We all like sheep.

Judah heard something, but couldn't seem to place it. We all like sheep have gone astray.

Maybe he was the good shepherd. He had laid his life down. And his mother seemed to think he had returned.

The Lord has laid on him the iniquities of us all.

More unidentifiable sound.

The iniquities of us all.

Judah remembered the lightning, the thunder around him, cowering, as the curtain tore. Unreasonably loud, that thunder. And the words, over and over, soundless and screaming, in his mind and above him like the thunder itself, It is finished.

And it was. The good shepherd had laid down his life for his sheep, he inexplicably understood. Because the Lord had laid on Him, that shepherd, the iniquities of us all.

The sound he could not hear shrieked in his ears.

He had killed the Lord of hosts. He had been the one the weeping prophet, Isaiah the prophet, and all the others had spoken of. It was his iniquities, it was his pain.

That was his criminal death that the Lord had paid.

Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord. I am afraid.

Why so afraid?

I love you. You know that, don't you? I love you. Where do you find that, little Judah?

The Torah.

That's right. And I have a question for your game now, little Judah. Why did I choose Friday for the curtain to tear?

It is the Lord's mystery.

No mystery is hidden with me, little Judah. How can I love you if I am never with you? I do not dwell in the Holy of Holies, behind a forbidding curtain. I am among you. You are my people. I am your God. I love you. I will always be with you. How can it be otherwise, dear little one? I dwelt with you as Christ the Savior. Now I dwell with you as your friend, your lover, your king, your Messiah. I am with you, to the very end of the age.

Who are you, Lord?

I am Jesus.

Judah could still hear the sound in his mind, and now Jesus' words showed him what it was. The curtain was torn in two. The path to God was open.