Color & Diary

One day in October a newly befriended noble spirit and I were discussing ways to live "deep awake" and one of my projects was to record the weather patterns of my internal landscape in "the color of the day" every night for a month. So, I'm going to begin posting reflections from that project.

color & diary
#3 Golden Yellow- Interrupted by glory.
"blue balloons swimming out to the stars, uncatchable. Violets sprouting in my terrarium, a hopeful day. paint splotches on my skin underneath a sky pregnant with the wish of rain and the wind sung like the stirring of birds. [My noble-spirited friend] is so full of freedom, the Spirit, it echoed through the long hallways of my sometimes lonely heart like a spring breeze stirring petals. I felt the first sense of belonging here, new heart ties, because love is limitless."

#4 Winter Sky Blue- Serene.
"right now I am inside a small glitch in the universe allowing perfection. On the ride here I felt certain that if I could remain in a place like this I could be happy forever-- with the wind setting the leaves shaking as hushed tambourines, birds chirping their last northern choruses, and the sun still warm enough for afternoon naps. Every part of my mind grinning wildly at this galactic blessing with color punctuating sight and a lulling quiet that is contentment's hymn. Today I went to church and my heart didn't feel so resentful or clamped in, I was thankful to be there, relieved even. Led. I don't have answers for all the questions and haunts in my head, but today You are near and it is enough for quiet.

A Series of Fortunate Events

Christmas- the celebration of The Gift, the incarnation, Emmanuel- God with us.

There is so much to say and where to begin, where do these thoughts really begin, when? As another year of my glorious interlude upon this earth winds down, I am amazed to find that what looks like a wild goose chase is actually forming into a series of fortunate events that are leading me where I'm meant to go. Although, that destination is a distant, elusive beacon.

While I was in Africa at the beginning of this year I read The Poisonwood Bible and while I knew it had effected me, I wasn't, and maybe still am not, fully aware of the shaking inside me. "The loss of certainty makes space for faith, like negative space." Ah, my faith has had room for growing this year. I am constantly reminded that the cost of discipleship, the gospel, is more challenging, more daring, more demanding of fearlessness, then anything I could imagine. Jesus is beautiful and terrifying. I was reminded again today that I am excited by the Way, my imagination and heart are re-baptized by His word.

Despite my internal weather patterns, the black days, the euphoric days and the crashing abysses, there were moments of this semester that were ordinary and subtly life-changing-- moments that made me think, I am galactic-ly blessed. (To name a few: Tea-time, "studying" in the lounge, the Den of Secrets, letters in my mailbox, bike rides, phone call rambles, reading the Bible aloud, night walks to the hill, meteor-watching, bike rides, MRI & Rich Young Rulers, the Indian summer and afternoons on Amanda's circle blanket, all the conversations in Common Grounds, collaging and all the times of wordless companionship, Thia hugs, growing in my understanding of non-violence, health, justice, loving people, and that first time I felt: I belong, and the RYR time of confession.)

The upside-down world, the kingdom of God. Today I was reminded of the Christ I was drawn too and the lifestyle I am called to renounce. I was reminded that it the life of God inside of me invades everything. Terrifying and beautiful.

self-diagnosis

I've determined there is a CID disorder (Compulsive Impulsive Behavioral Disorder), and I have it. When I get stressed out I have an impulsive (often irrational idea), then I become fixated on it and talk myself into it, until I am compelled to do them, even though I can reasonably think of why I shouldn't. So, clearly, I'm on my way to full-scale pathology.

or, perhaps, I'm subconsciously bored and this is the way it surfaces. But, disorders are more handy.

freeze frame

I cut my hair like a crazy person today, thank God I was distracted or it would've become drastic. Would probably still snip at it if I hadn't put the scissors back. It just happens that way. They sit there tempting me with all the raging of thoughts and questions inside and I have to act out on something, and my poor hair.

I don't know why it takes so long / I cut my hair, I grow it back / First the thought and then the act /

I finally had a revelation that foolishly took me all semester long. Ah me and hindsight, at least feelings have context. The seed began when the South African cross-cultural team arrived back "home"... their presentations made me miss for Africa, and then I talked to some friends about cross-cultural experiences and the forced, quick intimacy-- how you have to figure out how to sustain friendships built in that context in normal life. I didn't realize, in a sense, I've been expecting my relationships here to be like cross-cultural friendships.

I'd gotten used to the cycle of making friends in forced intimate situations (situations where we had to become vulnerable, dependent, and open quickly-- where adventures and bonding were moments of the day... because we were out of our country, out of our contexts, out of our comfort zone.) And, I've felt lonesome here, much harder to break into friends groups. I don't know why I didn't think of it before, why this time was so different. But, the distance in relationships... Not all, thank goodness for the few complimentary heart shades and the Orange Tree Spirit who adopted me instantly, seeing past the girl who takes time to unravel, to be myself... to be other than "quiet." The distance- is the normal approach.

Leave it to me to take so long to see what the average person is used to experiencing. I've been socialized differently-- I refuse to label it awkwardly, but they'll call it what they will. I realize for me, day to day life is supposed to be made up of intimacy, of deep questioning, of walks... I need genuine human interaction each day. I don't feel alive unless that happens- those moments of connecting.

Maybe its the culture here, but in some ways its harder to figure out, to fit in, especially this business of not saying hi or goodbye to people who are "friends," so strange. I feel, for the present, I have to mask my appreciation and enjoyment of people. My reluctance to say I someone's friend because I'm not sure what they consider me. Maybe its just re-entering a "cold climate" culture. The sense that I'm not really being accepted or "in" or whatever, is because people aren't used to making intimate friendships in a few weeks (or months), they're used to building them... where I'm used to being thrown in with whatever lot I get and scavenging out of that friendships that later form my heart.

so, this is real life now... slow, steady relationships. Relationships that are defined... by context, I suppose. Interesting. I don't really know what this means, but I feel like it's significant.

Food & Justice

Justice. Economic Justice. Social Justice. Food Justice. Sustainability. "Justice by health."

I've been thinking about the way life has happened, how without knowing it I've been led (as Wendell Berry said)-- and the journey continues. There is so much to learn, and whole systems of lifestyle and thought that have been wrong and need to change, and those processes will take time. Time is something I'm not good at appreciating, slow, steady, consistent change lacks the luster and appeal of dramatic radical revolution.

I feel like my life is that game where you draw all the dots on the page, then start drawing in lines one at a time, till eventually you're connecting boxes. At the end you fill your initial into the box and it's completed. It's wonderful when those lines of connection are drawn, when the shape begins to emerge. In my life however, most of the lines are still floating waiting for life and time to draw out the way they go together.

The most recent etching is local food, sustainability, and the way it plays into justice. "400 gallons of oil a year per citizen" are used in the agriculture industry, second only to the use of energy in vehicles-- and the ecological processes are often overlooked as well. We've master corn and soy (or have they mastered us?), we now produce such an excess of them that we feed it to our food, use it in meat & other products, ship it out in US AID, we dump it in foreign markets making it impossible for small-scale farmers (especially in the developing world) to compete with corporate prices. If Americans replaced one meal a day with local grown foods, oil consumption would be cut by 1.1 Million barrels of oil a week. It takes 2,460 gallons of water to produce 1 lb. of beef. If you went beef-free just one day each week you would save 34,000 gallons of water a year.

And the food we eat is hurting us. This is the first generation to be predicted to have a shorter life span than our parents. The highest amount of child diabetes and obesity, and most diseases in the US are preventable with a healthy diet/exercise. "We're overfed and under-nourished." Re-imaging how we eat. There's so many books (that I haven't read yet)-- so much to learn. But I'm excited about beginning this- and the nearby lines it connects to of justice, community, simplicity, peace, health, freedom, sustainability. And, of course... "once we move away from toxic foods we rediscover our taste buds."

"It's actually our farmers who grow our medicine." - Beth Ingram

Everything can feel like a fight, like things we don't want to do. "Gardening can be a way of resisting/divesting from the dominant destructive system. It's a constructive, positive approach toward making change." - Tom Beniveto.

The subversiveness of eating local, eating healthy... revolution by planting... it makes you have to smile.

we mingle in the dust

I've been taking walks every night lately, that movement, the rhythm of my feet on pavement, it's almost involuntary-- a need really. Moonlight, mist, chill, droplets off the ends of branches, the conviction that everything matters.

I am struggling, to know what direction to go in. I know what classes I chose next semester, who I chose to be around, what I'm involved in... all of it matters so much-- all of it shapes me and determines where my life goes. All of it has eternal weight. And that builds this ever present stress in me-- what am I choosing, how do I know what to choose, how do I know where God is... how do I piece together the contrary thoughts in my life and the recognition of my past-- thoughts that have changed so much when I once would have sworn they were RIGHT. TRUTH.

This semester has been good in so many ways-- becoming who I want to be and pursuing things I want to do... but, I feel this pressure, not to know the future- but to make right decisions in the present, to define where I am, what I value, and what it is that my heart is needing... to know how to follow Jesus and the gospel. Yet I am so sick of all the jargon and rituals and superficiality of church and the way it's practiced. I want to do, not think... I have longed all my life to be deep awake, to be alive. And, I feel like the only choice is, in a sense, to be radical ... or not to believe. "lukewarm spitting." And to be radical I mean, if I believe it- it is a lifestyle, ... the gospel, the sermon on the mount, the pursuit of God, the denial of myself, actually loving and serving others, actually prioritizing my time around living the incarnation... and maybe this inner stress is really just the confrontation of my heart's laziness. It's been good to read the Bible with RYR lately. And to send out deep sea soundings to distant friends and hear their hearts echoed back. [Thank you.]

red dust on my suitcase, roots dangling in hand

I've made friends and once again some of those friends are heading off with pieces of my heart embedded. Life must have been much simpler before airplanes and trains and all the machines that carry friends afar. I don't understand why there is this constant uprooting (even when I settle myself to be settled) but it's alright.

"Life is a journey from the house of fear to the house of love."

Tonight I was having one of those times where you want to throw a tantrum at life. The pressure of thoughts building up, of knowing that things matter, but not knowing how to make those decisions.

home

you think you will remember, you think you could not forget.

Pet

[a short story]

I stand at the window, wringing my hands. Out in the yard the dog is stalking a bird along the fence line. It always fascinated me, the way his body tensed, every muscle poised for the aim of possession. He’s a machine, ready to spring, to strike and yet so patient watching—as if time could lie down and beg at his paws. The power in that stance, it was the way I first saw you. I wanted to be absorbed by a power like that.

Your desire was intoxicating. I tattooed my skin with that want; the strength it feed into my veins was a drug. The way your glance owned me, controlled me, dictated the way I flicked my hair, moved my eyes to meet yours. I wanted that want, which was a weakness you uncovered. And the more I loved, the more it fueled your power over me. I didn’t understand then, couldn’t have—or so I naively attempt to justify my youth, to transmit bravery where there was only ignorance and blindness. I didn’t know, that freedom was not losing myself in you, to you. That freedom was not possession anymore than drowning in a sea is freedom.

The dog lurches into the bush, I see the fluttering wings, the desperate attempts at freedom. And I can imagine the teeth piercing through her breast, the crunching of hollow bones, the popping gush of warm, damp blood. I cannot imagine the rush of that domination, the Godlike power of taking life, of deciding fate. I know why you crave it. I don’t blame you.

I stand at the window and examine the dish in my hands. How many times have my hands cradled this fragile glass and my mind raced to its destruction? The ability to shatter it, to lift it and hurl it across the room builds in me with adrenaline. It’s a hysteric, chaotic force—power. But I reined it in, perhaps that was my weakness. You conjured the colors to the surface of my skin with your hands, called my voice out of my mouth. And instead of hating you I loved you the more for your possession of the courage I lacked. But no, that wasn’t love; it was something else, a blurry line between admiration and horror. Fear. Like my Sunday schoolteacher talked about trusting in God. I swallowed that lesson too easily. Love and fear… she was so wrong.

The plate is cracked anyway. For all the days I stood grasping it so tightly, straining it. It began as a fracture, a tiny crack in the surface. But with each increasing pressure it breaks into little fissures, spreading like spider webs underneath, invisible lines of breaking. I am sure one day I will hold it and it will dissolve in my hands. But that is not the finale I would like, there is less satisfaction in slow decay then the hurling. Is that why you always pushed harder? Where you trying to prove your strength, your superiority, or was it that you too were taught the wrong lessons?

The dog is running to the back door, scratching to be let in. Eyes warm and brown and endless, and there are pale soft feathers curled in his gum, blood crusted on the hairs near his mouth. Why didn’t I see that, the first time I looked at you? I push him away angrily. A few months ago I would not have wept over the death of a bird, but I feel the liquid rolling into my eyes like the flash floods in this valley. He does not understand the disdain towards his accomplishment, his nature. He sulks.

The melody of that bird used to greet me in the strawberry blonde strands of sunrise, snuffed out. It is too much, too close to home. I set the plate down and saunter across the linoleum, my jaw set in determination.

I pull out my suitcase. But those eyes bore into me, pleading, infinitely melancholy and apologetic. It’s only his nature. I sink to the cool tile floor and he muzzles my shoulder, drops his head into my lap, my hand involuntarily moves to stroke him. Forgiveness of the unrepentant, another lesson I swallowed to easily, learned wrongly. Again I find myself waiting for you.

29/24

exhale. inhale. exhale. inhale.

a simple pattern that guarantees living. I'm not sure where I'm at right now, or what this journey is.

they say something, some line, about days like this.

I tip my head down, eyes refusing to meet theres

I stick my hands deep in my pockets as if I could find some reserve of strength there,

some lost memory of myself, like a wrinkled receipt, like a cool copper penny

I wish my eyes had windshield wipers instead of lids to blink, eyelashes to flutter...

I would swoosh these visions off the side, they'd gather crunched into the bottom

and I would swipe them off

I would drive through birds and storms and wires

freedom

I do not want peace.

I want freedom.

libertas.

you said it so elegantly. you said it so plainly.

that I wanted to swallow it.

coughing up my heart as I do, too often.

swallow it, as I wish to swallow the moon.

on a day like this. I'd crunch on the glory of fallen leaves, wet slicked to the ground

and call forth a million ghosts to haunt my head. memory.

i want to belong. i want to belong somewhere else.

is it a hushed voice within me?

the holy dove with a broken wing.

faith.

laughter so loud, it clobbers down my spine making me shiver. I do not want to take part.

I imagine the fire escape, our voices trailing off into night and fog over that cold iron

wringing our hands, tapping our feet, so many noises to fit the space where our words could go

and I couldn't say... why I cried over that movie, over the scene where they smile.

but it seemed they were taking in their hands the freedom I yearn for,

and it broke, like a dam inside me, to envy them so, to reach so... stretching like a yoga pose

years, where will I be, where will you go?

all the old metaphors, they pop and simmer like ashes departing from a fire, floating.

worn edges.

the end of being proud.

stand apart, stand alone, but ask. speak.

resurrection

I've been silent here while life shifted and changed a million directions.

But now, perhaps it is time for words again.

There are things worth remembering. Conversations and seemingly inconsequential moments of revelation that may reshape my self if I pay them due attention.

So, words will begin again.

My time in Africa was like a deep breath in, a cherished silence I held in without the ability to exhale or express... and it still feels like that, a weight inside my chest, a bird perched on a branch with wrestling wings, about to take flight into something.

and now I am back at university, "back" and here for the first time really.

South Africa

Yesterday, Shannon and I met with Gloria & Rodney of the Umgeni Community Empowerment Center, who are involved in ministry to the "ladies of the night" and other people living on the streets. They counsel, love, pray, and empower (through food, through jobs, through being a safe haven) to move people off the streets. Their story is so inspiring too, they were comfortable in their church in what we'd call the suburbs and God kept speaking to them that they weren't where He wanted them. Eventually "after much time, kicking, and screaming", they sold what they had and moved into the city and God started leading them on this adventure, turning even trials into a journey. Their car was stolen, and before it was recovered, they had to walk down streets they never would've and started making relationships. And God continues to bless them and is expanding their ministry, mostly by faith and sacrifice.

We had the chance to meet some of the girls (and they sadly are girls) and I felt overwhelmingly honored to be with them. We were invited to a baby shower for one of the them next week. It is heartbreaking to look at where they've been and at the same time beautiful to see how God has and is raising them up out of those situations. Standing with them in a worship service, I felt like I had so much to learn from them. This young teenager was glorifying God from the moment I met her, telling me her testimony of being on the streets, and how she can now go to sleep with a smile on her face for the first time in thirteen years. She kept saying, "if you knew where I was, and where I am..." Their passion for the God that sought them, even "in the gutters" is inspiring, and now, they are ministering to girls (and guys) in the same place they were.

We're also working with Jo Carlson (a friend of Shan's) and Cave' (a young Congelese woman) who saw a need among the many refugees from other African countries and just started teaching them English and life skills-- and from that have grown into Woman Across Borders.

Every meeting we've gone into in the past two weeks have blown our minds with the Spirit bringing unity of vision, even, or especially the ones we didn't have much hope for. It's exciting, genuinely... I feel this sense of momentum and anticipation. God is stirring here (and in so many places). I'm also reading A Generous Orthodoxy which is challenging and the kind of book that starts questions instead of ending them. In some ways I feel like I'm finding Jesus again, or maybe just learning something new about Him, like vision correction or integration. It's not that I ever wanted out of the Christianity boat, not at all, but before Uganda I was kind of in this headlock of not knowing how to show people Jesus was relevant to them, and I feel like I'm (re)discovering the Spirit of Jesus in normalcy. How life is relationships and worship and work and ministry, and ministry, relationships,worship, and work are just living.

I stand braced between so many things... an accumulation of experiences cherished or discarded, a house of memory with an open door and unpacked boxes. Exhausted by a language about God that has become reduced, exhausted by -isms and finding my thoughts unconsciously shaped by them, finding words and borders that define and label and reduce life, and me, and you, and God to finite... when everything inside of me sings of a truth of infinites, of eternity. So many contrary pulls, the shifting and shedding of the world as it moves into post-modernism... but into what, we are all being defined by what we are no longer, by our growth, by our changing, and yet the rationalism clings on for a new set of definitions and division. My nature is bent on having definitions, an analysis to every moment, a wondering at what I would be thinking if I had already learned what I do not now know. But, that's not the point. Really it isn't. I say that more to myself than anyone else. The point is that God didn't step in with a magic wand, but wrapped himself into our humanity eternally- Jesus Christ the Son of God, Son of man, and began reconcilling the world through sacrifical love and we're on that journey with Him. ... life.