smoke in the clouds

It always amazes me how the trivial can seem so big. In myself, in others-- these matters of the utmost mundaneness, spark arguments not worth their weight. Their voices rising while I turned the next page of This Voice in My Heart- a book of truly tragic proportions-- genocide, cruelty I can not imagine (and the gentle forgiveness only Jesus brings.) If only we remembered, this life is just a vapor... There is no place in my life for violence- either in action or word. And within the church, I think many of us are guilty of the later. Violent words that wound, tear, and scar-- sometimes deeper than an action would. There is no room for unkindness, for harm, for tearing down. Every man is capable of the worst atrocities- and only through the innocent offered blood of Jesus are we freed from our own evil. Only from following his example of humility, of preferring others above Himself, of coming as a servant, taking the form of a man...

How sweet the Name of Jesus sounds
In a believer's ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
And drives away his fear.
It makes the wounded spirit whole,
And calms the troubled breast;
'Tis manna to the hungry soul,
And to the weary, rest.
..Weak is the effort of my heart,
And cold my warmest thought;
But when I see Thee as Thou art,
I'll praise Thee as I ought.
Till then I would Thy love proclam
With every fleeting breath,
And may the music of Thy Name
Refresh my soul in death!

anticipation

There is an unopened email in my inbox, it arrived around noon today but I am too nervous to open it as it would mean either a closed or open door of the future. I don't know when I'll open it, but I don't feel ready yet. It probably has less to say then I suppose, but I believe God has more to speak before I see the plan.

I've begun learning French and am thankful for my Latin training as it makes sense of the conjugations and forms. My kitchen counter is littered with note-cards and the air is filled with snippets of French conversation and my repetitions.

Lately, I've been studying the Bible with a renewed hunger, particularly Genesis, its stories draw me in and seem always full of new applications and new life.

Another journey

For one accustomed to finding comfort in words, lately I find them evasive- hanging on the peripheral, just out of grasp. Yet I taste them lingering on my tongue as they melt before the breath that would birth them audibly. Ancient words which return with the sweetest memories, redemption, justification, calvary. I wish I could explain to someone what I can only feel shifting inside me, a cavern being hollowed out, a canyon carved deep inside.

The answer to the question I'm always asked seems to deflat people, I am greeted with disinterest since I've become unimpressive, my travels momentarily ceased (at least on the outside.) But, the current is changing and as Amanda so aptly said, "everyone our age is at a crossroads." I've went on a hunt today for The Journals of Jim Elliot and Keith Green's No Compromise- I find myself, or at least my longings, scribbled between the pages. "I ask not for a long life, but a full one."

I want silence lately, every time I turn on music it irritates me. I'm in a sensitive state- a hard decision before me.

between treetops

weary hands
fold this map again and again
till the creases form new mountian ranges
in the paper and my skin
a pause, a moment of stillness
threatens to undo me
I belong to the trees
though You possess me

evasive, invasive as
the storms
that wrap around
my lungs and break them
till I inhale, swallowing
the waters and lightening
let it rage inside me
though it carve out
the hollows till a canyon
emboldened floods with fury

weary eyes
search the signs
till the scraggly forests rise in oceans
and the oceans sputter into dust
a step, a fraction of a distance
offers to unglue me
I belong to twilights
where only You obsess me

hail to what you see when you close your eyes.

I want to live at least nine lives, like Claudia my old cat. That reminded me when I was little my sister, her bestfriend, and I would play babysitters club, and I was always Claudia, because she was an artist and wore her hair in a side ponytail (how much cooler can you be?)

I live to worship God and love Him and others- through words and actions.

I want to own a hostel/coffee shop that educates people (like L'Abri) about their Spiritual needs as well as fair trade/global human rights issues, and the plights of refugees around the world.

I want to be involved with community development in the Middle East and North Africa (probably through YWAM) and learn to speak Arabic and French. I also want to be part of a 24-7 prayer community.

I want to backpack through South Asia or South America. live on a houseboat. in a tree house. and a teepee with Daniela. and an eco-friendly house like Simon Dale's in Wales and grow my own food in a garden. With a yellow kitchen that has big windows.

Almost every subject interests me, causing temporary paralysis in trying to make plans. I love learning, I make booklist off syllabi of interesting classes, I actually enjoy reading text books and have written essays just for fun to express my thoughts. (yes, I'm a nerd.) and I read Popular Science, its fascinating!

Crafts fascinate me. In life number four I would like to learn how to make jewelry, or pottery, and go to a folk art school. I like to paint and sketch and would like to learn to sew. I like simple clothes, jeans and sweaters but I adore fashion magazines.

I love "art for truths sake." I want to be a screenwriter and a novelist and be involved with a community of artists... or on staff of an arts magazine. I would love to do slam poetry with Claire when we got to coffee houses but I am intimidated by people.

Getting my private pilots liscense like both my parents is also up there on the list (write after getting a liscense, haha.)

I like kids. I'm undecided on the whole parenting thing. I would like to work at an orphange.

Communication is best in person or old-fashioned letters.

I want to hike the Appalachian trail (and learn wilderness survival.) and I am excited about kayaking with my brother all summer. I'd like to pick up flute again and learn folk songs but I can't decide if I'd rather spend that time talking to strangers.

I want to have a masquerade ball for my wedding reception in a field with lanterns. and blow colored bubbles (which are not avaliable yet so I guess I'll have to put off that wedding.)

'Bright as Yellow' is my theme song. "You live life with your arms stretched out. Eye to eye when speaking. Enter rooms with great joy shouts, happy to be meeting. And bright, bright, bright, bright as yellow, warm as yellow."

I'm also intolerably selfish, lazy, apathetic, weak, hypocritical, prideful, and flawed... sinful.

I guess this is all to say, I love to dream. and I believe in hope and redemption. "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation."

and life excites me.

brother moon, you are so haunting.

Whispering from the bedroom floor
while light lays itself to sleep
and pulls the covers up tight,
beckons us follow
the hues dissolving from the sky
and breathing the cool spring air
reminds me that life is in here, in there.

revealing myself again--
the darkness night can not absorb,
proclaiming so nakedly
my need for love, my need
that it makes my soul shudder
at its own weakness
at the depth of this abyss inside
but your quiet pauses
speak louder than a thousand
phrases that I am, I am.

and she said never hide,
but oh how frightening the monsters
and nightmares can be
when they are only inside

and this is home, where my heart can rest
not the building or the trees
but the wonder. And had I always woken
at your window where "france blooms" and
the light strays across my face,
wrapping its arms around me
like a lost child looking for a lover,
a lover. Would I be waking from someone else's dreams then?

and beauty is not an end in itself
but her eyes can be so hard to resist
and love could be destroyed by beauty
if she were all we sought

but, You are the spring air
that reminds me that life is in there, in here.
And You are the sunlight that awakens me.

Hawthorne & Jesus

The last week I've been alone as my housemates, except Nate, have moved home, so I've occupied myself with homework, spending time with Grace and Jesus, curled up in Powell's, drinking coffee, trips to Portland State, and watching Little Mosque on the Prairie.

Today I was reading Hawthorne (for my Literature class) at the little Food for Thought Cafe. I forgot how interesting an author he is. After which I read his letters to Longfellow (how is it that all the authors used to be friends? Anyway, it brought me so much joy to read the affectionate, real personality in communication. Hawthorne was amusing, (I found myself laughing all alone at my table- I always imagine people think I'm crazy)-- telling stories to Longfellow or his wife about trying to learn to milk a cow (and he lived on a commune for a bit!) and how the cow's stubborn personality was like a woman they knew.

I couldn't suppress a smile and I just felt that warmth of joy bubbling inside me-- my heart hibernates at times, but oh it beats so strongly in the presence of Christ. Books can rejuvenate me like nothing else. I hope the same for my future that the stories and deep impressions of beauty in ordinary people can someday spill over into a story that would bring this smile to someone else. joy. that unexpected, piercing pleasure that bubbles up by God's embrace-- though it comes through the most unlikely sources and can't be felt in the physical, in the Spirit it lingers. I am so inspired by His love and creativity and glorious, confusing, earthly children. Our spirits aspire to heaven and our soils toil on earth-- the smile plays on my lips, something so deep within my heart, as Beatrice (Hawthorne's characters says)- "My spirit is God's creature, and craves love as its daily food." and Innocence mission: "there's a sudden joy that's like a fish, a moving light, I thought I saw-- rowing on the lakes of Canada."

and this is the intensity of an empty life... [Andrew Murray| Humility] -- "to seek a humility which will rest in nothing less than the end and death of self; which gives up all the honor of men as Jesus did, to seek the honor that comes from God alone, that absolutely makes and counts itself nothing so that God may be all, that the Lord alone may be exalted."

"Wash me and I will be whiter than snow." I am so thankful that redemption is a process, that God is faithful and knows my weaknesses and takes me through trials to perfect my faith. We have so far to go, but like Brian (my friend from DTS) talked about last week in comparison to Mormons who seek to become gods-- we seek not to become God, but to emulate him like a son does a Father, but our end goal is not to become something worshiped but to spend eternity worshipping Him. And that is the goal I fall short of, of living not to be good or moral-- but to worship Him and bring people to worship Him. On the surface it can look the same, but deep within the cracks and crevices of my heart need to be filled by Him, my motives must shift... I am just full of love today-- to gaze on Him.

i'm rambling, i'm listening to Leonard Ravenhill's Fire on the Altar... I think in a long time I have not thought, 'break my heart for what breaks yours, God' someone I forget who wrote about how when our love for mankind grows, it can sometimes diminish our love for the person right next to us-- like we're focusing on the huge picture and loving the world- but we overlook the person next door who needs to feel and see that love.. and I feel like that in my life at times. Yesterday was Pentecost Sunday... oh for a fresh breathe of God's spirit in us, that we would be filled with the knowledge of the love of God that brings down our pride, our self-- that we would stagger under the majesty of God... I want Him. Over and over. And no matter how deep I am it feels dry because He is real and He is life... and I want to taste the reality of that. I want my heart to be torn apart, slain, so I am more like Him. I feel so weak. Like Jim Elliot said, "Lord light these idle sticks and may I burn up for you." "my life for the gospel" those words ring with metallic emptiness in my life though they burn in my heart... but oh someday- today- even now... my desires must change to be more and more true to those words... "whoever would lose his life for my sake and the sake of the gospel will find it." It's becoming more and more an ache- to live only for Him, though my self and flesh are ever fighting against that. ... surrender is difficult but I want to lose this life. I want to die to myself. "I am crucified with Christ therefore I no longer live but He lives in me."

"Make me a captive, Lord, and then shall I be free... imprison me within your arms and strong shall be my hands." (english hymn)

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could wrap around our hearts the truth that He is all- that His presence which is never apart from us is the fullness of joy. The Spirit of God dwells in us, He has made our hearts His home. We have become part of the living mystery.