in high-def

Every single person has a story. What a gift, an absolute undeserved gift to share in such stories these last 24 hours or so. God has literally placed in front of me 4 different people at varying stages of their understanding and journey with God and allowed me to peak into the rough draft of the chapter they are currently hashing through.

And its not been just anyone, you see, but 4 especially picked out for me. (oh its 1:17am and so much to do tomorrow, but i can feel the words pouring now)

For so long, i feel like i haven't been able to see anything, not myself or anyone around me, not even those closest to me. Of course you catch glimpses, of course there are moments the fog breaks a bit, but not for long and not much. But so much now, its all in high definition.... well parts of it, at least. Like dreams I have had, flying, soaring and seeing all below so closely and then suddenly everything from on high...

there is this beautiful, beautiful clarity.

A week long with events, and mine is least expected and so welcomed. JLFo welcomed a new Mrs into his life at the windy, sun drenched 14th avenue near their home, Panda and his Mrs welcomed a new life this morning. Eloquently worded woman next door prepares for adventures far from here and the Hair goes across the globe to tell about whats he's learned here in little sunny SC. And here I am feeling more full than i have in so long but with so little to report. But so much has happened.

Sunday, out of nowhere a girl i had never met before wrapped me up in questions that illuminated this knowledge I have carried around for 5 years now but have let lie dormant so much of the last few years. In all the words and realizations and shared commonality we had, she was somehow reminding me of why i began in the first place. Questions of who was this God to begin with and what is he all about? Is he a person? What is grace? Her desire to know and her searching through all of this mystery just turned this light in me outwards and I felt alive in ways you can't feel alive without just this sort of thing.

Today, nearing the end of my normal work day, after the normal laughter and silly banter we all share, after all the emails and all the details and all the small things, and the Hair having about 4 heartattacks, i make 3 calls. In the next hour, I am able to speak with 3 more who would help my light turned outward shine even more brightly than I am even able to understand. How can I share such intimate, intricate, illuminating things? How much do I say? How much can I say? As they happened, a thousand clear blue descriptions of these moments flashed before me, each such a perfect vignette of how this should be. I undeservedly stumbled upon these 3 so ready to share with me, so eager to talk and hash through things and be vulnerable, see-through.

Then my father and I had dinner and he became the 5th to make the light blinding. Without effort, without a second thought, i felt it all flowing out again. Like breathing, and it was so beautiful. I am no scholar, but Scripture I had learned and insights from Nouwen and DeMello were coming out of me, weaving a beautiful tapestry for him to see in a new view all he had regarded as so dead and gone for so long.

In all of this, i realized so much about me...

I woke up to this part of me that wants to "shepherd", to gather each of these and the so many others who i have talked with this past month who are hungry to be part of something, and just make something happen. To create a safe place for questions, a new place for things to grow, a rich place for people to walk away from different than when they came. A sanctuary.

I saw that after so much diligent prayer and so much yearning to be used "missionally" its not actually about me or my timing, but waiting on His. And in this time, so much more is seen and said. So much more learned and brightened and taken away

I also saw so clearly why a light should not be hidden under a bowl, why salt cannot lose its taste... and i saw how i have been dark and flavorless without even knowing it. Being placed to be light and salt is so mysteriously for others and for God and for us.

For others to feel the body move and to see its reality,

for God to glorify who He is

for us because we need it....

if we exist to live for Him and others, where are we when we are dark and without anything for others to taste? Are we even living at all?

I know the come down from this will be hard, I am so high up. I have a thousand more things to say, so much i have seen in this new light.

I am going to hope the longer i have the rest of this rumbling around up here, the richer it will be when i pour it out again.

eclectic by association

I am sorry to be so infrequent with you.

I spent time with faithful bloggers tonight and I want to join their world. I know much of what is awake in them is still sleeping in me. But being with them tonight made parts of me toss and turn. I felt eclectic by proximity, creative by association. Just listening to the languid, easy conversation, I want to write and write and write. Muse on interesting observations. I want to paint my thoughts. "It feels good having you here" was in my head all night.

What's been going on? I don't have all the energy I need to make it happen for you.

But tonight, oh, tonight, I felt less sleepy, more awake then ever. Just from start to finish, the moment I got to the office till I pulled away from it, was perfect in all its neat imperfection. I love our little community, with all its quirks, every bit of beauty and pain, always ever ongoing. Just how we all fit together, every faithful hand and face in all the right places. People so committed, so easily part of things. So much was right tonight in our big expansive room, recrafted and rebuilt week after week, people pouring out so much just to make it just right.

Watching the big M, tears welled up on my eyes, every one of her perfectly, messily placed words. Like watching someone paint a masterpiece without even blinking, every word was just right. I long to be so easy and rich in my words as she is. She is so much of how I am eclectic by association. Could I ever be part of that world?

I had spent much of last week in the hot/frozen midwest. My family, broken, in pain, removed, emptied from all of the harshness of life, ate up my insides. I wanted so much to just fix every problem, soothe every fear, make every pain easier with my wisdom and advice. But I was in stunned silence. Even full of contempt at times. I so easily judge them, but I neglect my own big issues.

The drama climaxed Friday morning, when I innocently asked why there was infant baptism. I should have sensed that my question would scratch the surface of a giant, boiling cauldron of hot magma waiting to explode at first touch (i hate my metaphors, where is justin when I need him? :) ). The room instantly turned into a giant theological debate about salvation, hell, mortal sin, and more and raged for a solid hour. Every one of my aunts took turns making points against me and my mothers "saved by grace" stand point and it all ended without resolution. The worst part was that about 8 of my young cousins, all attending religious schools, were listening to the argument, which offered little hope of an answer or of hope or much of anything at all. I tried to raise the point that over everything we should all try to be more like Jesus, but it was met with more argument and point proving. I still feel in a cloud about it all.

I know that heated debates are inevitable and that I may leave them with more questions than answers, but I guess somehow with family, its harder.

All I know is that I am hopeful and greatful for another year in Santa Cruz.

Lord,
My haunting ever-presence
Lord I can't find you in my hidden heart

I come to you with faith and distraction

I have these same flip-flops and my wavy hair
But I am tired of my outside

Do I impress you with my beauty Lord?
Can I ever lie to you, Lord?

I have your presence Lord
when I smile, when I walk, when I glance in a reflection

I have this desk Lord
and a thousand doubts as I work aroundm on top under and inside of it

Tonight I am angry and let down
Tonight, I can't hide Lord
and I feel lost and distracted

All this activity and no movement

I want this changed and over
and to never wander back home the same way again

I am unsure now,
Now that you show me my darkness and the chaos.


(Thank you Molly for the inspiration)

jimmy! 

we meet jimmy

me, dan and josh met the drummer from jimmy eat world this past tuesday. josh and i were giddy little kids running around backstage at their concert, eating free food, saying hi to people and being just general dorks. dan sat cooly on the special sectioned off bleachers, looking very much the rock star. we met cool bass players from bands and nice girls who helped coordinate programs for the university where the concert was. we even saw signs to jimmy's dressing room! signs.

the show was great, me and josh in the pit, all sweaty and gross, people crowd surfing and being sort of violent in a fun way (if that is possible). afterwards, we sat with dan in the bleacers and zach, the drummer, came to find us. Well not us so much as dan. he recognized dan's hair first. we talked for about 10 minutes and he had to go. he was so nice, so normal. very very cool guy, humble and just so normal! it was disarming and comforting all at once.


here is a picture of me and josh and zach. i am doing my best pirate face, (one eyed raptor, argh!) and josh is very happy because zach has a joke demo in hand.

you know it

this is the place!!!

him

i promised i would sleep tonight
living in boundaries of my own design
i keep seeing your face
smiling, eyes
telling
oh patience, your lessons are unwanted here...
why can't my heart just decide?
all i know
from right here, inside
is that
waiting is worth
those eyes

him

i promised i would sleep tonight
living in boundaries of my own design
i keep seeing your face
smiling, eyes
telling
oh patience, your lessons are unwanted here...
why can't my heart just decide?
all i know
from right here, inside
is that
waiting is worth
those eyes

there is something disconcerting in the realization that you are so tired that 10 hours of sleep cannot make you feel rested.

when you are this tired, you see things wrong. you see situations wrong, you see people wrong, you see your heart wrong and you act on motives that are wrong. not always, but generally.
when you are this tired, you begin hating things, hate a strong description, but its the only one for the way this feels. you begin hating your messy car, you begin hating all your clothes, you begin hating your hair and those awful zits on your neck. you begin hating the weather and the scattered office. you begin hating mistakes. you hate. not people, but things.

and after you hate things, you begin to love other things more intensely. things not objects, but things feelings. things realizations. things moments. things that don't make sense, except right then. and you want to cry and sleep in the same moment. you surge with energy and want to tell everyone how much you love them.

you love people for their subtly. their complicated intricate way of communicating. you love people for their steadfast love of you, even the you who is a basketcase, crying over situations she can't control, over problems she already knows the answer to. but you love. you love the man in the wheel chair, preparing to die; he sings and his voice shakes, his mouth can barely stay open, his white hair and wrinkles making him striking in the dark. singing to his maker who he shall soon meet. and its the sweetest sight you have seen in so long, and you realize that this man, who has lost most of the things you covet and then take for granted, loves and feels his God more deeply than you have ever even thought of feeling and loving Him.

in the final stages of fatiuge, the hazy world gets sharper, and you give in a little to whats next. you say no to things you would otherwise normally jump at. you cry in your car to beautiful words which pierce into you. you also have a few realizations:

1. your life is not that bad. tonight, you have seen a man about to die struggling for breath. you have seen people broken hearted and confused. you have seen people struggling with insecurity and sickness beyond their control. you have seen a man in a wheelchair pushing himself up a hill. you have seen someone so burned out, they can barely breathe. you have seen these things in person and you have probably brushed up alongside a multitude of others in passing, without knowing it. and your fatigue and confusion seems manageable in light of all that. and you thank God that you are so blessed.

2. you realize that for all you talk about extroversion, the introversion is making its way into your personality and plans to stay for a while. forever?

3. you see how polarized your view of relationships truly is. that you either want buddy-buddy friendship with no possibility or you want deep, romantic connection with a ring right around the corner. you realize now, tonight, that somehow, someway, a thousands shades of gray exist in between those two extremes. you know that its time to start exploring how to exist in that gray or you will never truly move from platonic friendship to passionate love without falling on your face a thousand times and breaking a thousand hearts (including yours) a thousand times along the way. it seems impossible right now, but you know somehow it can happen.

4. you realize that all the realizations for now, in this time of your life, are not going to be able to be listed 1-10. not possible. not even remotely close. all you can do is hope that sometimes you understand what it being told to you and that somehow you can get it through your thick skull what some of this means some of the time. the rest is just a mystery i can't pretend to have solved.

all i know is that i am trying to do whats right in front of me. chose the right roads at the right times that lead me to the destination ive been dreaming of all along. make different decisions than i have made before so that i stop making the same mistakes. but i know the shores are hard to see. i know the water calls my heart. i know that that life is waiting for me, for someday. but its all i can do to not jump headfirst into a river i have nearly drowned in a thousand times.

its just beyond those trees. the place i've been dreaming of.

maybe becoming new means losing everything you thought you knew from before and stepping into the unknown, to wait for whats next.

you don't expect nights like tonight or days like today.

sometimes the questions are too big for my mind to wrap itself around and i am left trying to explain something with words that were never meant to describe such things
are there moments in your life when all the waiting around culminates into the right now and you hope and pray to God that you haven't spent that time waiting for now wasting what you were given?

i am afraid that happened tonight.

oh, let my words echo in his mind, let the bits of truth i can discern in this finite brain spark a fire in his skeptic's heart. i am left wanting to read every book on the subject, and know every answer, understand more your character and less my indulgences and stupid flesh.
i am just so tired.

and oh, the day. his voice was so shakey, i haven't heard it like that before. vulnerable, uncertain, scared, reclusive, see-through. if those fears prove to be founded, everything will change. and thats big. luckily, so big, i am not in charge of figuring it out.

my friend eric told me something a few months ago that i told him back in high school... i had said something profound to him in class one day, on one of my more lucid days apparently... something to the effect of "Writers don't see things the way normal people do, they see things the way they would write them in a book."

Thats how i feel like i am living my life right now. I am in the moment, experiencing, living, but i also think about how these experiences and the realizations and thoughts i have about them will sound written down later. and i began "blue like jazz" in front of the fire tonight. and people are breaking up, writing proposals, letting go and moving on, coming home from Europe, going home for thanksgiving, asking big questions about Truth, travelling to portland, somehow staying afloat.

and i want to write it all down.

and i want it to sound good.

and i want you to stay in my head with me for awhile and tell me what you think.