I've up and moved!

Oh hi there!

This is just an update to let you know I've packed up my things (mind, writing ability, pics...) and moved them here: http://brimichelle.wordpress.com/

Hope you come visit me!

Thrift Store Emotions.

If I’m being completely honest:

(marked by free, forthright, and SINCERE expression).

You’d see a lot.

And I’d hope for you to be the blind man who, with all his knowing and seeing, never grasped understanding. It was good to know and to be in the know and contentment was quite easily attainable from there. Your melancholy desire to actually grasp at understanding would protect me, because you would not actually know me. Although, you would know very well of me.

Then I’d let you “see”.

You would see all those sentences that float around in my head. The ones I want to say but politeness (maybe a form of deception?) grabs me and the sentences fall from my head, bypassing my mouth and entering into the gates of my heart. Sentences that are now filed away for that day when maybe I’ll just say what I want to say because I want to say it. Because I want you to hear it.

You would see all those terrific and homely struggles that keep my mind going. The suggestions and remedies I am coaxing up, testing them with the Truth then trying to hand feed it to this parade of a brain.

Of course all these equations befriend one another to form this procession of faulty self-righteousness. So I actually start to think that I am protecting you from me: a mess. A territory not only dangerous to map out but one that may not lead to the proper and agreeable outcome.

But that’s if I’m being honest.

You would see that this mostly joyous young lady that, “lifts her skirt up to her knees and walks through the rose garden with her bare feet, laughing” at times is gripped by such inwardness, such penetrating and colorful silence (sometimes you really are alone in the room). You would see my burden which is also my hope and let’s not be cordial here-the weight of hope is sometimes more severe than the most threatening sorrow.

I have a heart. Eternity is planted in it. A root hidden deep. The root now discovered, embraced and is transforming the way I do life (which sometimes I suck at. Some people aren’t good at sewing or maybe soccer but many times I am just not good at life).

Past my rebellious flesh, my tired and overworked mind - can you see it? Look closely. Past it all is eternity. Eternity. Planted within my very being. Sewn in as it were the binding of the book, holding it all together.

Honesty, that nagging companion, would push me to say that I am homesick in a way that cannot be confronted and the root is maintaining this longing, facilitating the way I am embracing this life. Will it (the root) not simply be lulled into a comma - just a comma! Most temporary.

But no, it sticks the way my tongue does to the roof of my mouth when that dentist man puts that suction thing into my mouth (I hate that feeling).

Homesick? Could I use a more under-whelming word? As if I were some college student that misses her mother and father after the first semester (and how I know the ache of being away from home for the first time), but this is not that. This is a more precise kind of sick, yet still dealing with home. My soul, my being is being purged, my mind bedridden, my reasoning infected with that abominable craving.

A protective heart lashes out, knowing this is not my home, not my way. Knowing that I didn’t want to do that at all, in fact I wanted to do this - but instead I did that and now I am dealing with it. “It” being the “that” I did not want to do.

The curtains open as I wrestle with my disobedient (but yearning to be obedient) self. The root churns within me and the absence (temporary) of my unseen home leaves me fragile.

There are those rare moments when I am scavenging for the shovel to eradicate eternity out. Out! To destroy all traces and make this longing dull, maybe even pitiable. To numb the ever-present fascination and desire for His gaze - steady on me, reassuring me of His love and slaughtering all the lies. A deleterious massacre of all the ways in which I think I am so unpleasant, so unkind, and most times so awful at figuring out the proper way to even lift the cross (and I hear we are to be carrying it as well).

In the same breath (because my mind is quite untidy, with debris laying around from wars I’ve already waged concerning who I am and what I’m here for and what He’s going to let me be) I’d protect and guard with fervency this root (as if I had the power to burn it anyway). Eternity makes this life real...makes me real (I’m not a wooden girl after all). I have purpose, I have a destination. I have the Embrace to keep me moving.

It reminds me I’m still known and you can’t take that away. My lies can’t take that away.

Honestly (a kind of grace?), I don’t want you to be blind. I want you to see me and say you hear me, that you know me and you have chased after understanding. That with those two, your seeing me and knowing (understanding) me, you see beauty. You would see that I am not protecting the world from ugliness but that I am hiding the light under the bowl, and how impolite of me! You would see (and please, help me see) that there is immense beauty I have to offer and therefore up the hill I should march, the light will shine bright.

But, that’s if I’m being (honest).

“I told you I would never leave you. I told you I loved you from the start” -Pedro the Lion

“I feel like Carolina, I split myself in two. My friends said, ‘Stick to your guns!’ But instead I just got stuck. And I’m walking backwards looking forward to getting done but that ain’t enough, no you want me to run.” -M Ward

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end” - Ecc 3:11 (NIV)

Acoustic Love

Oh. Oh wow. I guess it has been awhile.

But wait, let me explain: This past holiday season has possibly been the busiest I have encountered...here's a glimpse:








I feel like I am just now on the route to recovery and in celebration of resting from all that has taken place, I’m not going to talk about it:) But I am going to write.

Introduction: I am at Agia Sophia drinking a chai. This table consists of a dictionary, Bible, Remembrance of Things Past (Marcel Proust), journal, and my pen (which is a new purchase, Sharpie has come out with their first ever pen, and I loooove writing with it).

Action: I’m listening to Basia Bulat...and I’ll steal iTunes’ description, “She has an easygoing, friendly style that borrows heavily from the chick-rock craze of the 1990s.” I’m listening to her song, Little Waltz. And it keeps playing. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. It makes me want to go try on dresses in some hidden boutique store while sipping on mimosa’s then go ballroom dancing all night. And I like the idea of this, so as I said, I keep listening to it...on repeat!

The real deal: Ok. Though I have been absent from the blogging world - I’m using this post as a time of reflection on 2008. Here is the synopsis:

There was a lot of change in my life in 2008, I mean A LOT. But I won’t go into it too much.

I returned to America in March of 2008 and I was a mess, and not even the pretty, romanticized kind of mess. My heart was completely gutted, my thoughts incomprehensible, my heart shattered stained glass. Not only was I months away from turning 24 but I was career-less, actually more like jobless.

I could go on with all that plagued me, and I have in my contemplations with the Lord. But this is what I want to tell you, this is what is worthy: What God showed me in 2008 was His faithfulness. If I had to capture one characteristic of my walk and interaction with the Lord in 2008, it would be His faithfulness. Which, as Jesus and I were talking about it on Jan 1st, 2009, this shocked me because 2008 was an incredibly intense year for me. But there is a reason for this:

December 2007 quickly became Jan 01, 2008 while I was in the back of a Tsung Tao in Thailand. Then after some of the most lonely times, some of the most horrific events, and doing life with some of the most precious children I returned to Australia only to say goodbye to the people I had lived a complete exposed life with. For 6 months we poured into each other, poured ourselves out, gave love, accepted love, prayed, cried, yelled, forgave, asked for forgiveness, sobbed, handled situations well, handled situations awfully...and now I was saying goodbye.

The end of February I traveled Australia, the majority of it alone. The whole time anxious for what awaited me back home and not wanting to face the losses I knew I was coming back to.

Then by March I’m back in America.

For months I went to bed with a loud ache that refused comfort. I longed for that time in Chantaburi when I went to bed utterly exhausted from doing ministry with the leper community. Tapped out from planning and speaking and not understanding Thai. My spiritual vigor taking a hit from all the evil and doubt and hopelessness that sauntered through the community like a heavy fog. I went to bed drained but the picture I saw as I closed my eyes was His presence drawing near, ready to replenish me with just His embrace. That is worth everything.

His faithfulness has carried me through. Brought me deep contentment when I should have been numb. Rich joy when I should have steeped in depression.

In the summer I was hired at Compassion International on-call. Let’s talk about going from working with women in prostitution and Burmese refugees to filing papers. That is quite a leap and my passion would have taken a hit if I were not working for such an amazing organization that works to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name. (And anyone who has talked to me for even 15 minutes in the past 6 months knows how blessed I am that the Lord opened this door)!

On my birthday I was hired on in the marketing department with the web team as the Internet Communications Support Specialist. If you were there that day when my supervisor walked in and said, “So, would you like to work for Compassion?” you would have known that I was overwhelmed the rest of the day by the immense gift of the Lord! I am pretty sure I even squealed a few times (that’s just embarrassing).

I have met amazing people...truly. I am interacting daily with people who are warriors for the Kingdom of God. I am working with people who pick up their cross daily and say, “I'm Yours, Lord.”
He is faithful!

So, I realize it is now 2009, and here is how I am entering into it:
In December my boss told me about a twist on New Year resolutions. Then he wrote a blog post about it. Go ahead, read it...and if you are anything like me, you’ll love it. I am immensely challenged to pick ONE word for 2009.

There are a lot of reasons for me to step into 2009 with fear...and He and I have talked about it in-depth. Not so sure how I am even feeling about this year. But we talked about that too...and so, here is my word for 2009: LOVE.

And here is why:
“We should desire to love Him as perfectly as we can, in this life as well as in eternity” (25). The Practice of the Presence of God by brother Lawrence

“I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph 4:1-3, ESV).

I know very little about love, even less about loving people well. But, I want to know more and I want to learn how to love better, deeper, richer.

Notice the name of my post? Well I came up with it because the definition of acoustic is, “Not electronically produced or modified.” And that’s how I want to love. Me, my love, my being, my encouragement, my sincerity, my rawness...nothing added but the Love of Christ.

Did you pick a word? I’d love to know, I’d love to be praying for you!

I'd rather say goodnight.

I was over-thinking, which probably happens too often and this week it was completely distracting.

Between work, maintaining friendships and making new friends, family, exercise, work, relationship with the Lord, work, personal hygiene (haha, had to put this in here cause it does take time), dealing with this heart, and work (I mentioned that, right?) I am headed for a silent corner in a dark room and foreseeing a very long sigh followed by a quivering chin... my teeth gently biting my lip while i run through all the reasons why crying might not be the best option - even though no one can see, even though this past month has left its mark well on my heart.

All my reasons will lose this battle. Nothing convinces me into sobbing like slow tears. I enjoy tears so much, but the timid, shy tears... those ones are charming, a grand friend of mine. They sit and wait on the rim of my eyelids as if being courteous, careful not to fall too quickly so as not to ensue more damage. And then, at just the right moment they spill over, dampening my eyelids, sauntering down my cheek bone, face, jaw and they hang on waiting to make a grand exit. Then the fall. Those tears are sacred and in so many ways recall to my mind the kindness of the Lord.

It is disconcerting to me that with so much going on in my life I can feel as lonely as I do at times. But I do, and this position of my heart is dedicated to the listening ears of Abba.

So there it is. Maybe loneliness isn’t the depressing monster I dress it up to be.

And there is joy, there is radiant joy. My life is full and my Lover is near. I love "top" lists. And here it is my top list for this month. The roses emerging among the thorns:

1. the cd Explosions in the Sky, recommended to me by such a gentle friend. Specifically the song, "Your Hand in Mine"


2. All things pumpkin. I am addicted! Pumpkin spice latte's. Pumpkin pie. Pumpkin scented candles. Th new pumpkin hershey kisses. YUM!


3. My completion of The Brothers Karamzov

4. WINE. It is offic, I have started to lose my taste for white wine and moved into the sophisticated craving for red wine. Especially cab's.


5. Dinners with Lisa which are a gift from the Lord and prepare me for the week ahead

6. My NEW Mokua Express and French Press (i fear the barista's at Bucks are soon to forget my name)...



7. My TEAM at Compassion. Love the webbies and I love that I still drive into work every morning thinking, "I can't believe I work here."

8. Agia Sophia coffee shop with the Lord and chai tea

9. Truth Project bible study with some of the most amazing women I have ever met

10. The Ingrid Michaelson concert. Not to mention the moment when sweet Katy Michelle blew her nose because of a cold and we got starred down like we were out of control

11. Maryn, Stacia, Jamie and Karla. Some of the most precious friends I have. The ache in my heart for their company is a grand testimony to how the Lord has enriched our friendship and blessed me with their words, presence, prayers...







Ok, if I continued to go on, and I could, I will probably not sleep at all. BUT, I have to sleep because tomorrow I have to cook Thanksgiving dinner.

Alas, there is sorrow and I will not ignore it or dress it up and call it something else. Yet, there is immense joy and I believe I am able to steep in its richness because I can acknowledge the sadness in my heart.

Since being back in America I see I am continuously at a loss of words but I also believe, like I had not believed before, that He understands... that even with my lack of explanations I have captured Him.

Oh please Lord, may it be. How beautiful You are to me.

oh Lover, i'm lost

I remember this moment.

No... I am trying to hold onto this moment. Trying not to forget the burden of obedience, to remember what I felt like as He grabbed my shoulders and held me up, “You can do this Brianne, you can make it through this. You love me, you don’t believe it, but I see it.”

I was at that point in the race where I was climbing the hill, trying to remember why I began running and the only thing louder than my small attempts at encouragement was my heavy, pain-filled breath. The only thing more unlikely than the victory was how unprepared for defeat I was.

But I did, I ran that race. I finished, I saw the end of the tunnel. I clung onto the Lord like I knew my life would be dust without His say, without Him. I called on His name as if I were Jacob wrestling in the woods, David hiding in the cave, Mary shattering the alabaster jar.

And now...I can’t remember her name.

It was 5:00pm, we were split into groups of 2 with one translator. We walked into the red light district together and slowly branched off. 2 would go to that bar, another 2 to this bar and this bar and that bar. Finally Danni and I split off into a bar with a depiction of Satan as a sign to lure in the customers.

I climb onto the bar stool and ask for a diet coke. That was my “in”, I had 5 minutes to talk to the girl serving me. To plant some seed, to love her, to ask her if she wanted the night off. I had 5 minutes to tell my anger and rage to lye down while I delicately surveyed the situation and requested the Holy Spirit to allow me words of life. 5 minutes. But I hear, that can be an eternity to the Lord. So I sat. I listened.

She turned to get my drink and as she turned she unveiled a very young girl sitting on a box, crying. I could not mistake her dismay or her position, she was hiding. I was shocked, she was young. There is something in me that broke like I never knew could. I had come face to face with a human life about to be bought. A human life about to be used and delighted in as if she were some kind of commodity, some piece of material to be taken and returned. She was no longer seen as “her” but as “it”.

I ask her how old she is.

15.

She tells me (through my translator) that this is her first night. She has no choice, her family must eat and her father and mother agreed.

I act quickly, the sun is going down and we are only given 20 minutes for our protection. I tell the translator this is the girl I would like to take out to dinner with my group. She communicates to one of the ladies. I do not take my eyes off her, I need to see her reaction. Her tears vanish, her face lights up. It was as if someone had come to her and said, “I can save you, I can save your life.” As she grabs her purse and I take out my 300 baht ($8), the bartender (who is the wife of the pimp) approaches me and with rage in her eyes tells me I can take any other lady but not her.

Physical weakness takes over my body, “No Lord, please let me save her, if just for one night. Please let me give her this night back.”

I tell my translator to convey that I will double the price and I pull out 600 baht.
“No, not her!” the bartender asserts.
This cannot be right, why not her? I pull out all my money. It is wadded and filling the palms of my hands.

“Ask her Tik, ask her how much, I will only gladly pay it.” Tik (my translator) asks the bartender with much passion, I know she is thinking as I am. We have joined the fight together. I can see my team coming out of the bars, ready to convene together. I listen intently as if I could understand Thai. Tik turns to me, “We cannot have her, she is a virgin...she will make good money tonight.”

And that was that.
I did something we were never created to do. I bargained for a human life.

I would have kept up the fight until my translator tugged on my arm, “It is time to go, it is getting dark.” I felt more defeated than I ever have in my whole life. This is the essence of human life not valued, the epitome of her value, given by the high and mighty Lord, taken and used to buy her family dinner for a week.

So what is the point? I could have cried all night and if I were not so exhausted from the day I probably would have. I fell asleep imagining myself in the arms of the Lord, the only comfort to such outrage and deep undisguised sorrow.

Though her name is far from me, this is what I can remember: He paid for me too. Only the price cost Him everything, the price cost Him humiliation and shame. The price requested Him to come off His throne... to bow down to weakness. To bow under the burden of all sin and wickedness. The price cost his enemy believing for a time that he had won and humanity was his.

Could you imagine loving like that? Could you imagine pouring yourself out for even one human being? Could you imagine loss of sleep, prayers filled with grief, a fellowship marked with disbelief, a lonely desert, breaking your body, spilling your blood...could you imagine carrying the cross for everyone? EVERYONE.

I did not know this girl, but i can see her face. Her tears will not leave my mind - the hope stolen still catches me off guard and takes my breath away. Any desire I had to release her, any promptness of mind to go and free her only came from the grand Pursuer.

They say He came to heal the sick. And give life abundant. I believe it. I have seen it. Even in what I looked on to be defeat. I know that 5 minutes with her was all I was given and I believe it was all He needed.

~Selah~

Was it worth it? Was it worth me working myself up and taking on her burden? Did I do more damage? I think about it often but I always come to the same conclusion, I always reconcile this grief with this:
For me, I would have risked more by not trying.

I’m so grateful He risked His life on me.

“But the LORD was pleased
         
To crush Him, putting Him to grief;
         
If He would render Himself as a guilt offering,
        
He will see His offspring,
         
He will prolong His days,
         
And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand. 
    
As a result of the anguish of His soul,
         
He will see it and be satisfied;
         
By His knowledge the Righteous One,
        
My Servant, will justify the many,
         
As He will bear their iniquities." -Isaiah 53:10

“As for me, it’s good to be near to You.” -Enter the worship circle

Some Kind of Luminous Blue.

If I sit here and sip on my matte tea long enough i think some idea will find me out.

Something of what I am feeling will reveal itself to me.

It feels like deluded defeat mixed with over-compensation. It sounds like me trying to see me like You do, but backwards. It appears to be inadequacy and longing and my frantic grasping hands trying to get all of “this” under control.

Today I saw a disheveled elderly man that floated about on the cracked sidewalk. At first he looked dismayed, even misplaced - like he had forgotten where he was going. But then I looked again and it was beauty I saw, like wisdom infused with forgetting the weight of this world. He looked like he knew more than I have ever come close to experiencing and he was damn proud of it too.

Perhaps it was not dismay I saw, just freedom grabbed up and worries laid bare into the care of another. I wonder what he saw in me?

Tomorrow seems like it could be most solemn, a rejected kind of dull day. I can see the sun marching behind the mountains and my body is pulling me into accepting its marching orders as well, into bed.

There is a grand joy that is beckoning me out of this already accepted defeat. The joy is succeeding and my mind is conforming to remember I am still in this day, not to look ahead, especially not in disgust. Alas, the desires which are blood red and bring me to my knees turning them blush pink from rough carpet, well they will be there tomorrow. And the burdens which puff my hazel eyes and illuminate my freckles, they will be there too. So will perspective, so will the proper and right yoke.

I remember, as I listen to the sun crash into the mountain, that something in my spirit is irrevocably broken, consumed and awaiting the burial in its appropriate tomb. But I won’t, no - i don’t know how to put it down. I want to live in Thailand, I want to be around the Aussie’s, I want to be near my family always, at my desk with Compassion, in the arms of my lover, in the arms of my Lover...I want to be here and there.

My heart is a picaso shaped mess. With yesterday’s experiences and tomorrow’s expectancies...all of them trying to converge and meet to produce a work of brilliance. A light that is drawing you near, a mystery that goes before me and leads me only into Your presence. A place I could not withstand because my unworthiness would suffocate me, my ugliness would bow me down.

Pursue love. Pursue love.
Pursue love and righteousness and godliness and purity. And just be...be someone who pursues love and loves Him and loves well.

Into the labyrinth

Even to the point of fatigue have I undertaken the task of appealing to all my senses in order to eradicate some string of words, some kind of poetic thought.

I have lazy, misconstrued paragraphs lying about on scrapes of paper, throughout my journal, in my heart. Nothing is coherent and nothing will transition into some kind of lovely art.

I grow attached to the beginnings of everything I have given birth to and hate them all the same because they will not be paired with endings.

Oh MIND! You never deliver as I suppose you are capable of doing. So of course I have set aside tonight to get to the bottom of this – to dig up as much as I can before I am left with all things fossilized, left to chip and flake away with each new day.

Anyway, isn’t this always my problem – I am the most unfocused writer I know. Yet here, here are some of the riots playing out in my heart…

AND if you read this and think, “Why that makes no sense at all, has she gone mad?” I will only, in all amiableness, agree with you…

WAIT! (mmm, stalling) This past weekend at the Tour de Fat I was able to see a glimpse into Ian Cooke as he performed live, sporting his dusty brown overalls – it was brilliant. Oh why have I not known of him before?! So if you would like, I am listening to his song “Music” while writing this. Play on…

Saturday, September 7th
1 Corinthians 13 beckons me through and through. Each time I read it a weight of responsibility draws heavy and heavier within. And my eyes will not move on when I rollover these words, “It (love) does not insist on its own way…Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor 13:5, 7).
Oh Lord, what burden is ours?

When I was younger I would read this and think of the most adorable and wonderful man who would exhibit such attributes and of course, I would demonstrate them too – mmm, to fall in love. Of course with growing older my romanticism over these verses decrease. I swear I die each time I read the "great love" chapter. I think it is beautiful in a most disquieting and horrifying way.

And then there is 1 Cor 14:1, just the first two words are enough to leave me paralyzed: Pursue love. And there you have it, can you feel it? has the incredible call and command not shaken you to your core?


Tuesday, September 9

In the Polaroid’s I see hazel eyes, blonde strands, freckles too many to count…My eyes linger and I recognize me, outside me, inside me too. I hear me say, “Come on, if you walk away then I’ll walk away too.” But I’m too tired and I can’t tell if I am asking for the separation of my physical self from my emotional self or separation of my flesh from the One I cling so desperately and unbecomingly to.

I see pieces of me die everyday. Parts that are withering because I am becoming more like Him. Parts that die because I do not know how to grow and expand those areas of creativity and ideas and dreams. So death is everyday. Everyday is the first and it is also the last.

My despair creeps in as if it were a welcomed guest, approaching calmly and pleasantly – where is the storm of attack? But as I hear the footsteps saunter and almost dance nearer, I know what to say, “Lay it up in the Kingdom child, walk it out in love and keep what is precious in the Kingdom.” (I say this to myself of course).

How appalling to know that possibly today I did not spill my cup out on the weary, the poor..the neighbor.

(End of contemplations I am allowing you into)

So there are two round-abouts that will not soon decipher their exit point. But, as it turns out, I love analyzing and I would not desire their swift retreat.

The only other item that lays burden upon burden (and not a straining burden, but more of an urgency – a desire to attain such love) would be:

“…bear with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph 4:2-3).

Do you see it? What my heart feasts on for every meal? as if illness will come from any other delicacy.

It’s love, advancing in, walking on in, cultivating and accepting love. And not the lovesick, romantic love- do not be fooled! Oh no, this is the everyday with everyone "love" that I, in my messiness, am trying to portray to others in the midst of their messiness. What a mess…truly.

“Well let the poets cry themselves to sleep. And all their tearful words will turn back to steam… I never thought this life was possible, you’re the yellow bird that I’ve been waiting for” –Bright Eyes

“Music can make meaningless things seem so significant and I don’t use other ways to say the things I mean because, I know it may not matter that I think you’re magnificent but I hope this music makes it seem as if it does. After the words are sung you are the same” –Ian Cooke

“I want to tell you how much I love you.” –Cat Power