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

A New Way to be Blind

It is time for an update.

I would like to blame my delay in writing on the fact that I am so busy - and it’s true, I am incredibly busy, but I have also allowed my words to drop at my feet and seem only to react to the tears I never see coming.

Everyone asks me about my transition phase and honestly I seem to not even understand the concept.

I daily look at my suitcase, which is still off to the side of my room, and wonder how rational it would be to pack my bags and go back to Mae Sot. I don’t care about the mosquitos, I don’t care about getting malaria, I don’t care about encountering my selfishness, again, daily.

The Lord gave me the best gift He could give me while I tarry this earth weary and scarred. He gave me perspective, He gave me His perspective. I sincerely miss Mae Sot yet, while I was there I experienced a sorrow that could have had me on my back dwelling in some kind of “all is dust in the wind” complex for months.

I felt uncomfortable in my skin. Emotional disconnect was a constant desire, to shut down and see how far auto-pilot could get me. There were times, and I admit this shyly, I didn’t want to be there but I knew I didn’t want to be back in America either. The discomfort of a foreign land caused me to ache so wretchedly and at the same time the prospect of going back to comfort terrified me. Deliverance from either scenario was but a wish, a small prayer in the midst of too many truths. I knew for the first time, I knew with certain clarity, that home was no longer a house I described as, “Right next to the frisby golf course.”

My home is inside, my home is my Savior. It is the one place I can’t see and the only place my heart beckons me to. I am a nomad, a sojourner, a foreigner to this earth. A place I have known and a place I cannot wait to escape.

When I was a little girl I knew that home was where my parents were, when I started to grow up I began to dream of my home. Would I live in New York? Or Venice? Maybe I would go Hollywood style? But when the dreamer wakes up and realizes the dream does not satisfy, what hope is there? And that is what I felt in Mae Sot when I woke up and I ached for a warm bed and at the same time the hug of a precious orphan. On this earth a sacrifice will be made. Five months ago my desire for the hug from such a precious little girl was fulfilled, now the desire for the warm bed is realized.

I am not home. And when Jesus opened my eyes I am sure He knew that the swell in my heart would, in a way, leave me paralyzed to my original ideas of this life.

So, how has the transition been? On Saturday morning I pulled over because I could only think of the Karen people, the Agape village. Tuesday morning I woke up filled with more joy than I knew I could handle, the majesty of the Lord had taken me over.
It is one thing to bear the burden of a sorrow, quite another to bear the burden of the Lord’s kindness.

This transition will never end. I am not in the process of transitioning from a poverty stricken land to a land of freedom. I am heaven bound, at the feet of my Savior bound, and that transition will last the rest of my earthly life.

Now I see dimly, but one day...

John 14:23 “Jesus answered him, ‘If anyone loves me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.’”

Exodus 23:9 “You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.”

Ecclesiastes 12:8 & 13-14 “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity...The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”

Nothing can break quite like He can...

It'd be hard to say exactly everything that has presence enough to alert me, to appeal to my cluttered mind; fervently requiring all of my attention in some moment of some day amidst all the "somethings" I'm already attentive to. It is safe to assume that anything energetically beckoning me into an act of emotional labor will catch the focus of my eye.

There is always the Orchestrator pursuing me into Beauty and Truth and most days there are always the questions that are brought to my mind, the ideas that jolt me into a counterfeit reality and leave me thinking I am not worth much at all.

There are a lot of times I have been sad in my life but very few times I have staked claim to the overstated and under-healed entity that this “thing” is. I don’t think I’m even quite there yet - but if you stand close enough, if you look at me long enough you’ll be able to hear the breaking. It is not like the earth shattering, whole body collapsing, tear escaping, “breaking” most people are used to. This is not hollywood bound, not even suitable for some dramatic French indie... and that is why it was so deafeningly alarming, so subtly catastrophic.

Nothing can wake a distracted, emotionally charged, young lady quite like this thing can.
Checking-out of this life and finding a welcoming hiding place, a room dark enough to make even the hider unaware of the tears streamlining down their almost dried and cracked face, is no option I am aware of. And I am coming to think hiding is nor even something I want to embrace. My desire for authenticity does not just beckon me to be vulnerable but it also leads me into the shattered places of my heart - resurrecting those quick fix heartaches I wanted nothing to do with.

This type of sadness is the most evident suspect once it has unveiled itself to the target. I bet I would have seen it in Hannah’s eyes when she realized she was barren. I bet you could have felt it in the presence of Joseph as his brothers stripped him of his coat. And what of Elijah, when the Lord warned him that He would suffer the greatest loss and yet he was to move on and continue to be a prophet to the people of Israel.

This sorrow does not force me into a melancholy withdraw from life mostly because of the rose petals that will be picked up from where the ash used to lay. There will be the “when Adam first met Eve” feeling. When “Jesus left the desert victorious and focused” feeling. When “Sarah felt the first kick” feeling.

These are the unfathomable plans I can’t seem to imagine - the prospering, not lacking, realities that I will one day experience.

Until then I am in no other state than to inform myself that this breaking is the slow process of the pot realizing it is only the pot. I can feel the breaking, myself inching toward the ledge with each piece of knowledge, with each unconceivable sunset, with each tender word. I’m on a path that leads to the ground and I’ll shatter.
Albeit, I can’t seem to think of a better work of art to present to the Maker than a completely broken and humiliated self. I imagine the first words I’ll want to say will be, “I'm broken for you.” but He’ll probably beat me to the punch, He’ll probably speak up and say, “My delight is in you, beauty. Beauty.”

I’ll look back and think of this sorrow that wakes with a vengeance. That wakes commanding, “Let’s start writing this script. You’re believing lies He’s not speaking. You’re accepting fears that are conquered. There are plans for you to be sowing and reaping."

I can see the chisel in the hands of my Savior and right now I feel like I am in pieces but one day will see that I am just in Peace.


“Dear brokenness...You stand quite close to me... your breath is heavy within...you’re starring down my heart. You seize my life in an attempt to allow Him to seize all of me. Welcome to my muddled, calloused, inconsistently steady, permanently passionate heart. I’d like to ask you to make haste, but I think it is best you take your time.”

“She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly.” 1 Samuel 1:10

“For He Himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that He might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.”
Ephesians 2:14

“I Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you.”
Col 4:18

It's a mental paralysis

It’s when the doubts forget how to leave you.
When the lies are no longer a distant voice
but a tyrant out for your freedom…repressing your choice.
They’re ransacking the soul.
Destroying you, contorting the truth, making room for control.

The repetitive fight for beauty and value moving into the defensive.
No longer a testimony rhythmically and passionately aggressive.
You’re now just the monotonous and lulling sonnet that has lost its writer.
Faded not vibrant, reckless not tracking, wavering as this army’s grip seizes you, you who were once a fighter.

Still your mind is trying not to rely on these tears
All the while your voice has collapsed and rotted over, no longer keeping at bay those damning fears.

Weary
This valley too lonely
This heart has forgotten its beat

His voice sounds like a roar.
Your bones crushing under His will. Accepting the burden you wait for the ending, a time to restore.

You try to keep it but it escapes your care: you draw your last breath…
Submit and let Him know you accept your death.

The metaphorical ground cracks and breaks.
The dressed up sheep watch their accusations become as ash and soak into some unknown deep.

Into the Holy room you saunter
Your feet weak but knowing no stumble or hidden falter

You must have seemed like a misbehaved beast.
His acceptance molds you – a softened clay, you become the least.

This blessing is not what you’d think
But His voice keeps the tempo
….your heart has regained its beat.







*And just to think, that was only the death of today.



And there it is. I found my poem.
I always had my inspiration (His pursuit and grand love) - but it takes time to put something like that into some kind of coherent and honoring thought.

If you want - you can sing with me too

Short paragraph: I could do that.
Short story: with some time and inspiration...I’m all over it
Poem (short or long) and I’m out of my element. It is interesting that my ultimate literary love and my initial allurer to writing now has me hesitating to pick up a pen.

Encouragement: Charles Bukowski wrote his short stories beginning at age 24 - he didn’t begin writing poetry until 35. Dim as it may be; this small fact offers hope!

I recently read his poem “The Snow of Italy”. It is frightening in an attractive and almost disquieting way:

“...there is moss on the walls and the stain of thought and failure and waiting...”

Just one good sentence, if I can produce just one good sentence then it is all downhill from there. I read that from a famous writer once (can’t remember his name), this was his remedy for writer’s block.

Anyway, here is my day (it is not a poem - it is more like a rambling, possibly disguised as a poem)

“I’m Afraid There’s A Hole in My Brain” plays in accelerating manor thru my lilac cell.
(Lilac is not my color of choice...but it is more so than the other option, black).
For some reason I think my life resembles the lyrics of the song...and each time I hear it, I am more convinced.

I rollover and hit ignore
but now I can’t ignore the welcoming of Tuesday.
My alert mind is more effective than any alarm clock.
The day proceeds with Cheerios, soy milk, and long put off errands.
It is warm outside.
It is not snowing.
...and those 2 facts produce a decision to get a ICED latte.
God is close, like He always is.
Today I make myself aware of His presence - and it is more difficult than usual.
Ordinary days usually are.
(Not like when I am praying with 12 other girls on a musky concrete floor before bed that we be protected from Malaria and the Burmese who reside 15 minutes from our hostil. We don’t pray for protection from the large spider anymore because we killed it the night before. And it was large, if it was up to me I would consider it a mammal - and that is that.)
Anyway, you don’t have to remind yourself He is close in times like those - His presence is the only thing that doesn’t seem surreal. It is the ONLY comfort.

I listen to Carla Bruni because I’m not into English right now.
I read Charles Bukowski (please rub off on me).
I drink Red Bull for the first time - there’s no good explanation for that.
I try to pop my zit (yuck)
I pray (serenity)
I call my friend (and laugh)
I drink Fiji Natural Water (i don’t care what stream this came from I’m never paying that much for water again!)
Today I only ALMOST cried
Today I realized how easy it is for me to avoid what I respect so much (honesty)
Today - I’m kind of over it



Ok, so I am an expert at rambling - why hasn’t that come onto the scene yet? If Sandra Lee can open up a can of soup and call it a cooking show then I am sure I can publish all these random, circular, thought processes and make a few bucks-ha!


Anyway, there is a poem knocking itself around in my mind. I keep trying to perfect it (i.e. I have all the words but I don’t know where to place them - and that is the difference between a dictionary and an Emily Dickinson)!

This isn't just any kind of ink ~!~

Here.
Here is my pen.
I want you in my life - I want you to write yourself into my life.
I want you to know me, like “quote my heart” know me.
I want it to be an epic story - in a captivating quiet kind of way.
In a, “Wow, I didn’t know the accordion and the guitar sounded so well together” kind of way.
I want to read the story out loud so my mind can process the words and my heart can make sense of the well composed sentences. I want to be left resonating with nostalgia meets charm; Somewhere Over the Rainbow meets Stay Little Valentine; Damien Rice meets Comtine D’un Autre Ete: L’apres Midi (Yann Tiersen)


Please write it with Him. He is the best author I know. Becasue He knows me better than anyone else.

He writes the best stories.

Like when He wrote me into life and i was left in the hospital for months threatened by death - but I’m not dead. He started my life out with quite the bang!
Or when He wrote Maryn into my life with a spontaneous trip to Texas and then reconnected us months later and now I have such a dear friend who has sharpened me and encouraged me in ways I had no idea I needed. But He knew - so He wrote her in!
Or the time He wrote my wonderful Jamie in (at the perfect time) on yet another unplanned trip to Florida. She looked at me on the long drive and said, “Brianne, boys don’t think like you do.” And I knew she was going to be like a rock for me-ha!
I love that time when I got in the car with my dad to make the long trip to WV. I silently allowed tears to stream down my face from yet another unwelcome broken heart. Without words my dad held my hand and let me cry. That story is never far from me - I am so glad He wrote that one in!
I could go on forever - there was that time my mom and sister and I blasted The Righteous Brothers and had a dance party late into the night (and it was a school night-ha)!
There was that time in Peru when Agusto asked me to adopt him. The time in Thailand when Furn would put her head on my shoulder and tell me her mom was dying from cancer...

So here is my pen - you can write yourself in. Then...I’ll let you read me like a book.