Rednecks and Fountain Pens
At present...
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"Without your wound, where would your power be? It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble in the hearts of men. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheel of living. In love's service only wounded soldiers can serve."
-Thorton Wilder
Fundraiser
This handsome boy had a medical emergency (scroll down just a little to read about it and see pictures) which required getting a ride to a 24 hour vet and hour and a half away. Of course it coincided with a bunch of major car issues, while I'm still dealing previous financial setbacks.
I'm asking for help, but I pray that it's not merely a charity case, but that there is value to be found in my writings. I believe God gifted me with words, and that I am meant to use that to glorify Him and share His love and creation. I feel that truly, but it's hard for me to say. My former self would cringe, and I struggle because I don't want people to be pushed away. Regardless of the belief, it's annoying to have someone try to pound into you. So, with no agenda other than to share, I hope you learn something, or find comfort, or simply enjoy my musings. If you think my writing has value, I humbly ask that you financially contribute if you can, and if not please contribute a prayers for health and healing, restoration, and protection.
Thank you!
Desert Winter and Pistachios
Recently the theme has been baklava and reconstruction. With every bite, innumerable fractures of gluten glass. There's no putting it back, and the same is true for the sweet, green loveliness of pistachios and honey that, though accurate, will never be done any justice by being described as paste. There is snow, and now I'm dreaming of pistachios. The enjoyment of the baklava is in its destruction. I'm the baklava, and the baker, the consumer, and I'm the describer. And every topic is baklava. Seeing and being so many things is leading me to crave solitude. My world is big even when I don't move a muscle. I can't put it back, and I don't know how to describe what it is, or was, and definitely not how to explain precisely just what it was just before presently. I'm not even certain of presently. Digging up bones is no good, but studying history is important. I always have a solid argument in my head for both sides of nearly every topic I consider. This is sometimes the exhausting weight of conversation. I know I over talk and ramble. I aim to pick which pieces of information are worthy and pertinent. All too often I feel I fail. It is uncomfortable because I see myself failing. It's like transferring dirty laundry from the upstairs to the basement, with no hamper, only my arms, and from the corner of my eye watching socks escape, uncertain if they are jumping ship to end the misery of an imagined future, or are falling in despair, having lost grip of their hopes and dreams, and whole community. Either way I have failed them, and my duty to get the collective contents to its destination. See, this started as me trying to say I fail to get all I need to communicate to the recipients, and then on to suicidal socks, and socks sadly lost in the fray like aging men with broken dreams. So what am I suitable for then, other than writing? I can't get imaginary laundry to the washer. A tragic story related by a stranger, about a stranger, made me feel better:A wife threatens to divorce a husband. See, doesn't it make you feel better? No, of course not, but it makes me feel better that he found someone to marry him at all. He disappeared, but left a trail of running engines. Lawn mower and car left idling, he followed whatever idea occurred until he landed on the fishing boat of a friend met through an unplanned encounter at a gas station. At least I'm not that bad.I don't feel crazy except for the misunderstandings. Apparently the suicidal socks I drop are not unimportant. (Even dirty socks matter, so if you are thinking about ending it, DON'T! We need you here. You have a purpose!) My brain feels frenzied, too fast for full pace, or, half speed, and gently meandering like a stream. The need to feel like a stream feels urgent. Sometimes I get angry at the obstacles. I need tranquil in a way that feels like desert thirst. I want to bathe in what quenches me. It feels like preservation, essential, giving and sustaining.I possess the most wonderful auditory illusion presently. The drain in the floor of the shop is mostly dead. Earlier it snowed, more than I expected, and enough collected in the bed of the struck to melt for a considerable time. The puddle underneath it is large enough to create a serene forest sound as the remaining snow above continues to melt. There is the sound of the wood in the stove crackling too. The only nature my eyes take in are the antlered skulls on the walls, but for my ears I'm camping beside a stream with a fire. The smell of the burning wood makes the illusion vivid. I gratefully accept the silver lining.
Makes You Pause...
For years I've worn a cross necklace that I never took off. A fine chain with a cross pendant affixed to the front. When the chain broke it required I replace the entire necklace. I'd been praying to find the right one, and I just wasn't finding it. My grandma reminded me I could be real candid with God, and there weren't any words he hadn't heard, when she knew I was struggling. I didn't feel the need to demonstrate the breadth of my vocabulary to him, but I did say I needed a little more sense of his presence, and after some months, a cross pendant would be a good comfort. I was feeling a little sorry for myself that it was taking God so long to show me he's there when I need a more robust sense of hope. I found my way to the internet, and browsed, for no good reason because even that small of a thing wasn't in my budget, but I also know God provides, so I kept the hope. But I harbored some bit of pouting in my heart, I did. I need so little, and God can do anything, and all I asked for was a necklace that I find comfort in because it reminds me that pain is not in vain. Why was he withholding?
I like simple and classic. But there is a more contemporary design I've been seeing for a while, that I really like. I got a sweatshirt with it for my daughter a while ago. I like that is uses elegant script, and the name of Jesus is turned sideways to make the cross. Looking at it, I wanted it near me, so I drew it since that's one of my favorite ways to relax. I think it was two days later I went to visit a friend. I had neglected to visit her for way too long. I'd been a hermit. She was in the other room when I put down my purse on a chair and noticed a cross pendant on the table made with the same script design. I called to her that I quite like it, and she replied "it's yours". What? A friend of hers, a woman I've only met a couple of times had brought it over for me a while ago, I'd just been distracted and out of touch with humans. A woman I barely know brought me the thing I'd been asking God for, for a while, and it had been waiting for me.
It didn't end there. When I thanked the gifter, she invited me to a Bible study I almost didn't go to, but I did go, and while there a woman came over to share with me because I arrived a little late, and it wasn't the first meeting of that group, and after some of us chatted and I shared about the necklace that lead to my attendance. It caused us all to pause. From there other connections were made, and pauses following.
And so it goes...
So...this happened. I let him out in a fenced yard for about fifteen minutes to relieve himself, and he came back with a huge gash. There were older large trucks in the back and I thought nothing of it, but he must have seen a cat or rabbit and run under a truck and snagged himself. That was a very expensive bathroom break. Since it was evening we had to go to an emergency vet in another town because this small town doesn't have an oncall vet.
Hobbled Stumbling
I'm designed to travel the hard path. Even my delicacies were placed in me for this purpose, I'm finely calibrated, created to spot fine fractures in myself and for, and in, others. It makes me hard to live with, and what I see as obvious in others, is hidden from others, unintentionally, in me. This year I don't know how to walk the fracture, which used to be hairline, and now is, it seems, all that's seen. I had things even I didn't see, which is the point of life, to find ourselves under all the muck. Do you know I need almost nothing, and I don't miss any thing? One day, a handful of days ago was the first time in many months I missed a couch. I missed a door no one else has a key to, and a couch, and a full bowl of soup cradled in my lap, that I made, with spices I don't need my eyes to find, because to my fingers their location is familiar. Some family heirlooms matter to me, various pieces of evidence we've all had some meaningful history, creations from people I love, and some of my own, but finding myself in a way I never wanted to be finding me, I have made some pleasant discoveries. I need God. That's the list. That's the whole list. I feel like I need my dog. But he'll die one day, and I hope it's before me (mostly). Good soap matters more than I gave it credit for, previously. High quality socks definitely remain at the top of my list even though sock days have been rare for me until again, very recently. Paper and various colorful ways to mark it are essential, but easy to come by. Finally, though increasingly I've been thinking I need to spend more time without, I've managed most of what I have with technology. Yuck. But I'm sharing this now with a phone, and a computer, and taking pictures makes me smile. And regardless of what type they are, my feelings require musical pairing. The desert color palette has been dazzling me. The colors feel like bringing home inside me, even though for many years, home has been green. Desert drabs and olives feel proper to me, for this time, they feel like contentment, and unexpected bitter highlights I would prefer to wash away, except then I wouldn't be...me. This phase is terrible. I don't want to complain, and I don't mean that I don't want to complain but I'm going to anyway, I mean that I want to say how brutal it is without it being taken as complaining, because it's not. With each year I seem to get closer to sobbing and gratitude being the same thing. What makes both feel like swallowing an orange? And now my brain associates sobbing with sunsets, because shades of orange have graced the horizon while I have choke on gratitude more than a few times now.
There's a person that matters the most and she doesn't know, and that's the worst thing that has ever happened. And her existence is the best thing that has ever happened, and that's true every moment of every day. Trying seems taken like pathetic insults, and I don't know what to do with that either way. In the future, looking back I never want her to be able to say, "Why didn't you mention me?", but sharing with strangers seems wrong too, to me. I'll leave it with you, and she, should both know, she's the blessing most dear to me.
It's hard to know if you caught it, or it was taught. What's handed down the generations...sticky like pollen, unintentionally, or singular focus and a leather mitt maximizing every opportunity. I think of a certain headmaster when I think of maximizing opportunity, but I don't know what any of us does accidentally. I am up accidentally late again, and heading towards horizontal I will pray for each of us to have sight, and clarity. God, thank you for this day.
Lord,
Thank Yu for this day. I need You near. I need Your guidance and wisdom, and Your comforting reassurance. Thank You for the fellowship I have found, in people that seek you with open brokenness. They help me know You. It is good to know you, and I know You better each day. I aim to trust You in everything. It is not easy for me, but You have promised miracles, and your eternal love never flickers. You are my strength, my life force, my Creator, and Father. You have plans for me to prosper, and together we will serve others with love, and abundance, and nourish their bodies as You nourish their souls. May Your glory be a magnet for others, and others from them. Protect us Lord, let no evil near. In the name of Jesus all our loved ones are protected. Protect and heal us Lord. As I sit here with you beside me, I ask for your guidance. Lord please lead me, show me wisdom, speak to me plainly. Get me to where I can serve others, place me where you need me, and your people need me, and my purpose is complete. Thank you Jesus for Your sacrifice, Your unending love, for your patience with me. I know I cause You pain Lord. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.
Lord protect us and bring us to land that is ours, a place to belong as we serve You and Your people. I love You God, and all you do. Please close the differences that cause distances, bring us back together, to be close. Bring sight and understanding to create unity. Thank You for healing, restoring, and reviving us, in the name of Jesus.
Amen
59 degrees outside, the heat blows cold and the cold blows warmishly. Two hundred miles from a home I don't have, and no one has any faith in me. He tries force to get the love he needs, I say he's not replaceable, and he relaces me. I wonder if any have ever really loved me. And its not a woe-ist me, but a true ponderation of heart, love, and capacity. Love is wanting the best, regardless of what they do and say, the absence of ego, knowing they could leave, and you'd love them anyway. Love is from. but not about me, knowing their heart is hard, thoughts dark, ill directed towards my heart, and whispering, so they won't contradict "I love you" all the way, hoping some part of the soul will integrate what is really meant, not taking, and giving love every way.
Growing my Vision
I've begun with the above, which is uncomfortable for me, because I believe that's what God is urging me to do, ultimately, in all of my life, but presently with a writing blog. God has me in a season of constant discomfort. As soon as I adapt, he renews his commitment to my growth. More than anything else I've written, this was channeled through me. It was fast, and involved no thinking, it's not of the styles I use or create, it's too polished, too placating. If it were what I wanted, I wouldn't start with this. But...His will, not mine, I'm reminded. This is his message I've been tasked to share.
I write because I have to, it's never truly me, but in this case, I didn't feel like a participant, and that's how I know it's all him, not me, and why that makes me have to start with this.
Though what comes out is not to my credit, it is therapeutic, and because of that, and because I want there to be truths in the content that others can relate to even if the circumstances differ, I can be vague, sometimes which "she" or "him" within any written piece may change. For example, my brother and cousin were very close in age and constant companions. A story of summer antics may include both, and I may not be careful to specify which "he" I'm talking about because I like it stylistically. This could be true in flattering, or unflattering narratives. I don't make things up, and my writing is not for punishing or airing dirty laundry. But I write for truth not found in video surveillance. My focus isn't about literal and exact cronilogical history. Don't look here for details into narratives, or storylines. And please never use it for conclusions of fault. I'm just a girl holding a pen, letting it flow.
This is all my mind and perception, and maybe I'm suffering from misunderstandings. Of course I want to be a righteous one, but I'm certain I often miss the mark. What I write is not about me being right, or pointing fingers, it's navigating a confusing world, to the best of my ability.
On that note, I pray you notice wonderful things that are unfolding in your life today!