tonight: peace

be still, little one
and know that peace,
if imperfectly sought,
subtly comes.

oh grace, this truth
lighting path home.

tonight: this morning, still

i’m still tuned to an instrument of greater and unknown design
–Still, Great Lake Swimmers (Buy this album. You’re welcome.)

day breaks and color pops that grand canvas sky
the trickle-down effect of rising sun: squinty eyes
still,
still.
only just awake to the chill of winter beckoning color to bare face
the upside affect of windy air: fast feet
running,
still
the recognition bright and crisp as day, new:
be,
still.

today: this, a confession

“There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you, and there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself.”
-Lemony Snicket (and it’s good to know which time you are in…)

I am learning a new thing (I mean, hopefully I am always learning new things). This new thing, though has been challenging and has a lot of moving parts. In the learning process, I am seeing this not-so-pretty side that probably needs to be stripped away: I have tremendously high expectations of myself. Learning makes me giddy with anticipation, but when things take time? Holy cow, am I impatient. That impatience? Exhausting.

Grace, which often comes easily for others, seems out of reach when I need to extend it to myself. Somehow I suspect I am not alone in this, so I’m throwing it out here as a confession of sorts. Sometimes owning a fault disarms it.

Not the most profound of posts, but I needed to get this out.

today: vision.

“I feel very lucky to get to have part of my day leading a visual life…”
–Scott Schumann

The above photograph, New Orleans over New Year’s, where a new city held my attention as if God tucked his hand under my chin and beckoned me, “look.” I drink in cities with eagerness, finding some sense of knowing myself as I take in sights, sounds, food and people. I need places, I think. They remind me that the world is bigger than me. I am intrigued by culture and the way it shapes people and their stories. I want to understand. Where things are beautiful, I want to celebrate. Where they are broken, I want to help.

The above photograph, a moment. That moment, a summary. That summary, a beautiful reminder.

A New Year. Two-thirds of January passed without a lot of words written. The assortment of thoughts formed and stories lived claimed full attention, and when a detail needed be remembered, the shutter snapped. I created a photograph. This, a change, but temporary, I think. Words and images work well in tandem.

The old year, a bit like the one before, left me with questions and a depleted rest tank in need of a refill. The old year, unlike the one before, left me hopeful and hungry. In some ways I feel like I am relearning how to look and see, particularly in the directions God points me. It’s His kindness that turns me, sure as gravity and tangible as the ground that force ever pulls us towards. Oh hello, 2011, I’m most excited to see you. Yes.

More to come. Perhaps less cryptically.

tonight: see.

you cannot extract life from truth
or love from life
shadowed spirals downturn, perhaps
temporary reality
release of all grasped
opens to receive better life
quiet is a soul set free

focus not on focus
instead, learn how to see
counter-intuitive? perhaps
the way often sight follows belief

today: short. sweet. true.

“Mystery is not the absence of meaning but the presence of more meaning than we can understand.”
-Dennis Covington

Deep breaths in a yoga class and then peace and for the first time in weeks and weeks, earnest prayer (It’s not that I haven’t prayed. It’s just that I haven’t prayed.) I commit to full stops more frequently, even if that means adding yoga classes to an already oft over-stuffed mix. The pause produces a quiet thought: I need wonder. A world saturated with things to do! and see! and that you have to be! and want! distracts, perhaps. I need wonder, not for wonder’s sake, but because when peeled back and exposed, I utterly long for life in a world spoken “good.”

The juxtaposition of a soul in but not of. Hopefully.

today: I’d maybe pocket Thomas Merton (oh the wisdom) if I could

New Orleans for New Year’s, and we ducked into a bookstore towards the end of the day on the eve of the eve, tired from the sights and heavy from the food and worn from the streets. Our steps, though, remained light, the reality of time off and away separating exhaustion from the readiness to bid the day farewell. I pulled books from shelves, perusing without committing, the way one does when no purchase need be made. The books, used, felt worn but wanted, the texture and scent of age ripened and enriched the words. A volume of Merton found my hands and my eyes guzzled the content, thirsty for the wisdom. I read this paragraph, then we read together. My soul felt stirred with the wealth Merton shared. I passed the book so I could copy it in my journal, worthy of later revisiting:

“…Our Christian journey is in fact a great one: but we cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great. For our own identity of greatness is illusory, and if we pay too much attention to it we will be lured out of the peace and stability of the being God gave us, and seek to live in a myth we have created for ourselves. It is, therefore, a very great thing to be little, which is to say: to be ourselves. And when we are truly ourselves we lose most of the futile self-consciousness that keeps us constantly comparing ourselves with others in order to see how big we are…”
-p121-122, No Man Is An Island, Thomas Merton

Oh the freedom of that paradox.

today: of meandering and picnics

“She glances at the photo, and the pilot light of memory flickers in her eyes.”
-Frank Deford, journalist

This post because I am dating the guy who looks at the weather and realizes one December afternoon would be a magical almost 80 degrees. Said guy happened to be off work, so he headed to the grocery and prepared some food and picked me up along with my hyper-sidekick-of-a-dog. We wandered to find some solitude off the beaten path (that went right past the dog park, confusing aforementioned dog who forgot her confusion the moment we let her off leash in the field where we threw a blanket down). And we were.

I think God smiles at days like that. I know I do.

The end of 2010 was somehow different than past years. Maybe it was just a busy fall or maybe I’ve shifted gears when it comes to personal photographs, but I find myself meandering through December images. The lack of rush to get my own photographs done makes me relive moments deliberately. How I hunger to be so present as I was that day and as I am when pacing myself through photo editing (an unintentional discovery).

I think God smiles at cognition like that. It’s like he knew teach-ability makes us aware and grateful, that coupling producing eagerness to live, ever finding hope for fullness, the pilot light of memory flickering.

today: a walk

“One cannot spend forever sitting and solving the mysteries of one’s history.”
-Lemony Snicket, genius of a children’s writer that he is, though maybe he’s a she. I have no idea.

“I profane this moment when I won’t stay in it.”
–Ann Voskamp

Among other things, having a puppy has caused me to have to go for walks in addition to running. This is a good thing, because on our walks, narcissism tends to get dismissed in favor of seeing. Busyness falls to the wayside of being. If narcissism and busyness pair to ravage and disease this society, then getting out of doors and seeing a world created and called good just might be the awe-striking remedy needed to make this girl regroup and refocus. And I don’t even live in a neighborhood that is particularly awe-inspiring. It’s just that a searching eye cannot help but find beauty, especially if that eye is made to be expectant. I hunger for such moments. God in His infinite kindness is gracious enough to help me see. That seeing provokes belief.

Endlessly.

tonight: words fleshed

…from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace…
John 1:16

ink, before time passes to dry it,
dances across page ideas new and grandiose of the fashion one cannot buy
scrawled there so as never to be left behind
forming permanence beyond mind’s eye
the scope, narrow
the depth, wide
words fleshed out, oh, always and onward
to life