franticktickticktock

that is from a metallica song called frantic. it reminds me of how i've been running about of late trying to accomplish so much, trying to do everything, and getting nothing done. nothing of substance that is.

the more i ask God, what do You want from me? the more i hear, wash the dishes, sweep the floors, set your house in order.

this baffles my mind. it is not the answer i want to hear. i've been trying to do that but often i get sidelined by the utter chaos of clutter. the drudgery of doing the same thing day in and day out. how many times does one need to clean a bathroom in a week? the answer it seems is more than i'd like. these are the pivotal questions of my faith right now. where the rubber is meeting the road and i am balding ready to blow.

purging time is upon me again and when i return from the mountaintop, i go knowing i am ill prepared (how can one prepare to encounter God?), i go knowing i have much to do when i return.

publishing contracts, payment for editing services, none of this matters to me. what does matter is that i start keeping my house clean, learn to cook (i'm all right but nothing fabulous and i certainly don't enjoy it), and truly nurture my family.

sometimes i am blind to the obvious and i believe myself to be in such a time. i've been locked away hidden in my home for so long that i don't want to be about that anymore. and with so many potential good things on the horizon (publishing, etc), i want those things with my whole heart. but not at the expense of my family. that cost is too dear and i cannot pay it.

but i hear the Lord saying, want what you have. that songline, you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you just might find, you get what you need comes to me as the very mandate of the Lord.

i have never wanted success, publishing at the expense of my family and now i stand at the very crossroads of that decision and must choose for my family again. how to do this is one dish at a time, one floor at a time, one meal at a time.

and then perhaps, in time, the Lord will release me from this obscurity. perhaps not.

proof

well i've just printed out my first proof of my poetry collection titled, mere consolations.

taking this to share with other poets of the calibur i will be with this weekend is a bit daunting. i'm not easily intimidated, usually i'm resilient. but this is too near and dear to me not to go with my head slightly bowed.

i find that when it comes to these words, these pages of my heart in print, that i am, like every artist--sensitive about it. i am trying to brace myself for criticism which i will receive, but at the same time remember i am speaking in my true voice and that is not something to be edited out or embarrassed of.

well, that is all for now. i've much brewing my brain in terms of contemplation but i can't put it into words just yet. it is still grey and misty. and i remain uncertain exactly what i am to say about any of it. and when.

until then.

peace.

wellmess ratio

we'll see if this goes on to become a brilliant post or like so many other things in my life falls into the abyss of silence.

my girl is on the mend, her fever broke after nearly seven days. i can tell she is feeling better as the apache has returned. eyeing me as i question her. leaving shampoo bottles with pools of sticky coconut smelling concoctions running down the side and pooling on our faux-marble, placed just so i grab them instinctively and slime my hand (but do not clean the mess, i don't feel good either). i leave it there for when i wander through next or my husband unwittingly falls into the same sticky trap. who will then in turn leave it for me to clean up. what goes around, comes around it seems.

we passed the pony purchase ratio at toys r us yesterday adopting seven my little ponies (i was assured the limit on pony purchases was five), but they made a one time exception for which i am glad. my girl who coughed her way through the weekend did not cough much while extracting delicate ponies from their packaging.

packaging that strewn about the livingroom this morning testified to her wellness.

you're making messes again, i'm glad to see you're feeling well. yes, i'd rather have the messes than a sick child who does not want to play.

dreamlife

Tonight I dreamt of my grandmother. And she was come to me from God’s presence. She was young, joyous, and knew Scripture—well. She sat across from me and leaned on her arm as she looked into my eyes, and questioned about this darkness. I evaded her, she pursued. Then gave me Hebrews 8:1 and James 5 as she knew I would not surrender my position. We spoke of other things, I got a notepad to scribble messages for liz, geen and then she left me in her house, her only house, the one where all my days were lived, where I knew safety, comfort, where I had refuge.

Then in the blue room, my mom, sister and I were there with grandpa. He had on tan slacks, a large tribal belt buckle, black belt, and a button down white shirt with pinstripes. He wore cowboy boots and moved swiftly. He was young. He carried with him a ball of yarn. He was crocheting. He sat at the kitchen table just outside the blue room crocheting while we settled ourselves in the room. I laughed because this was grams’ pastime in life. Fashioning warmth, comfort, style one skein at a time. Hours upon hours she would sit and crochet. I know now these were prayer shawls, mantles if you will, she draped us in illness and health in robes of prayer. It seems grandpa has taken up that heavenly occupation. And I was tired, so lay down on some gray yarn. The skein he was working from was cream and blue variegated. I could not tell what he was making, but imagine it consisted of soldiers. Among the many things my grandma taught herself, was crocheting. she taught us how to make chains and soldiers and pair them to make blankets—or anything we wanted really.

Gramps lay down beside me and his presence reminded me of when we were young, and I would sleep between him and grams. Aunt Jane and Uncle Tony were there because they were always there, an unchangeable constant of my early years I would not have otherwise. They kept their silent vigil in their respective rooms, serving, loving, being. Gramps lay down to sleep beside me and I awoke.

It occurred to me how easily we hang our hopes upon one person. Whether right or wrong. We fashion our future from dust. And they cannot live forever. They, like our beloved Lord, must die. Just as we. But there has only ever been one Man worthy of such trust. Our inward bent is idolatry. Making little temples and altars wherever we can to gain favor.

Yet the only worthwhile favor we have ever needed, was ours before we knew we needed it. It is no longer the stuff of temples and altars, but of hearts and fire. The Indwelling King laid it all down for our redemption, relationship restored. A priceless, unmatched gift many cannot allow themselves to receive.

And I imagine Mary spending her Sabbath revisiting Jesus’ last tormented hours, walking the streets, seeing the scenes, hearing the jeering crowds. And weeping wordless.

death shroud

v.

red hot
embers
cool to
black

the silent
garden
revisited

the temple
a shell of
chaos

the veil
torn

the courtyard
empty

the whipping post
weeps

the blood stained
path
i walk
You stumbled
a pulp
hardly
recognizable

the agony.

O my Lord
Your words
come to me
in this
darkness

three days
the temple
cannot be
rebuilt it
has fallen

golgotha
lone hill

Eloi Eloi
Lama
Sabacthani

Eloi Eloi
Lama
Sabacthani

we are lost
without
You

the hard work begins

over the past couple years, mostly because my then writing group demanded something of me, i compiled my poetry into two collections. since then, i have written another. since these collected collections comprise a story of sorts, i hesitate to send them into the world unbound together. they will be read in varying order, and may become singletons when in fact they are triplets at heart.

to remedy that, i have decided to publish the three collections in order. they have proven to be unwieldy and quite overwhelming. some things i could overlook in one collection i could not overlook in the triad. each collection suddenly had to bear the weight of the others.

weighing in around 300 pages, i opted to cull the collection of lesser poems that never had much more of an appeal to me than origin. those were the easy ones. the ones who never looked like my children, but bastards, orphans if you will. i cut them loose, and sought to find others to send away with them.

it has taken over five complete readings to narrow the collection down to somewhere in the neighborhood of 209 poems. these withstood my repeated scrutiny. their words held together when questioned by my editorial sensibilities, and these, i believe are the best representation i can present at this moment to the world. (critics now's your chance!)

these triplets need a collective name, and it is to that end i write this now. i thought i'd ask only my friends but decided i'd do a poll of sorts so see what would happen. so i'm listing here some of my potential titles for my collected collections. individually named and in order those collections are called: revolution of a soul, break me gently, and irreverently reverent.

collected, these are the optional titles (see if you can pick out the two my husband suggested) in no particular order:

rampant ingratitude
radical dependence
infinitely loved
shattering encounter
veiled clarity
out of darkness
lived concrete
exhilarating agony
stark raving honesty
reckless abandon
pantywaist preacher
a soul laid bare
naked trust
ragged journey
unearned grace
poems from a dark night

i am also open to suggestions. this seems a most important choice and i don't necessarily want a christian reference or some sappy happy title. i dig perplexing uncertainty.

anywhoo. there you have it. have at it, let me know your thoughts.

consumer

i've been on the recieving end of some "without works, faith is dead" comments lately. and i sit here after having labored all day for my family (i can always do more, with a better attitude, but that goes without saying), gone to a meeting where i am in leadership for an organization for my daughter, and then i can look forward to sunday hearing how i am consuming.

while it is not my intention to lay out all i do for you to see. it is my hope that you will remember the hidden things. we all have them. we all do them. God sees them and knows.

i am tired tonight. i've been tired for a while. every time i try to engage in church i get the feeling i'm not living up to somebody's expectations of me. i'm not quite the person they want me to, or think i "should" be. and that troubles me.

they don't ever come out and say, why aren't you serving in the church? no, they just lace sermons and conversation with references to these issues.

i like the direct approach, incase you haven't noticed. and i await the direct approach. unless you ask me specifically, why aren't you serving in the church, i won't answer that question. i won't get defensive. but i will get tired of hearing veiled comments and feeling pressured to use my influence on my husband (which is why women are talked to about such things right, to get them to play puppet master with their husbands?). i cut those strings long ago. i'm not going back down to that bondage again. if you have a question or want some action from my husband, you had better ask him directly. i am no conveyor of secret messages. no prompter of good works (that is someOne else's job).

the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord and He directs it where He will. not me. not the kind people at church. i have stopped ruling our home and if i am to sit beside my husband and do nothing, so be it. i will do it unto the Lord.

i'm just tired of feeling like i'm not being a good christian. when it comes down to it, none of us would be good christians if it weren't for the grace and mercy of the Lord. so if you are challenging me to be a better christian, it had better be under the unction of the Holy Spirit, because if not, it is just a load of guilt. and i don't go on those trips anymore.

melon collie

my dog
ran away
not
wasting
his affection
on one
who only
seems able
to love
only those
who cannot
love
in return
he did
not
linger
but
caught
a ride
and set
out to find
one
who could
love him
in return
and i
miss him

marketshare

being a homeschooler i long pondered how i would teach history. clearly it needs to be taught but i did not want to teach the history i learned. to convey some blind allegiance to what men want to believe but the historical record does not bear out. neither do i want to teach history the way i learned it. i wanted some text, some representation of the complexities of the founding of america. i have yet to find that text.

i am dealing with a child here and while the atrocities of tribal battles, the horrors of nazism, the chaos of church-wars in europe are subjects we can deal with at a later date, we are beginning a study of the history of this land we live on.

so what i have begun doing is annotating the text with my daughter. she reads the history text to me and we discuss it. there are some things a simple word change will do: native americans thought of themselves as sovereign nations. we line out thought and put, think. easy enough.

but there are some irredeemable passages we simply line through and try to purge from our minds:

Because [indians] didn't have the Bible, which tells us about the one true God, they worshipped many false gods. Their worship of false gods kept them from advancing the way europeans had.

how do you redeem such grievious errors in thought and logic? True enough there was no Bible in the new world, i let that stand. but i cannot ever be convinced God is not large enough to reveal Himself to peoplegroups without europeans. somehow europe became indispensible to God and salvation. i don't understand it. it breaks my heart to think children are still being taught this. then attributing the lack of a european Bible/worshipping false gods to keeping tribal people from advancing "the way europeans had."

in one passage america is deemed a wilderness because it lacked cities and cultivation. but that manifest destiny thinking is so off base. clearly the authors have never seen photos of anasazi cliff dwellings or navajo hogans. clearly it never occurred to them that european civilzation is not the ultimate.

get this line:

the history of america as we know it actually began in europe.

what?

i have walked around homeschool conferences asking, do you have anything less european? and the vendors (typically white--i cannot recall one minority vendor) stare at me like i'm insane.

i think, when this is all said and done, i will have a history book that genuinely lays out in non-inflammatory language, remember i am teaching my child, the history of this land we live on. taking into account the great nations which existed before the first boats arrived. before the gold-grabbing began. before the treaties were violated.

i hope also to be able to convey to my daughter that europeans, americans for that matter don't have a corner on the righteousness market. God doesn't need us. He doesn't need you or me to convey the depth and breadth of who He is to any peoplegroup. and i refuse to believe He would let myriad nations live and die without access to the Way, the Truth and the Life. He has made a way. we simply have not comprehended it. and i for one, am unwilling to condemn all these many nations to hell for my ethnic pride.