Presence

 Write every day. What sings today? The desert sings. The clouds sing. Movement. My body. The closeness I feel with The Divine when allowing my being to be fully swallowed by the magnificence of each of these things.

With every sense I get to feel fully alive. I close my eyes and see the red dust of the desert kicked up by the wind where it hovers over a deep red earth. A depth that has seen and felt many stories take place above it. What does the desert know? It knows something, it knows everything, and it holds it there in it's red clay and rock. It knows it so well, that seeing and touching it actually bring you into it. You don't know what the earth knows, but your body is affected by it. When you touch it, your soul take a piece of it's history. You become the past, and the present, and future. What divinity.

I feel like I need the desert. Why do I need it. I don't want to stay there, or live there. I want to just be there. Yes, I want to play there, and boy there is so much to play. But maybe the way the desert just lets you be there is what makes the desert such a special and mysterious and magnificent place. Within this vast open place is an ocean of presence. 

When you're season is Waiting, presence can be hard.

 I have seen the depths of the human soul. The space of the dying is like no other. The beloved stand around with their eyes and their chests and their mouths oozing with tenderness that pierces the dense atmosphere around them. Entering such a space is holy, and soft, and wonderfully sad.

Wonderfully sad, because this dimension can't be practiced, experienced, expected, or re-visted. This is a once in a lifetime moment of the closest we will come to two worlds touching: the now, and the after. No matter what you believe in these moments, the spiritual thicket grows so deep and so dense when the dying begins her journey. It's deep and it's dense so you must slow down, you must watch, and you must wait. When you do this you must also listen, and touch, and smell, and cry. 

I remember every dying hand I've held, and every dying face I've stroked. If they only knew that a part of them has crawled into my tender heart. If they only knew that every tear I shed holds a little part of them. If they only knew that I am only an incomplete and imperfect vessel of God's great and beautiful tenderness towards them. If they only knew how honored I feel to walk a part of that final journey with them, to a holy ground where I get to touch the fingertips of my Lord. 

In these moments I think the depths of our souls know no limits. A journey with an end, that shows the limitless of our souls. What a beautiful and holy ground.

Where books go to die

Up at the earliest hours of the morning to study for a test usually begins a most intense string of hours that eventually lead me to a hard and fast brain crash by noon. Usually, hopefully, the test is over by then. The place most often visited by me next is not usually to a nap, but to that marvelous land of must and dust; also known as the thrift store. My reprieve from the world.
There is a lot of potential that these dingy buildings could--and do--offer someone, but for me it's not as much about finding a treasure as much as it is an invitation to be present. Funny enough, I find deep rest here where I can turn my mind off of all the potential future worries, and simply ask myself if I like that thing collecting dust on the shelf in front of me or not. Is it worth standing in that long line on 50% off days? But perhaps the most enchanting and rest-inducing section of the thrift store is the book section. I said it, the book section.
If I venture out to browse and buy books, chances are the library won't cut it because there is FAR too much to look at. A new book store is full of preconceived notions that all these books are a) probably new-ish, and b) already meticulously approved by someone. A used bookstore on the other hand, they filter those books too. They don't just take anybody's book rejects, they take only the good ones. So there we go again with the preconceived notions. But there is something endearing to me about the book aisles at a thrift store. No body screens them; they come in, and they go on the shelf. They are the ultimate of the book rejects, and I get to stand there for hours on end after I just broke my brain taking a nursing school exam, and get lost in a world of books with no reviews, no one suggesting that this might be a book right up my alley. I get to pick and choose from this glorious pile of someone else's trash, and usually those books are my greatest treasure. They feel like my own personal discovery, and when I open the pages there are no expectations, but only the world that my imagination forms with each new, and unspoiled word.
I am a sucker for the rejects. This is my place.

Perspective

I know, every time I write now it has to do with my time of living in Illinois. You could tell me to get over it and move on, but I can't. Those two years were so formative, and I don't even think I realize quite how formative they were. But I get to step behind a lens every time I visit and see that time from afar, and it makes me see things I was blind to when I was in the heat of formation. It's hard to see quite clearly when we're in the heat of formation. But that's why it's so good, right?

The third time back to Illinois since I've moved to Colorado, and I see a new perspective. This time I see deep beauty, and it was beauty that I prayed for and felt so distant from when I came here. I came to Illinois seeing billboards, stoplights, and cars. But now everything has changed: I see tree branches silhouetting the sky from every window I sit near, and I see a vast sky which watches over the fields of corn, grain, and farmland. There are rolling hills, albeit small rolling hills, and there are rivers and streams. I made it a point to ride around this beauty and soak it all in. I made a point to seek these places out so I could meet God there and appreciate all the work he has put into a place I once thought was a dump. On sunday mornings I was surrounded by voices of angels singing "Hallelujah" before Eucharist that still makes me involuntarily smile with the deep joy of the Lord.
I thought that when I stepped away from the mountains that I had stepped away from the beauty of God's creation. What I really did was step into a whole new way of seeing it, and being lulled and romanced by it. These things made me love Him more, and love His Church. I had nowhere else to go but to God, and to beauty.

Any time I look back through this lens to a dark and difficult time in my life I see what was happening: The Lord was wooing me through it all. He takes me to a place and says, "Look at what I can do, Sarah. I can make the ugliest into the most beautiful, and I can make the greyest into the most romantic. I can make you love the parts you thought you hated."

I am reminded not to take for granted the friendships and beauty that now so evidently surround me in Colorado. And I am reminded to still seek it out even though it sits there, not going anywhere, right out my back door.  I want to love all parts of life, and all parts of God's creation.
It's amazing to me that I can come back to this place now and see a garden instead of a swamp. Nothing, though, has changed. Only my perspective.

Living Radically

Since the moment I realized my independence I have longed to live a radical life. I don't use the term lightly here. I don't mean, "awwesome dude! That was radical". I mean radical as defined: effecting the fundamental nature of something; far reaching or thorough.

I have always wanted this lifestyle. Tasting independence meant reading about, and finding people who live this way, and to be inspired and learn from them. I wanted to advocate, defend, pave a way, and make a story. I have had such far-reaching dreams but accompanied with the knowledge that they WEREN'T that far-reaching because I knew I could follow through with them. Call me a millennial if you will.

I did finally get to escape from my societal box and do so many of these things I had hoped for; I spent awhile begin a penniless nomad figuring my way out. This was not quite the type of radical I wanted to continue to live forever, but the kind that would help me to learn about myself and others around me. It did.

Something happened in those years, though. In a moment when I felt furthest from God is when I got the most evident call from him to uproot my adventurous life and put those short roots down to give them some water, and sun, and life. This was a really hard road for me.
There was a thing so deep inside me that desired to PROVE to everyone that I could be as radical as I had dreamed and spoken of. A way of saying, I don't just talk the talk, guys, but I walk the walk. It's a hard thing to lay that down and realize, a) that I was trying to prove something, and b) that I actually don't have to prove anything to anyone.
In my very desperate need to find some sort of belonging and adventure I prayed for God to guide me instead of taking these steps myself. THAT, you guys, has been a wonderful learning experience: to know that I don't have to have complete control over my life, but I have a God willing and wanting to help guide me.

But for years I've yearned and asked for God to lead me down a path towards a life of living radically. I've told God that I will go anywhere and do anything. I'll go to the ends of the earth and live with the fewest things, I'll sell everything I own (which I have done in hopes of beginning this journey). Doesn't this world need radical people to step outside of our boxes of comfort and do the messy, dirty, hard things that others don't want to do?

When I moved back to Illinois a couple of years ago, secretly somewhere inside of me I thought that I was there to be prepared in some way for the radical life I have always been so sure that I was supposed to be living. In between working full time and reading about my new-found love for all things Creation Care (environmentalist), I was trying to find a way to buy a tipi or a yurt along with possible land I could live off of in Illinois. "And how hard could it be?" would be my constant and naive though.

I've done my share of entree level research on all feasible ways to live off the grid. But in reality all I could do was ride my bike to work and back, and petition for a compost bin at my house. That's about as radical as my life got for those two and a half years living in Illinois.

Now here I am, working two jobs, one of which requires me using a time-clock, the other of which I am constantly staring into computer screen. I'm moving into a small house soon, acquiring all the furniture I possibly can to make my home cozy and welcoming. This is the furthest thing from radical I could image, but this is where I'll be for awhile.

Three years ago I would have cringed at the thought of this. Six or eight years ago I would have cringed at the thought of this. But you know, I asked God to take me out of my comfort zone, and here he did. Here he brought me to a life that resembles from the outside much of what a majority of peoples lives (in our society) look like from the outside. And that's okay, because I see how He has guided me, and has blessed me, and has fulfilled so many desires in my life. Not all of us have to live a life of grandiosity to make a difference in the world around us. When I think of this I am brought back to Mother Theresa again and she reminds me, “not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”

That's where my life sits right now. I am young. I have plenty of time to do those great things, but maybe I won't. Maybe I will end up living in the same town for the rest of my life living in a house with a fence and a dog and a minivan. But the Lord has taught me that even what seems like the most mundane lives are still just as impactful and important as those of us who go into the Peace Corps or work for International Justice Mission.

We must do things with intentionality. We must pray. We must not forget the rest of those around the world who suffer just because there are those of us who are called to stay put right where we are. But know that right where you are is important too. Where you sit and live, where you eat your food, work, and take your dog for walks: Small things with great love.

I thank God for the radical or conventional life laid before me. Only the Lord knows, but with all things I will be thankful and live intentionally. 

The cycle that never ends

I'm feeling deeply nostalgic today.
I spent my week in Illinois, and the entire reason for the trip revolved around love: Friends getting married, pumpkin carving with family, nieces, nephews. Beers with my old favorites from TJ's. There really wasn't anything missing. I made new friends and I got to get good, long hugs from old friends.
Don't make fun, but I may start crying as I write this. The older I get the more emotional I seem to get: Waterworks will often come unannounced and unashamed.
Today I decided to feed into that nostalgia by reading old blog posts... more like journal entries for me however (this is like a portal into my diary guys).  I admit that feeding this sad feeling is kind of a bad idea. It got worse as I started reading posts from when I first moved to Illinois. I read all about surprising my parents by moving back, all the bike trips I used to go on, and the little solo adventures I'd take myself on to keep sane. I read about crying at work because I missed being near daily adventure and beautiful mountains kissing the sky, and now I feel like crying at work because my community here is just not the same. My work community, that is.
I yearned to find God in Illinois, when before all I could see him through were snow-capped mountaintops. I searched and asked and prayed and desired, and as I read back on those writings where I felt I just couldn't take it anymore, I realize now that I was experiencing God so, so very deeply. God was meeting me right where I was hurting and helpless, and he was sitting down with me and feeding me. I see that with my eyes wide open after having gone back to visit last week, and now I yearn for that intimacy I once had and didn't even realize. I miss my family so much it hurts. Near the end there I was really realizing how filled I was by everything, by my job, my church, and the ability to daily interact with my family, nieces, nephew. That is all a thousand miles away, and I prayed and asked to get to come back to the mountains, to get to come back to another adventure and get to turn the page and start somewhere fresh. Now that I'm here, though, I feel like I need God to come back down and sit next to me... I need Him to feed me again. I see, I know he's in these mountains, but now I know also that he IS is Illinois. My hear is deeply rooted in Illinois. Here my Illinois tattoo grows to represent so much more than it even did the day I got it back in Seattle, yet I am met with those same feelings of sadness and pining for a place so far away from me.
Last time I was afraid I would be forgotten. This time I'm afraid I'm missing out a place that has been set and molded for me.

Gods hand was SO evident in every part of my being back in Colorado. But why is every road such a hard road when God is leading the way? I can trust it because my driver is good and He loves me so deeply. But now I'm in unfamiliar territory and I really miss that road I was on before.

Meeting the Lord

This morning at church I was struck so deeply with emotion; I danced in the aisle as we worshiped, and I felt the Lord so near to me. I envisioned him kissing me on the cheek,\ and romantically wrapping his arms around me as I so sensually soaked up fractions of this deep river of love he has for me. Some days I can only hear it trickling in the distance like a small creek, but today I was standing so close to it. The sound of His love so distinct I could nearly see the white caps on the water and the calm pools of eddys banking behind the rooted rocks. What a wondrous love. What an amazing God to captivate me so even though the human, physical parts of me want to say that the desire for sensuality can only be satisfied the ways my own understanding can know. But God is dynamic, and God knows no boundaries to our souls, and our deep hearts desire.
I can nearly feel his love inching around on my skin like a lovers fingertips grazing the fine hairs on my arm. I can nearly see his eyes looking deeply into my own, and knowing me more deeply than I could ever ask to be known. I can hold his hands which he places over both of my cheeks to dry my tears and kiss me on my forehead; a kiss that surges electricity through my most hidden longings and gazes straight into them with adoration. No human can enter that realm as my beloved Lord can.
I am wrapped up within all of my beloved Lord's adoration.
My skin tingling, I asked Him why I have deserved to feel so deeply this morning, and he gazes so lovingly into me and says, "You don't have to deserve it. I adore you." It's not earned. It just is. And I weep with love and I weep for what is to come and I weep for what I cannot yet know which will be so mezmerising and so euphoric yet so grounded when I meet my Lord in the heavens one day.
I heard a glimpse of those heavenly celebrations in church today as well. We silenced ourselves and I wept from the depths of my heart for the happenings in Northern Iraq. "Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy," I sobbed! And he answered with sounds of heavenly celebration for those have come to enter his Kingdom after unjust and hateful crimes have taken their lives. The bells are now ringing for those children and families and individuals. The Lord embraces them with His palms placed firmly on their cheeks as He looks knowingly into their eyes, and they joyfully enter into His Kingdom for eternity.
Lord have mercy for those who Love you and those who don't yet know blissful romance of Your gaze. Gaze into all of us, that we may learn to gaze back.

Man up and run like a girl.

About five minutes ago I fell for one of those links on Facboob. Let's talk about this for a hot second. I hate facebook links (oh, thanks for clicking on mine, by the way). I get caught up in the links and I get caught up in those things that go viral. In a matter of seconds the precious time I could have taken to do something productive has now gone to waste and has been placed with something that I will promptly forget about in fifteen minutes.
This is not the point I'm trying to make, though.
Five minutes ago I clicked on this link: http://guyism.com/entertainment/tv/best-tampon-commercial-ever.html

Watch it. It's a commercial about tampons, but you're not expecting it to be a commercial about tampons when you start watching it. It's a handful of young adults showing us what it's like to do something "like a girl". It's a commercial for tampons but it's a commercial to get us as a people to think about what we're doing, thinking, saying because it can be damaging. It's more of a movement than a tampon commercial. Why does doing something like a girl have to be an insult? It shouldn't be an insult. Don't let it be an insult.
Although this is a good point, this is not my point either.  

What I'm most interested in when I read or watch things like this is not always the content, but the comments. Our personal world get flatter and smaller as the world wide web grows larger. Everyone and their thoughts (and meals, thank you instagram) are right at our fingertips. If you scroll down on that link you'll see some of the following comments:

"Females have been SOARING past males in almost every category for the last 10 years or so. Better grades, higher graduation rates, etc. If ANY gender needs some company to come along and try to give them a morale boost, it's the BOYS, not the girls.
Count me as one of those who is sick and tired of women being treated like some kind of downtrodden and poor and helpless species, all the while American boys and men are slowly going down the cultural drain."

"Past ten years? You can go a lot further back than that my friend... it goes much deeper than the relatively recent uptick in college and graduate school numbers though. If you are interested in the cultural view of men, you can look at television, movies, radio programs, and theater going back a very long time... men are, on balance, portrayed very poorly (sneaks, drunkards, liars, foolish, reckless, dangerous, etc)... look at death rates for a much more grim picture... men have always died earlier and more often than women doing the most dangerous jobs any society has ever had..."

First I got really mad at these people. Then I got sad for them. Then I got upset with everyone. This is one emotional roller-coaser that I don't know how to reconcile with.

While the first poster may be rather insensitive, how can I be upset with a man who feels that his entire gender is being pushed "down the cultural drain"? That's a huge weight and sadness to feel. I don't think we should be upset with him. I think we need to reconcile the male/female relationship in our culture. Why is it such a fine line?
I am no sociologist. I am just a woman who loves my femininity and finds strength in it, hoping others can feel the same in their own gender. So let me hash this out really quick:
Women have been the "lesser" gender for so long, so to speak. We are rising up in a lot of ways. Some are rising up out of anger, some out of pride, some out of love. It's great, and beautiful, and exciting for women! But I can't help but feel that we shouldn't rise up alone. Men and women are still a part of the same species. Masculine and feminine are interconnected and dependent on one another in a lot of ways. They compliment one another (and I'm not talking about romantic relationships. I'm talking about it IN GENERAL). There's nothing weak or bad about this. It's a beautiful, symbiotic relationship. That's what it's supposed to be: a symbiotic relationship.
Women and men.... we NEED to hear more things like this commercial telling us that being a woman, and doing things "like a girl" are not bad. We need to feel strong in our abilities and voices and opinions because we are women, and human, and worth those things. But we cannot, should not, be putting down men in the process. We should not be telling ourselves we are better than men. Nor should we be trying to be like men. We should not be portraying men as "sneaks, drunkards, liars, foolish" in our society. We need to realize that when we put down the opposite gender, we put down our own gender in the process. We need to find the balance and find the harmony between male and female. Just because we let men be strong, doesn't mean we have to make women weak. Feminism should be humanism. It shouldn't favor one over the other. It should speak highly and with pride of each of these beautiful genders we have.
Let me point out that I don't think the video is putting down men in any way. I think it's a great video. But it was the comments I read after that got me going. I have seen too many things trying to build up women that put down men while doing so. It's STILL sexism. It's counterproductive. And on the flip side, if we're trying to build up men let's not put down women in the process.
I think the only way we can do this is if we stop trying to stand unified only within our own gender to be strong. Stop being a pillar of one gender or another. Be proud in your masculinity, be proud in your femininity, and realize that we are dependent on the other. Dependence is not weakness. Dependence is not frailty. Dependence gives us far greater strength than a single pillar can.

Downton Abbey, where are you?

I fought for a long time the fads of the boob tube. After watching way too much of it as a kid, and then realizing how darn nice it was not to have a TV around I sort of decided the the thing was just evil. The more time I spend away from it the stupider it seems to get.
But we all fall into the clutches of evil sometimes, don't we? LOST: evil. Totally evil. I hated that show before I even knew what it was about. And then it grabbed me by the face and sucked me in. Once I started watching Gilmore Girls from the beginning I didn't want to stop. WOULD Lorelei end up with Luke? What was Rory going to do after College? Drama in Stars Hollow too juicy to pass. Especially on cold winter nights tucked away in a cozy mountain home.
And then came Downton Abbey.  Is it Downtown Abbey? Or was it Downton? And what is a downton? Who is Abbey, anyway? And why the heck does EVERYONE watch it and care so much about the happenings of a certain place in England in the early 1900s. It's silly, really: wasting your time on a show that means nothing to your life.
Until my sister convinced me to watch just the first episode since it was there. I sat down to Netflix with a snack at hand planning to shut it off and watch something else in about ten minutes time, when in about nine minutes time I found myself enthralled. And doomed. One month later I released myself from the grasp of Downton Abbey and finished watching every available episode. Instead of thinking about watching it, I find myself just thinking about it. What am I thinking about so often? And why do I like it so much?
Geez.
Will someone tell me when Downton Abbey starts back up again in the States?
I got the first two episodes of this new season about a month ago from someone who downloaded it from the British folks himself. I need more. More more more.

Please be careful when you break me.

God has an interesting way of working in our lives.
Yes, our choices have a lot to do with our hurts and fears, but God plays a roll in what He allows us to bear or not bear.
So why has He cut my identity down in this one specific way? Why has He allowed for my heart to be pierced by this overwhelming insecurity? Over and over and over again I have prayed, and tried, and journaled, and processed about being forgettable. I work on making better decisions yet I find that I am pierced with the feeling of being that girl that just can't be loved, so she gets pushed to the side to make room for someone more time-worthy, more love-worthy. I am left asking myself what it is that is wrong with me? What did I do wrong this time? Perhaps I am simply not enough... not enough for anyone it seems.
Is God trying to cut me down? I know we must be broken before we can be re-built stronger, but God, you're losing me here. Some people knowingly (albeit subconsciously) walk into situations that will make them feel one way or another. I assure you this is not my case. I assure you I desperately want to stay away from the feeling of being not enough. Then does it make it true? Because I can't seem to stay away from this banner above my head, is it true?
Will God show me that these are lies? When? How? Or do I just have to stand here alone and take the hit each time.
I don't know how to pray my way or work my way through this one. I need help.