fragments of frozen rain

"Under the endless rain of cosmic dust, the air is full of pollen, micro-diamonds, and jewels from other planets...people go about their lives surrounded by the unseeable." -Louie Schwartzberg

"The wind makes creatures of our trees." -Lullaby for a Stormy Night

"Histories of abolition, the civil rights movement, even environmentalism, don't begin with people who are powerful, realistic, or even normal. They begin with people who don't know better and who find the world they are born into intolerable. " -Jedidah Purdy

"Isn’t it funny the way some combinations of words can give you – apart from their meaning – a thrill like music?"-C.S. Lewis

"It wasn’t about reading the books – though God knows, the books I was reading at that time were more valuable to me than ever – but it was about being in the presence of books, of words, of the work I wanted so badly to do."-Dana Staves

"Sometimes you’re 23 and standing in the kitchen of your house making breakfast and brewing coffee and listening to music that for some reason is really getting to your heart. You’re just standing there thinking about going to work and picking up your dry cleaning. And also more exciting things like books you’re reading and trips you plan on taking and relationships that are springing into existence. Or fading from your memory, which is far less exciting. And suddenly you just don’t feel at home in your skin or in your house and you just want home but “Mom’s” probably wouldn’t feel like home anymore either. There used to be the comfort of a number in your phone and ears that listened everyday and arms that were never for anyone else, but just to calm you down when you started feeling trapped in a five-minute period where nostalgia is too much and thoughts of this person you are feel foreign. When you realize that you’ll never be this young again but this is the first time you’ve ever been this old. When you can’t remember how you got from sixteen to here and all the same feel like sixteen is just as much of a stranger to you now. The song is over. The coffee’s done. You’re going to breathe in and out. You’re going to be fine in about five minutes." -The Winter of the Air

"If it was an emotion, it was a totally emotionless one. It was hatred, implacable hatred. It was cold, not like ice is cold, but like a wall is cold. It was impersonal, not as a randomly flung fist in a crowd is impersonal, but like a computer-issued parking summons is impersonal. And it was deadly - again, not like a bullet or a knife is deadly, but like a brick wall across a motorway is deadly.” -Douglas Adams

before your face

The light penetrates my eyes, piercing
my face, stabbing deep into 
my heart, and suddenly
all the words I have ever spoken,
all the thoughts I have ever pondered, are there
trembling under your gaze.

I am ashamed. Woe is me, for even
standing in your presence--that alone is enough
to shake my heart and soul to the core
as your beauty and majesty surrounds me
overwhelms me
envelops me in its glory.

But
You see my thoughts, the futile workings
of my mind, plagued by sin and doubt.
You know my motives and my heart; there is
no secret I can keep
No nook or cranny too secret for you to uncover.

My heart is laid bare, and behold, it is barren.
My thoughts are nonsense, like the jawings of a
drunken two year old
My soul is a shattered cistern, unholy and broken
destroyed almost beyond saving
And I am undone.

Why did I doubt you?
Why did I lose hope?
Why could I not wait an hour and pray for my deliverance?

Why were my intentions misguided?
Why did I waste so much time?
Why did I not listen better to your prompting and study your Word?

Forgive me for my nonsense questions
For this babbling mouth, so lacking of wisdom.
Create in me a clean heart
and renew a right spirit within me.

“I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?” 

-C.S. Lewis

Compassion on the Cross

Something that struck me when listening to a version of the crucifixion was Jesus’ perspective through it all. I listened to a sermon by Pastor Larry Osbourne of North Coast Church yesterday wherein he talked about Jesus being fully human—he didn’t know everything that was going to happen, and even the power in him to heal came from the Holy Spirit (and it wasn’t always there). He wasn’t a “Clark Kent” Jesus—just faking that he was man. No. He was FULLY MAN. He emptied himself, gave up all his rights and superpowers and subjected himself to God’s will fully, a choice we see climaxed in the Garden of Gethsemane.

That’s a horse of a different kind. But the thing that struck me especially was that in the Garden, Jesus prays. We all know that. But he doesn’t just pray for himself—he prays for his disciples and all the Christians who are to follow (John 17). When he is being arrested and Peter gets hasty and hacks someone’s ear off, Jesus stops in his tracks (ignoring the fact that, y’know, they’re taking him away to be tried and killed and he’s just been betrayed by one of his friends) and heals the guy. As he leaves the house of Caiaphas where he had just been condemned and ridiculed before the council, the only thing on his mind is to look over at Peter, who has just denied knowing him.

The list goes on. Hanging on the cross he tells John to look after his mother (when he probably had a whole lot more on his mind—like, you know, the fact that he was slowly asphyxiating and bleeding out and hanging from a torture device made of wood). But my favorite—the thing that really made me kind of breathless—was the thief on the cross.

The crowd is ridiculing him. One of the thieves joins in, mocking him and telling him to save himself, but the other guy jumps in and professes a very surprising belief in Jesus. And does Jesus just nod, or even ignore the guy (whose salvation profession may or may not be to the heart sincere?).

No. In the middle of the agonizing pain, as his wrists and feet throb, as the thorns press into the back of his head, as his back screams from rubbing the raw, flogged skin against the rough wood—in the middle of having the sin of the entire world, both past, present, and future laid upon his shoulders, as Satan rubs his hands in delight, as the Father turns his face away and the sky begins to blacken, Jesus looks at that thief and loves him. Tells him that he is forgiven and will be with Him in paradise.

That blows me away. That in the middle of the biggest event in human history, the most important thing to Jesus was not looking dignified as he hung there. It wasn’t praying one more time for God’s will to change. It wasn’t even focusing on being the perfect sacrifice. His love was so great, and so personal, that in the midst of this incredibly important act that would be the crux of history, he spoke into the life of one person. One insignificant person—we don’t even know his name. And comforted him. And gave him the promise of life.

Obviously I’ve never been on a cross and will likely never find myself there, but when I am the busiest or most anxious or things are the most chaotic around me, do I stop and care about others first? Do I “consider others better than myself” and put their interests and needs before mine? It’s easy to do it when your belly is full, or on the road with them, or in the everyday grind of life. 

But on the cross. In the trial. Where is my focus?

O Lord, that you would make my heart love others as you loved them! That you would make me into a person who cares deeply and passionately with a selfless love that surpasses understanding.

He is jealous for me

Love's like a hurricane, and I am a tree

Bending beneath the weight of his love and mercy

-David Crowder Band

contemplating surrender

I am contemplating surrender and finding that it is not an easy task. It is simple enough to speak with your lips, "Lord, take my heart and let it be/ever only all for thee," to pray "Be my all-in-all; ruin my life, the plans that I've made. It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me."

But how does one sacrifice? How does one eternally give up all claim to earthly possessions and feelings and anxieties and desires? Or rather the question should be "CAN one give up all those things?"

I know with my head that You want The Whole Tree, Lord, and not just this branch here and that limb there. You want to uproot ME. To break ME. To unform ME so that you may plant in MY place a thing that is GOOD and of YOU. And I long for that, Lord, with all that my sinful heart can long.

But must it be a daily surrender?

Must I take up my cross every day?

Must I die a thousand deaths-of-self, offer up my will again and again on Your altar in the hopes of one day being conformed to Your likeness?

Will I ever be whole?

"Father, I want to know Thee, but my coward heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from Thee the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do come. Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival. Then shalt Thou make the place of Thy feet glorious. Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there. In Jesus' Name, Amen."

-A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

the first spring rain

A storm is rolling in.

I'm sitting outside the library when the temperature drops about five degrees and the sky starts turning dark. The clouds are like an ocean of gray and white, with purple undertones, but they are blotchy overhead, shifting, like shapes in a vision or dream. Twisting, untangling, rushing past.

It begins with the clouds. But then comes the wind.

It breaks upon me like a wave of furious seawater; I can hear the rumbling of its approach before it beaches itself, blowing dust into my ears and catching at my hair with trembling fingers. Lady Spring smiles seductively and blows and all the leaves of autumn flee (where do the autumn leaves go before the summer has come?), twisting in wild dervishes, scuttling about like bewildered sparrows and finches on the ground. A frenzy of frantic butterflies they fly, soaring in a twister in the air, then dashing themselves up against the walls of brick and stone.

But still, no rain.

I can hardly see (the wind tears at my eyes), I am beginning to shiver (who knew it was 80 degrees only a few minutes ago?), and I am starting to wonder if I should make a run for my car now, or simply wait out the storm and hope I can get back without dooming my laptop to a waterlogged demise.

There is electricity in the air. My teeth are beginning to chatter (but perhaps from excitement). The sound in my ears is only the wind, but I am waiting for the thunder.

I notice a rather large insect on the wall (not quite a beetle, but some kind of leafbug?). He stands unhampered by the wind, little caring as to the weather. He has weathered many storms in his time, and fears not wind nor rain nor lightening (I wonder, does lightening ever strike the unwary bug and burn him in his tracks?).

A few minutes pass. The wind dies down. The sky becomes a solid sheet of gray.

And then comes the rain.

It starts as a few large dragon-tears, dripping from the sky like a leaky faucet. Then more, and they're falling on the trees making a satisfying dripdripdrip sound that thrills me to the marrow. Birds sing to their young. A morning dove coos.

Something that maybe is thunder whispers soothing poetry overhead. I take a deep breath of the moist air and--yes, there it is. The smell of rain.

What does rain smell like? Well scientifically, it's ozone rising from the warm ground, but I'll tell you what it smells like:

East Texas mornings
and roadtrips
mist rising from South Dakota lakes
coffee shops in Colorado
poetry
scones
the feathers of finches
a little like chlorine and hotel rooms
hot showers
and a kiss from Mother on my cheek.

The thunder is artillery and the rain taps a tattoo on the pavement. The sky is a graphite drawing of the sea.

And at last I give in. I can't stand it a moment longer.

It is time to join the finches and autumn leaves and gently tapping raindrops
it is time to dance in the rain.

day after dreary day

It's been a week since the break, and I still find my mind wandering in abstract ideas and prosaic musings that don't add up to two. It's like having the attention span of a five-year-old because the world is so great and strange and new that you can't focus on the present activity of walking to class or even the future fear of finding a job because look there are fuschia flowers popping out of green buds and the grass is the color of unripened bell-peppers.

This morning I awoke inside a cloud. The branches on the ghostly trees hung silently until the spring breeze began stirring in the deep, sending the flowers trembling with a yawn, cartwheeling across the surface of the silent lake. And then the mist blew away like wreathes of smoke (where does fog go when the wind takes it by the hand and whispers "Run"?) and all that remained was a slight dampness and the smell of fresh grass.

Walking to class, I saw a child with skin as soft as silk and slight, slanting eyes. My mind memorized the way his arms swung out, the way his steps faltered and jerked along in the sporadic movements of a child, still learning to be human. Spontaneous, free, joyful. The world is new to him, and everyone's head brushes the sky.

Jets roared overhead. I stopped to stare, the roar resounding in my ears and for a moment everything was just blue--the blue of the sky stretching over me, flying, soaring over the surface of this spinning ball of mud. And when I turned to walk on, I was flying still.

The world is new and strange, because I am growing. My head is inches away from brushing the sky. I am learning to look at a couple holding hands and smile because He holds my hand and my heart, and a mere fifty years is nothing compared to eternity. They are an echo of the real, a shadow of love, but I have the thing itself, the unknowable, the vast, the magnificent, the glorious. I am learning that suffering is not meaningless, that waiting and waiting and feeling as though I am always sliding backward as day by day my sin becomes more evident in the light of His love and grace is only the fire burning those very sins away, the wine press that is making this bruised and broken skin less and less a part of me.

I am learning to pray for brokenness.

I am learning that only one thing matters in life, and all else is vanity. And the one thing--not only is it the pearl of great price, worth dedicating my whole life, day after dreary day, to serving, seeking, finding, preaching. Not only is greater than any loss I could suffer, greater than any sacrifice I could give, greater than any pit or darkness or despair or depression. Not only is it All, but it is already mine. All the answers to the questions I ask lie in the leather book I carry with me every day, sitting there in the worn backpack beside me.

O, that my heart would be able to say, in complete truth, "You are enough for me!" If only I believed His promises, trusted in His faithfulness, leaned upon His strength instead of blistering my hands digging into this hard clay.

Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Though you slay me, yet I will praise you
Though you take from me, I will bless your name
Though you ruin me
Still I will worship
Sing a song to the one who's all I need.

-Shane and Shane, "Though You Slay Me"

spring evenings

On rare spring nights, we used to walk together, just you and I.

Those early spring evenings, where the weather wavers between soft humidity that fluffs my hair into a Victorian masterpiece and cool, breeziness with a hint of winter still clinging to its edge--the light of the waxing moon, set like a gleaming white coin low in the eastern sky--the leaves, once red and yellow in autumn, now blowing, all skeletons and dry remains, around our ankles.

At first when I leave the house, I am alone, head drooping, eyes fixed on the white path of our driveway beneath my feet meandering their way along. But soon the stars begin to sing and a lonely mockingbird, and I look up from my heavy thoughts

and see you. Waiting. As if you've been here all the time.

(but of course you have--I just pretend not to remember)

Sometimes you take my hand and lead me along the path, but other times we pace side by side, not even needing the simplest touch. The cats follow us and rub up against your ankles, and you tuck a strand of frizzing hair behind my ear and whisper, "What's wrong?"

And fragment by fragment, syllable by broken syllable, the words come--angry, bitter, full of self-pity, of hurt and disappointment and despair. Foolish words. Biting words ("Don't you care that I am perishing?"); sincere words ("I can't do this on my own."); and sometimes, on the darkest nights, no words at all.

Mostly I forget you are the author of my story (strange miracle, that we should be able to talk in such a way) and simply vent (because, after all, who else was there to vent to? And you asked, after all).

You never interrupt me. You simply listen, sometimes taking my hand or leaning closer to me or, when I can't keep the tears from filling up my eyes and wetting my cheeks, wrapping your arms around me and saying, "There, there." But you always let me finish.

And then, when all my words have run out and I have nothing left to give, no more tears left to cry, you wipe them away and take me in your arms.

"You poor, shortsighted thing," you say, stroking my hair. "If only you could see, Dear One. That this isn't how it ends. That this isn't even where it begins. That in five years tomorrow's exam or So-and-so will not even be remembered to you. You're constrained by time--but remember that I am not. I know how it ends, and trust me, it's beautiful. Beautiful. Just like you."

A bitter laugh. A "Just like me," in the most skeptical of tones.

A finger on my lips. "Just like I made you. Do you think I couldn't have given you raven black tresses or clear gray eyes if I had wanted? Dear One, you are perfect. You are mine."

"But I'm not--"

"You are mine."

"But my life--"

"--is beautiful, for I have planned each step you will take."

"But my heart--"

"--is yet weak and young, but I will grow it in due time."

Eyes drop to the ground. There are a few tears that mingle with the dirt my shoes are playing with.

"But why couldn't it be a love story?"

I feel your arms go around me again, and the warmth is all around me as you breathe into my hair, "Oh, Dearheart. It is a love story. But so much truer one than you know."

----

On rare spring nights, we used to walk together, just you and I. And when you looked on my mouse-brown hair and eyes long dimmed by tears and face I never could reconcile as even passably pretty and told me I was beautiful and Beloved--not the skeleton leaves nor the cold light of the moon nor the doubts and fears of my own waking soul could shake the love that was kindled between we two.

And in other early spring evenings, we shall walk together again.