Musings From The Tale of A Comet

Echo

2011-04-12T10:31:00.000-07:00

It seems I haven't listened to the echo of my thoughts in awhile. I've been in motion moving, doing, going. And every time I've looked at this blog I've felt that I haven't had anything better to say than my last posting. My thoughts and emotions seem a bit of a jumble to me. I feel quixotic and yet the pull of different directions tugging at the sleeve of my soul. I'm listening to U2 it seems appropriate with the hum of the jostling heart beat rhythm ringing in my ears and it feels good. I practice my guitar, I write and sometimes I sing. And it seems to move my visions forward. It seems to move me forward. I am content with my creativity for once. I seem to think in terms of God's time table. I remember saying once when I was deeply sad "I'm wasting God's time being sad and not doing anything productive." He wisely said "It's God's time to waste isn't it? You need to learn to be". So I think I'm more comfortable just "being" than I ever have. I go to the movies and sit in the dark alone and I don't mind. I never did mind. I can envision my stories up there flickering against the light and the darkness for once. I do ordinary things like laundry, dinner and tying my shoes. I feel fragile and sad once in awhile. I'll still have a day sometimes were I become nervous and tremble. I don't like it when it happens but I endure. I still worry about different things in my life I can't control and doubt God's love or faithfulness. But I find that is only human. God is still God and heaven, I know, is too real. I struggle with my sin and ask for forgiveness in the darkness. I'll pray in the mornings and thank him for things like clean water and bread. I laugh over little things and that feels bright and clean and good. My friends are deeply kind and true and that gives me immeasurable joy. And Cliff is a gift. I love the line of his shoulders and his laugh. I'm waiting for summer so I can find my fields again.

Sojourn.....

2010-12-16T12:25:00.000-08:00

Chords are struck on my guitar and my words flow after them. I sing. And the words lately pluck the unaltered chords of my own humanity. I sing from whatever my soul is needing to say. The words unrehearsed are "come and take me home". No matter how hard I try not to think about it, it seeps into me. It whispers to me. It shouts. This is not my home. God has made a place for me and the world and all its wonder and inner workings and waning is not it. My spirit inwardly groans to see God's face. And it's more than just wishing for a place like heaven it's a deep knowing that its actually there and yet I can't cross the threshold. Our culture so out of touch with the invisible God how he watches us toil and sin and laugh and rise in the mornings and rest at midnights. He keeps a vigil because God never sleeps. So he knows my longings and all the dark places in me and all the goodness he has made in me, he knows that I miss my home. The world can not understand this. But the world is subconsiously vitally aware of it. It plays out in stories. We hunger to know other worlds in fiction and in science. All the greatest stories ever told were of other places never visited. Most of us want there to be "something" else and "somewhere" else. Its not that death fascinates me, not at all it's that heaven does. And I pray knowing in my logical mind that the prayers are being heard by God in heaven and I think one day I will be seeing the God I'm praying too. Jesus said blessed are those who have beleived and not seen. I can only take hold of the word of God like boundry stones for my life.

Winding Down...

2010-09-28T06:01:00.000-07:00

Lately, I sing my hallelujahs while the sun is winding down and the stars begin to shine their crowns. I sing em while the angels are singing theirs upon the steps near God's balcony. So the resolute trees I know and the stumbling sandstone mountains and oceanic skies thrum praises as the angels worship with us.
I've been sifting through Mere Christianity and I like his concept of time. C.S. Lewis believed that since God lives outside the realm of time that all our moments on earth are happening at once. Today is tomorrow for us in the eyes of God. Our days happening faster than flipping pages in a new book. Now this concept may take a moment to fall into your heart because we think time is as a steady unbinding thing as the silver working gears on a grandfather clock.
I guess I've been feeling the waiting and the longing. You know the waiting for the when you'll ever get there. To heaven or the next task or the next movement of your beating heart. It feels relative to poets and the prophetic in little moments I think. I'm becoming older the more that I breathe and I haven't accomplished what I would have wished in this life yet. I have loved and I have watched sunsets and I've known God. And I'm finding my map isn't God's for me. I have to trust that ordinary days are deeply meaningful that the trials and the pressing, the whispered prayers and all the simple glorious blessings I take for granted are God's destiny for my life. God binds me to himself and takes hold of me even as the devil tries to deceive me into believing I'm forsaken or forgotten or only ordinary. The truth is we are all more extraordinary than any of us could ever dream. God's love makes us significant and it is impossible for me to deny that.

The View From Here....

2010-07-21T10:40:00.000-07:00

The hands of Jesus (I'll remind myself while Jesus reigns in heaven wrapped in that overwhelming glory) still hold the scars that have remained. They have remained when he met Mary in that non-descript garden as the lowly gardener finding her. He spoke her name while she wept at the sight of the thorns on all the stems of the colorful roses. And the scars remained after Thomas confessed his relentless doubt and then when he finds his faith in the creases of Christ's palms. Faith that bloomed like a flower. They remained when Jesus went into the depths and took the keys that were meant to free us and then when he walked on dusty roads giving his wandering friends wisdom about this Son of God/Man (this unlikey contridiction) they watched contain his extrodinariness on a hewn down cross. Even then The scars never left.

I'm sure that his hands still hold strength and kindness and the complete surrender of all my wanting. I don't walk in step with the rest of the world I'm more aware of this than I'd like to be. Its an out of step life, its a turn left life when everyone says you should turn right. I submerge myself in silence till someone asks the deeper questions. I'm not what the world wants but I am what God desires and that has made all the difference.

Pendulum

2010-06-10T11:10:00.000-07:00

If you know me only a little even after reading these pages you'll know I have an abiding love for trees. Tall, silent great guardians in winter and summer bringing solace to me when I ever most needed it. Well...not the trees exactly but the end design of all my wanderings and walking and prayers and conversations in tune with God. The trees are a kind of connection between my heart and God and where my feet usually lead me by the time I'm finished talking or by the time God is finished talking to me. Strange how God will plant a certain affection for a singular tree that I'll admire in some singular fashion in different seasons of my life. Anyway there is this beautiful alighted tree near my friend's house I'll pass by so often. Its very tall and full of life and deeply beautiful. If things in this world are like pieces of well placed furniture in a house let that tree remain my armchair. So, the tree imagine is a most beautiful thing like joy you can open up in a box whenever you desire it just by laying your eyes on it.

And the other day I hear a sad true tale that unravels me from the core and renders me off balance. I think to myself how in congruent in life the bitter and the honey. I think to myself stupid beautiful tree and how it mocks me resting so peaceful on the same earth where Godlessness can ruin us. I pace back and forth from angry to sad. I swing like a pendulum for a day before resting in prayer. And I'm emotional and feeling dramatic about it but I'd loathe to turn cynical. Though there are those that would believe cynicism wisdom and kindness weakness. I pray...lead me to where God reigns...just lead me to where God reigns....

BluePrints....

2010-06-08T11:48:00.000-07:00

Words drip and cascade and at times almost thunderlike roll out of me. Every day lately, I watch the drama of clouds serene or fantastical or carrying an ominous dark quality and I reflect on them as if I were a great painter. I walk into gardens of silver trees and fragrant hushed flowers and think about eden and wonder if the angels held any curiosity about this unbroken cord still guided from God to man. I remember a conversation with Bob about how this world and the reality of it is nothing but well placed furniture on a stage for God and us to move about in but Bob said it so much more elequiently than I. I'll lie in my room face buried in the floor and offer praise and ask for Christ's redeeming quality to fall on me. I seem to walk around with a fastidious energy that is calmed in the presence of God. I still try to paint whether the canvas rendered is any good at all just to endure and release some of this radiant passion. Perhaps I should leave it only for my words or let God direct it into higher goals. I pray about that too. I listen to music and read and work and write and love and keep to some sort of schedule. And after reading all this and compiling yet more words I think my fate is to always be creating and writing and pouring out. God willing the efforts will at least bring some peacefulness to God and man. Michelle says that our steps are ordered and that nothing will stop certain events in our lives. My blueprints reveal I'm to think in poetry and glory in walks of prayer in silent gardens.

Quote....

2010-05-20T05:41:00.000-07:00

"Its a great madness feeling everything from the deep pools of dreams."

I had this thought after walking home yesterday. I went straight away and doused my hands in hues of blue paint and threw my madness down onto a canvas.

On a tightrope between dust and dreams....

2010-05-14T11:19:00.000-07:00

I don't know why but I seem to write things here that are beautiful and cryptic. I'll talk about the older faded stories of my life as if they were once scattered dreams in a lost diary or describe a phoenix burst of emotion that I'm in the midst of raging through or walking on a cloud from. I have this tendency to view the world like an impressionistic painting. Thinking of color...illumination fascinates my soul. When I was in Manhattan a few weekends ago I sat with a fancy dinner underneath white table cloths and soft orange lights that made the blue and gold wine bottles on the bar glow like the hues in Picasso's Starry Night. A few hours before we had taken a wrong turn on the subway and ended up in a lovely Latin barrio. We passed a sunny park where a few old gentleman took out their conga drums and Spanish guitars and began singing. Kids spoke Spanish on the streets. We turned on the corner of an outdoor cafe where couples laughed and danced to live salsa music. Lovely memory. When I sleep at night my dreams are like half erased sketches to me. My grandmother is dying and I have to think about when my life will be living without her soon. She loves Jesus so completely. I send her cards in the mail and go home when I can to visit. I'll remember moments in time with her that have made parts of me...we'll me. How does that happen exactly and how does one forget and remember so easily? Today I remembered a boy I had forgotten from college I don't think I ever told anyone about. His name was Micah he was tall and thin with dark black lashes and curly hair. He was a christian and we talked about his name and the prophet it was taken from. He was creative and funny and I remember half way through the course realizing that he had one blue and one brown eye. I told him I hadn't noticed till then and he said he was a little self conscious about it but I remember thinking how unique and beautiful it made him look. How well it seemed to fit his character. I can't remember if I told him so or not. Funny thing what a day brings.

Cold Rush

2010-05-06T11:47:00.000-07:00

Pluck at my bare heart like a chord from the silver strings of your sojourn guitar. You play it like its your lover's last song and sling the nature of your craft along your hip like the gypsy you are. My soul tastes the colors of stained glass windows and finds comfort in the silence of statues carved by sculptors muscled hands who chip away their life into stone. I'm a little restless surrounded by grey walls in the morning light and when the sun rises. Oh God come and speak to my impassioned nature. I want to dance in firelight and sing hallelujahs outside my door and paint with my hands and carve stone and walk closer to you than I did before. I want to speak to angels whom I know are there even though I don't see them. There is something beautifully longing in this heart and it feels like stars being born. Christ lives in this sinewy temple and I feel his freedom and his likeness resting inside. The hallelujahs don't ever seem to be enough but somehow they are. I have had these strange and powerful fleeting thoughts lately of joy and light and your love. As if you and I were drinking down the sun in a coffee cup and you say my name as if I'm you're only one...you're one and only and I think to myself I can do anything, anything at all if your winding up my clock or putting the wind in my sails or breaking down the door or whatever it is that you do so well. And I find it humbling and terribly strange.

Eclipse of God....

2010-04-28T13:22:00.000-07:00

Whenever I go to church lately and stand and listen to notes rising up from the choir- notes out of the housed chests of men praising like hidden winged treasures in a sand dollar, these notes shatter my false illusions about this world.

I stood in the shadow of a long hallway once with only a sliver of light from a room the choir was practicing in. I was drawn too the praise as if an angel had guided my hand there. It seemed so late in the half light as I lifted up my voice too while we sang accapella on the other side of the wall between us. They practiced as I praised and I felt awash in it so much so I'm not sure how my feet carried me home that night.

But lately, at church my spirit so full of joy can not even seem to sing or make a sound at all. I can only seem to be thankful and weep near the alter so close to my shod feet. It happens that way feeling so close to the God who is no more only a reflection of the things that I see but is a part of them. Who is so near to me I feel I must move my breathe to a hushed and humbled "Amen" for the truth of it and there are times when all my spirit inside can do to acknowledge this truth is weep a little at it. At work a few weeks ago I had a conversation about how I felt about how I looked. I told them this..."I always believed I was beautiful no matter what other people believed or thought about me....because I know God created me, and if God created me then I am a part of God and he is a part of me and God is everything that is beautiful."

If heaven is like a man with buried treasure then I'm in for a pence and in for a pound.

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

Getting the stars out of my head....

2010-03-31T11:22:00.001-07:00

I get tangled up in thistled thorns and find myself walking through low burning brush fires. There is ash falling like snow as I move towards sun ripened gardens. And it feels like stars are bursting in the back of my brain somewhere. I beleive the universe marches with all the precision and elegance of a gilded pocket watch. Then symphonies start to comply as I walk past sparrows. I keep wishing I could ask Monet how he caught the light and wonder if I should dare put my hand to the same tasks. I can't draw anything so satysfying nor do I have the patience for the process of things. The smooth stone of a moon set last morning with an orange etherial glow. And I think I need to gulp down new words or worlds either would suffice. I keep putting my words on a pedastal but they keep falling back down on me. Dear God I've been writing letters with a heavy red wax seal on them did the Angels tarry them off to your door? Why the imagination and no map, sealed letter or telephone call to follow it up? I keep remembering reading to Karma in the hospital and John whom both cried at the beauty of my stringed sentences. I need a tool kit out here in the wilderness. Some direction and assurance would be greatly appreciated. Let me breathe in art and build something. I don't care about my little ducks being in a row anymore just speak to me.

Time and tea

2010-03-24T12:28:00.000-07:00

I haven't written here partly because I liked my last post. I left you on joy. And partly because I've been busy. And partly because I feel like I keep saying the same things over and over again. 1. Events happen or don't happen or I choose x, y or z and cause events then I feel or think...(fill in the blank here). 2. God is aware of these events or caused these events and feels or thinks (fill in the blank here). Its almost comical.

I'm still working on my novel but these last few weeks my characters feel like a comic book creation and the story seems flat and two dimensional. I'm not saying these things are true its just how I feel about them right now (See premise 1). I struggle with some sin or other and then go back to Jesus about it after I've tired of the wrestling and quicksand of it then decide to pick up my cross and sacrifice the sin to God. I do this repeatedly. I visit friends. I visit family. I call or don't call friends or family. I get cabin fever. I crave adventure and freedom but stay dutifully at home, pet the cat and go to work. I desire to paint or write or kiss my husband all with the passion of a hurricane. So far I can't seem to write or paint. I did sit and draw whatever was in my minds eye the other night and came up with a twisted hand. I have strange dreams and find that I can interpret them lately. I get bored, I get somber, I laugh about the weather. I read the book of James and drank its spirit. Life moves at the pace of growing trees or melting snow or spilt shadows and it still seems to be moving too quickly. I miss Karma and coffee with Bob. I miss Amanda's singing. I want to make Kim laugh and my brother peaceful. My father knows God. And angels worship. I feel broken down and beautiful. I feel like I'm re-enacting a play I forgot my lines to.

Upswing

2010-01-19T15:06:00.000-08:00

I cannot seem to stop singing while these winter days usher me towards spring and somehow praise rushes up and escapes from within the deepest recesses of my heart. I’ll be driving along in the car with my hands upon the wheel on cold bitter evenings and I’ll feel so alive and thankful and beautiful because I know God and I know God knows me. I’ll hum in the shower. At work I’ll want to sing out loud my own made up words in my own elegant tones even though I don’t because it’s the office. I have this light uplifting quality to my voice it’s not as rustic as it used to be. I feel as if I’m still trying to discover it. There seems to be a candle lit of joy inside me that’s lasting that I’m not able to contain. I cannot contain Christ no man can. I think how odd all this is in the world working when I want to praise, when in heaven won’t I want to just stop and praise him as my one singular purpose? He is my God and I am his people. I asked the Lord when I die and see him for the very first time with the scars upon his palms won’t I fall at the feet of Jesus and mingle my tears upon his transformed flesh. I’d take hold of his ankles and lay so still to the finer things of heaven till I’ve seen him for myself. I’d say what a strange dream my life was and how if ever I knew what home was, I certainly never knew it till now. And my life and all my grandiose dreams seem so fleeting in the eyes of Christ. Maybe I’m already doing what I was meant to do. Mother Theresa said something to the affect of there are no great things to accomplish in this life only small things with great love. I've had that mingled in my thoughts every day. So my prayers and this blog and my warm coat on a cold blustery day and kissing my husband goodnight are all a part of my double portion and blessing in this life and yours as well. I still dream of water and (I’m drowning in the ocean of God’s love) without even comprehending it. That’s a line from the David Crowder Band but that doesn’t make it any less true of the way that I feel about it. And on the news a young boy dowsed with kerosene and lit on fire by angered bullies and there is a mountain in Alabama where a city lies in the grip of a meth addicted community they call it “meth mountain” and leprosy still prevails in third world countries that can’t afford penicillin. And a young man loses twenty pounds in three months eating every three days because he shoots up coke ten times a day. My dreams of joy and God unfold in a world that’s dying. Maybe that small smile to a stranger, that reflection of Christ’s good will and mercy and joy and grace I attend to in life will manifest something of immeasurable importance to someone in need. You never know what people have gone through. I find it terribly strange the world and the spirit of God intermingled. He could have left us here on this violently struck island and yet he rests here still. He waits for us to bring him our brokenness and welcomes the muddied embrace. I remind myself that love is the nature of God. I remind myself that God is what remains.

The Joy and Speed of Light

2009-12-11T12:20:00.000-08:00

I've had this desire to say something beautiful to KP, Sam, Jack and Jules for some time. It's been on the tip of my tripping tongue and resting lightly in the back of my brain for the last few months. Maybe I'll write hand written letters to each of you but for now...here are a few lingering thoughts.

Jules, there are times when I'm in your presence I'll remember a powerful dream my mother once had after she was first saved. She dreamed she was in a lush green field wrapped in blue sky, as she was wading through the fields Jesus was standing on a smooth stone with his arms wide open to her welcoming her. My mother in her dream was drawn to him and quietly laid herself down prostrate worshiping him at the foot of the stone. You have a strength and faith and wisdom that seems to radiate from you and I think that is why I always think of this dream mingled with your presence, that and I love the rhythm of your stories the eclectic dabbles in your love of art. I love to explore your house not just because of the fields but because the rooms shine, filled with your creative spirit in a myriad of little ways and it makes me rest. I always seem to find something interesting and new to look at whenever I come. It makes me deliriously happy.

Sam, when I sit near you, in my minds eye I catch glimpses of a ship sailing on a pristine glassy sea in a forever ocean. I call it that because when your standing on the edge of the sun drenched, powdered shore the sky and the sea seem to have melted into one another. You look upon that fading horizon and it's an eternity out there greeting you. A cotton white against a brilliant blue but the colors aren't clashing their dancing. Unfurled, billowing sails on this distant ship were on, in the calm, calm sea headed somewhere I have yet to be but its somewhere I know I have longed for like a tangled paradise. You're adventurous spirit and your kindness gives me an unmasked joy. You never seem afraid to speak your mind and you never seem to hide.

Jack, I always seem to imagine you riding horse against the canvas of oil painted sunsets like Monet's Venice Twilight as you drift down desert mountains, I see your worn hands resting on the leather reigns, hands that remind me of my grandfather's own. On your trotting sojourn you'll breathe in shadow fallen earth while the stars crown everyone of us. I love your passion for the arts and of the wilderness. It's made us gypsies.

KP, I often tell you how I love your elegance but I don't think I've ever tried to explain it to you before. It's like sitting next to a row of blooming cherry blossom trees. The intricate, delicate detail of each pink flower and the trees graceful, carved bent of branches and sweet scent can be powerfully inspiring. Your patient and graceful and yet you are the surprising Jack of all trades. You think outside of the box and I don't even think you believe there ever was a box to begin with. Your mind and faith are refreshing to my soul.

When Kafka met Jesus.....

2009-12-01T06:56:00.000-08:00

The other day I pick up a worn volume by Kafka. I felt like my spirit was drinking down a Davinci as I read meditations about Trees and Trains and Passers-By. I work myself through Metamorphasis and feel the weight of its saddnes. The Penal Colony is wanting my attention but I can't seem to work myself up to it. The stories softly bruise me and make me more aware of the world that I'm traveling through, though his short peices are like honey. A writer with such talent driven to write the twisted anguish of every man's soul. And I think to myself why couldn't he have written stories so beautiful that it makes you linger and cry and rest, instead of ones that bears down on you like heavy, laden bricks? And Jesus whispers in my ear "I loved Kafka too". Men are stumbling in the dark fearing the thing they need the most while God shines. We choose our fates. And in my own heart with the nature of sin there are parts that I have to willingly hold up to the light and say "God come into all the sharp corners and closets." I find there are times I'm becoming a slave to things that I don't want to be. It's the clash of flesh and groaning of beautiful spirit. Even nature longs for the turning of the world, while the rooted trees and stars await their newness. We'll always be at war til are eyes fall on those twelve pearled gates. And Jesus is so happy to forgive us and make us whole and make us new. To my surprise Kafka once renounced his broken stories. I hope it was becuase he found some manner of deep joy.

Hands

2009-11-18T12:28:00.000-08:00

My brother called the other day his voice cracked with a deep saddness I couldn't carry for him or take away. It happens at times. My spirit crumbles at these notes and I often reflect on them after I've already said all I can say about loving him and God's immeasurable love for us all. My spirit radiates this "please come and make your home in the harbour of Jesus's hands" to him, but I don't know if he notices. I don't know why it is that his suffering and struggles worry me so much when I consider God's in control and will do what he will do whenever he wishes to do it. And along with the worry that my brother's world may come tumbling down again I worry that mine will too through all these afflictions and then there will be nothing left to say. He tells me he needs to learn to love himself and I say I have Jesus for that. Jesus holding me up from the inside out telling me I'm beautiful, though I'm trajically fallen and my faith seems so immeasurably small. I don't know why I feel this nervous wrentching tension at times as if one day I'll break. It's all a terrible lie of course I know this but I have to keep pushing back the lies.I realize why I love the book of John so much. He is the vine I am the branches. I need to be rooted everyday in God. When did the lies ever mean anything to me anyway? I can only surrender all that I am. I do feel his clean, strong, steady hands cradeling my soul whenever I ask for his help. His presence cuts the tension as he tells me one day I will be whole, to never tire of doing good and to keep pressing as if this pain will brandish golden pearls I just can't see yet.

Slug

2009-11-12T12:09:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what it's been about today but I seem to be fighting a sluggish down spiral into sad. And I know by the morrow it will have passed me by like the movement of shadows climbing across the face of silver trees leaning against the setting of sunlight. It's not that I'm even aching over Karma today. It's this awkward loneliness....like I miss hearing the sound of God's voice whispering in my ear as if I hadn't heard it in so long I wouldn't remember it. Its the wondering if all this passion regained will really mean anything at all in the end. On one end of the spectrum I feel I could burst into flames and fling myself across the earth like a maddening comet and on the other end I want to walk in silence among stone bridges and fragrant gardens. I work in a grey cubicle in a grey building and today I feel trapped as if I know a part of me is not living somehow. I'm writing a novel that's light and fun and keeps my engine jolted in a direction but is it my calling?

I have a job,I'm not sick or begging on the street, I'm not cold or hungry or homeless. The other day a homeless person I passed on the street, bundled up for the coming winter, asked me for food. I looked them in the eyes with love and brought them a hot meal. For now I shall hold my tongue and hold of this sadness and keep watch because maybe I've helped angels unawares. They long to look into these human affairs don't they?

Wild Colts and Rivers of Jordan...

2009-11-05T12:22:00.000-08:00

When Jack had stopped dreaming of roaming Gypsies...I dreamt of a wild, fiery colt and setting him free. I kept walking into different elegant rooms with high vaulted ceilings and white walls and mahogany furniture, leather chairs and crown molding and there would be this beautiful, sad, creature looking out the bay windows longing for the elegance of the sun and the pure joy of grass. I lifted my hands to touch the black coat and the long mane as if in slow motion, then before I knew it I was flinging wide doors open and setting him free. We ran past the garden, past the hedges and down a valley. Him all grace and strength. Me in wonder and happiness. The colt bucked once and stood on hind legs letting me know his joy as he flung his neck and dashed away rustling up the dust as he went. I smiled and awoke wondering if in heaven God would let me have a horse to ride like a lightening bolt. I've been writing steadily again though its pure silliness but I've found a heart for it and I rather like slinging my words around again even if the depth is not there at least its become fun.
The other day I kept thinking in poetry. The moon so full and bright hung in the sky while the sun rose. Two heavenly bodies clashing upon the same horizon. And I wondered why I toil so much when the world is bathed in such significance. I feel stretched sometimes trying to give myself to those who need me the most. I travel and work and wonder when my schedule will slow down...when I will slow down enough for me to fall deeply into God like falling into a river of Jordan.

Making Me....

2009-10-16T11:22:00.000-07:00

There are fragmented moments when I feel like that prophet Elisha. Double blessings being rooted in me somehow by the Holy Spirit. I wonder what it would be like the day God revealed to him the Army of Angels guarding the lowly tents. Don't be afraid (isn't that what was said?) beacuse what you don't know is that God is so alive and touchable and moving on this earth for your immeasurable good. I was reading about St Peter's Basilica. I was reading about it because I've decided I need to see the Sistine Chapel and Michelangelo's Mary cradling Jesus in marble. A trip has been planted in my mind for the spring next year but we shall see what becomes of it. The church was built in Rome over the apostle Peter's humble grave and I thought about what Jesus said to him. How the church would be built on Peter "the Rock." I don't know what I had imagined but I wasn't thinking Jesus meant this so literally and it made my heart find faith in him more. Jesus seemed so real to me in the thought that my heart lept up. As if like Elisha something so immovable and solid of God worked its way deep down into my spirit. Reading the Book of John has a similiar effect on me. God draws me in with his gentleness and his truth. I want to live more fully now and have my lamplight readily burning up against the eve of dark. Whatever God has for me the lightness I've felt with my healing is starting to feel more solid its starting to feel like lightening. I'm not sure what God is up to but today its encouraging.

Joy and Fireflies....

2009-09-23T06:17:00.000-07:00

It seems I've been neglecting my blog lately. The cup of joy I drink from in this life is overflowing this last week. God only ever gives us anything that's good so...hear me worship in my steps and in the air rushing into song from my lungs and in the words I write down here.
Saturday we took Karma's sons to Cincinnati. We spent the day by the shimmering river. We went to the aquarium and pet sharks and ate cheeseburgers at Johnny Rockets then walked across the height of the bridge to a red's game. Their first baseball game where they watched the fireworks burst from 2 home runs. We drove home late and sung them modern lullaby's off the radio regarding fireflies and mountains climbed,while they slept in the car. It was a beautiful day. There were football cards and church and playing tag around the kitchen table. I sent my mother a string of pearls in the mail for her birthday and when she called me there was a tender trembling note of beauty in her voice that I'd never heard before. I wrote Karma's mother a long letter with a few gifts wanting to give her something beautiful to hold within her hands though I know my words moved her more. When I went to my viola lesson my teacher said that I was so in tune with the instrument that I was making it sing. I took Kim out to a fancy dinner with white table cloths and soft white light while we plotted out a novel about time travel on our table top. Michele wants to take me to see Chihully later this month and a camping trip is on the horizon with God loving and highly creative friends. I'm reading Larie R. King's O Jerusalem before I mail it to my father to read. He sent me a card with one of my favorite paintings by Monet on it. There was also the waitress I gave a ridiculous tip to and told her manager how wonderful she was. There has been rain this week but not in my heart.

K.L. Knight

Steps....

2009-09-02T09:47:00.000-07:00

Last night,

Restless and wrestling with the need for sleep and food but found I wanted to pray more. I let the tiredness drift down off of me. The stars were out and I mingled with them in the parking lot on the way to church. My footfalls leading me through quiet hallways. It's late but I don't care knowing the doors are still open. I slip into a room and flop onto the couch, long legs leaning and arms folded across my chest. Eyes closed not in sleep but in the awakening of my tired soul. There are other voices mingled in the hushed soft tones of prayer in the next room. The lamp light bends the darkness away from us. I pour it all out. My words drenched in my heart and I'm letting God in on what he already knows. It doesn't matter...at least I'm talking and thats what has the most meaning to him. My fear is that I've planted seeds of bitterness somewhere deep down. I can't seem to uproot it all on my own. I need God. It comes out in ways that God would notice. I am fearfully and wonderfully made but my doubts and fears tend to crush me, bring me low and tangle me up. I need God's tending the gentle hands of a gardner who knows how not to trample young vines. There is no life in me left for the I love you's and joys and encouraging spirit that I should have made more plentiful in my life. My soul stilled. Finding a peacefulness I had forgotten. I listen. The clock keeps ticking. A question arises in the back of my mind "How many days left for me to worship here?". We only have so many days left...it makes me thankful and helps me to understand Daniels passion a little more. I think Daniel understood. Life is a cornhusk. A season. Restore my soul giver of gifts. Furrow the hard ground and bring me back to life.

Wonder....

2009-08-31T12:42:00.000-07:00

I wonder why in the midst of the melancholy I don't hold onto all the worn photographs of Jesus. Its difficult sometimes too see him so human aging and leaning against the olive trees. Light and lakes where there enough for man made photographs while Jesus lived. Did he amuse himself looking at his image while sailing and catching fisherman? But I'm sure there were tears running down his beard and I long to know what his voice sounded like. Was it ruddy and deep or light and soft like illuminating candles waking up the velvet darkness. I dunno I forget how he can carry our hearts and hands and hold them up against the tide that swiftly moves against us. Next time I lift up my fingers tips to praise him I'll remember to think upon the pictures he's made of me and I of him. Love is a miracle. Light is a miracle. And I can only hope that this miracle is still making me.

Shatter

2009-08-27T11:08:00.000-07:00

If you didn't know I own this little property. The building is grandiose in scale but I've been trying to sell it for years. Maybe its just been too difficult to let go. My glass house. It's more like a castle forged on a hill lit ablaze by the burning seashores in my mind. My insecurities have built it. I find a worrying, trying day has caused me to carve out another bookcase, another closet, another mantelpiece with my hands. Things I did not need but could not help create. I don't like being vulnerable not when I've been used to being a strong tower for so many years. The strong tower fell but thats another story. I'd like to throw heavy stones at my glass house and have it shatter to the earth. I like talking about this even less. Kim told me I should write about these moments and share them because they're not really for me. There is something important about the sharing I suppose whether for me or you I can not tell. I do have these fearful days more than I want to admit lately. Not the fears of a nightmare washed away by morning but the childhood fears that linger on and leave you trembling. I doubt my steps. I doubt my relationships. I doubt my gifts. I doubt me. I never seem to doubt the existence of God and that is a relief. Though, I dunno, I haven't had much to say to God lately. I haven't wanted to talk to him. What was there to say? But I realize you cannot love someone and not want to talk to them after awhile. So I go down to the church and sit in a little room where I know the Holy Spirit breathes. For a long time nothing comes....then "God you are my bread. You are the bread in life and I seem to be starving myself. Help me." I leave feeling swept clean for a time. The fear is new from something I had forgotten all about and God bent down and made me remember. It makes me feel afflicted like Job and I never understand it. God makes me remember not out of cruelty who wants to remember pain? But for my freedom. It doesn't mean I have to like it. God in his wisdom allows me the choice not to like it. It just makes me feel terribly weak and upside down half the time. This isn't beautiful or funny or striking to look at. I feel out of step as if I will always be out of step. My gifts jar me at times as if being struck in the face. Powerful and yet for what purpose? I say I have such intensity and the intensity requires meaning but maybe the meaning was just to amuse God and move you. A comedy and a tragedy I make. I tell myself these words are selfish because my heart wonders about me and not something of you. But I can at least tell myself I showed my vulnerability to you for those of you I know out here. I miss Karma. I wish I was healing faster. I wish I was writing books again. I wish I felt more confident. Christ was wholly God in his confidence. Perhaps it is my pride too because I think I know what's best for me but really only God knows. And yet I find I'm still trying to follow God's footprints.

Dreamscape

2009-08-17T09:55:00.000-07:00

I have this recurring dream.

I'm walking down a dirt road into the fading sunset surrounded by golden fields of corn. I'm in bluejeans and I'm barefoot. I want for nothing and I have this beautifully carved guitar slung around my back with a thick leather strap. The guitar is a work of art it's carved and has this beautiful golden tone. I am usually singing as the sun sets in this dream of dreams. Its deeply peaceful. I wake up thinking the guitar should be a violin. And I think about Jack and wonder if somehow I'm a part of his wondering gypsies.

Fallen Perfection

2009-08-14T09:23:00.000-07:00

God I bare it all before you.
You are glorious and eternal.
While I was made mortal.
Nothing other than a polished man's rib and God's breathing.
I remember you from my dreams when we talked about the manner of songs.
When we ran through honeyed cornhusks, you thought the wind and a robbin's eggshell blue would also kindle celebration in me.
My grandfather found joy with the sound of the slamming porch screen door as I ran to pluck plums from the trees he had grown.
It seems my fervor is held within the scared palms of Christ and my husbands kiss.
I am both reckless and forgiving. Grieved and uencumbered. Cherished and Aching.
A fallen perfection.
There are sun drenched cathedrals beating in this heart and a rush of snowy wings housed in this soul along with the velvet train's childhood call.
But lightening split the old oak I used to walk to.
And Karma's ringing laughter is reserved for worshiping seraphim and my memory.
The only thing I know is what remains is you.

If you fell into my heart...

2009-07-29T12:13:00.000-07:00

If you took a step inside my heart...and felt what I felt as if you were pulling on a fancy wool coat...you'd have this strange and akward lightness all the time. It almost seems like I'm not grounded or walking inches above the earth. As if touching the ground would give me such a hard stumbeling fall. Its extremly difficult to articulate this new lightness and this new part of me. It frightens me a little. It's an effort to focus on food and getting dressed and talking sometimes. When Michael Jackson died I wondered if anyone thought about the starving child in India but that is a side note. So the lightness is akward and I talk to God about it when I'm walking by the river thinking about Jesus walking on water and if it felt light underneath his feet. Its just plain weird and part of it makes me want to cry for some odd reason and I don't know why. I keep hearing violins playing beautiful arpegios and my dreams are a jumble. But I feel more grounded when I'm reading. Its like I was holding onto something so long so tightly and now its not there anymore. What do I do with the open hands? I sat down at a coffee shop and it took me an hour to write "The black hole was a hushed maddness in his mind." Writing line by line takes an effort I don't know if I have the patience for. My creativity is coming back but in these little intense spurts. The next time I see Jules I'm going to visit her fields and at least say hello to them.

Light

2009-06-23T12:35:00.000-07:00

Jesus has lead me to this leaving...to this last look of letting go. Sometimes sorrows makes you widdle away at what you've been carrying...forces you to lighten your load. Joy dwells in God alone and finds the lonely. When I meet my guardian angel I'll want to hold his brilliant face within the palms of my hands and say thank you maybe after I've worshiped God for a thousand years or so and said hello to Karma as if I've just been walking down a country lane. We all have a guardian angel that watches over us you know. Peter's went ahead of him I think when they supposedly answered his knock at the door. Anyway, sitting here now I'm thankful for all of you who have loved me as you have loved me as I am and not what I thought I should have been. It mattered all of your hello's and how are you's and silent prayers I never heard. It made me feel deeply loved and today I know I'll be better than I ever was because of you and God who sent you. I sing. I run. I hold my viola and strike notes that I know can make me weep if I just put them in the right order. I have dinner with friends and laugh with my whole heart. I hear God say "We will dance. I promise we will dance." And God never lies. So my hope is that you hear him too and dance your dance in your own unique way just as I dance mine. And that those unkown silent prayers for you are answered.

Star

2009-06-08T12:17:00.000-07:00

I often feel tethered to the world. I could take flight if it wasn't for gravity...but gravity complicates things. We are sons and daughters of God. We are shining stars so I'm told. When I am most peaceful I think of God and wide open spaces. Places untouched except for God's spirit hovering over them. Like white scattered beaches, galaxies with no names yet, and roaming fields of corn, wheat or lavendar it does not matter wich as long as its as far as my eyes can see. I find my paradise in quiet places. I find my freedom in God. He is the Alpha and the Omega and there seems to be alot in between to discover of him yet. I'm not sure what it is that I'm trying to say. I toil and I laugh. Life makes a mystery. Inside I feel a fallen star. A miracle. And at the same time the push and pull of pain. Do stars grow like blooming flowers?

Curiosity

2009-06-04T06:18:00.000-07:00

It all started when...

You know the good stories, the really deep stories always seem to begin this way. There is a when something was placed into motion in your life and you know from that when you are never the same. When I met, when I noticed, when I went...It all takes place during a when. Time, God's guardian over us. Well this story starts with a when I watched a movie called The Girl In The Cafe. The dialog was brilliant. The opening scene with an opening song even better than that. The Song was called Cold Water by Damien Rice. I can't seem to stop listening to it. It begins with the sound of a solitary piano and the ticking of a grandfather clock. There are arpegios of violins and halleluja's sung in it. This song takes it time with me, slows me down and lets me rest. I try to sing it and realize something strange has happened to my voice. It used to carry this rustic country tone and now it carries this light uplifting quality that I didn't have before. I didn't know voices could change so much. After the discovery of this I decide to go to the music store for fun and find I'm drawn to the cello's and violins. A few weeks later I go home and my father has decided to try and become a part of a community orchestra. He's out of practice but he wants to begin again. As if his whole life has been waiting to strike those strings and play once more. There is a light of joy reflected in his eyes when he talks about it. So I go back to the music store and set my eyes upon a Viola that comes with a case and a bow for about a hundred bucks. The instrument it rests beautifully in my hands. I pluck the strings and make it sing a little. My father is starting over. And I just want to start. For those of you who know me I have this habit of wanting to try everything. I am somewhat adventurous and I'm feeling joyful. I want to sail, surf, ride horses, play the guitar, write, paint, run, sing, dance, draw, carve marble and travel and who knows what else. It's impossible to do them all well. I understand this. But there is something in me that finds joy in the attempt. Even if I never take it up again. At least I tried once. I dunno there is a part of me that believes one day I will fall in love with at least one thing and revel in it for the rest of my life. Monday I have my first lesson. I start. I stop. I start again. God will have to work on me about the consistency of it all. He never stops. But I always this strange thought "How will I know if I don't try?"

Crash

2009-05-28T09:41:00.000-07:00

Today was Karma's Birthday. I have this recurring dream that we are walking in the sunlight at somewhere and some when holding a deep conversation about God's glory I have yet to see and of the angels I have yet to hear sing. I dreamed this dream today in the early morning hours. I tell her how much I miss her but that its all right because I'm sure heaven is too beautiful for her to miss too many minutes of.

Today I'm not sad instead I can only think of hallelujahs for the friend that she was. I can only be thankful for the what I have's rather than the what I have not's. I keep thinking about that day in the bookstore as we sat in leather chairs and cradled our coffee cups. I read her a few scattered pages of my poetry. She said I was too gifted and blessed not to be a writer. She said I needed to start writing books and after that day I did start writing one. I just wanted to see if I could . When I had finished it two years later she was not surprised. And whenever I wanted to give up and stop writing she would say "This gift God has given you its not going anywhere this is standard for your life. It's a blessing and it's just who you are. God is only going to heal you and breathe more life into you and then what are you going to do?"

I thought my dream had burned up like cinder. I was too tired then. But..I think I am a foolish phoenix. Today, I want to pluck my dream down as if it were a ripe peach. Today, I want to crash into God and let the crescendo of his love ripple back to me.

Trees and Paradise

2009-05-21T10:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday,

I took my sketch book and a newly sharpened pencil and tried my hand at drawing. I do occasionally make the attempt. I found a shaded tree as subject matter. All the while thinking that its roots looked like knotted bones resting on the earth. The tree was beautiful. My sketch was not. But it made me undone this one little poetic thought. God had designed me to think and view the world in this way. It gives him joy when I play upon my words.

Lately, I've wanted to do nothing but grow deeper into God as much as I know how. I've had this hunger to read the bible and books about Jesus. I read the entire book of Proverbs yesterday. I want to read it again and again and again. I've started reading Knowing God by J.I. Packer. It's a great comfort being reminded of God's character. In an earlier post I've said that I've been trying to escape what I am. I feel so intensely at times that it can be tiring. And now I'm starting to realize in God my depth of emotion is not some sort of twisted defect or a joke that also went terribly flat. If I stare into God's face long enough I will find in his eyes staring back at me the security I had lost. A version of myself I can live with and be free and love. A version of myself that is more true than I know because God knows me better than I do. He knows what I will do and say and feel and think even before I've lived it all out. And its been good to be reminded that God doesn't forget. It's impossible for him to forget. And so it is impossible for me to be forgotten.

Measurements

2009-05-13T11:43:00.000-07:00

Father, I belong to you.

A simple statement I find incredibly powerful.

I've prayed it every day this week and a peace falls into my unbalanced heart whenever I do. It makes me rest. In the end you belong and you belong to God. I weep or fail or fall all the while I'm being held by God. I get this picture in the eye of my mind of a fireman saving a child's life in the face of smoke and affliction. A face smeared by ash, lungs choking and then a body silent with head spilled backward while being held in the arms of their rescuer. Breathe child just take a breath. Eyes flashing to life while sirens wail in the street. Jesus this is a medical emergency. We need a rescue. Our father who art in heaven, give me this day.

The fact is every day our bodies are breaking down and dying. No matter how hard we try and fight growing old. But I don't mind growing old. I want to grow old gracefully. I want to grow in measurements I can't measure. I want to take another risk and love when its least expected. And even though I know the building is burning down to the ground it will be new again some day.

Path

2009-05-12T12:02:00.000-07:00

My mother wanted to be an artist when she was young. She can draw well. But she rarely uses this gift or has the passion for it. She ended up becoming a nurse instead and she is gifted in this profession. My mother is practical but not what I would call a romantic. She is adventurous and kind and very, very funny. So I often forget that she wanted to be an artist. I was wondering the other day what were the things my mother and I had in common. I am very much the romantic in every sense of the word. But my friend called me and had just finished having lunch with my mother. She said that we were so similar with the way we spoke with our hands and the inflections in our ruddy voices. My mother has a wonderful up roaring laugh while mine is a more quiet chuckling when amused or a silent wail when I'm enjoying some portion of the comedy of life. Secretly, I've mesmerized my mother's hands. Small freckled hands with delicate palms.

My father always wanted to be an engineer when he was young. He still is one. The trajectory of his passion never wondered an iota. He can fix anything mechanical and has the memory of an elephant. Although, he is whom I would call the romantic though I would never admit it to him. An avid reader. One of his favorite quotes to me is "Life is often stranger than Fiction." I often find him reading history or biographies and well written works of fiction. Lately, we've been exchanging books through the mail. He used to play the cello in college. He loved taking me to the symphony, the ballet and the theater.

And here I am their romantic, romantic child who still loves words and daffodils.

Ragamuffin

2009-05-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

I've just finished reading Brennan Manning's book "the furious longing of God". It made my soul sing. Manning the ragamuffin theologin his words made me feel not so lonely. And I've been too sad and tired with Karma gone to want to be creative at least until now. And its been silly because I've tried to purge my creativity from myself or hide it away because of an unsual longing to be understood. But God has always understood. And I find a reveling joy in poetry and art and music. I want to trade my fear and trembling in for peaceful abiding. I find that God talks more often to us than we realize. It's a matter of listening. On being ready to really, really listen. I found it odd that God gave me a word for someone who had been counseling me for over a year. I found it odd that sunday's message was on the power of God working through story. I also found it odd that they asked for people who beleived that they were called to speak about Jesus to every corner of the world. I am not a missionary but I felt lead to come and recieve prayer. The Holy Spirit fell on me and I swayed once trying not to fall. Usually the invitations for prayer at the end of the service are just not for me. This heart its wide open.

Manifesto

2009-05-08T11:04:00.000-07:00

I think a part of me has forgotten the equation of God. I read these little pieces of my heart written down here and its some sort of beautiful madness. I have a ridiculous love for alliteration for one thing. I have a rhythm to my soul that's deeper than a muddy river and sad and solidly sweet all at once like honey dripping off a too salty twisted pretzel. And I wonder what is God gonna do with all this inside of me? I am dramatic and dynamic and I want to be a Michelangelo? What? Really? Ahh broken jealous, prideful heart. I imagine God laughing at me at this point. A gentle breath of God coming to me like in the book of Job first the earthquake and then the whisper of God. Good thing he still calls me friend. I filled with the want and chase of earthly desires and at the same time with the want of God. It becomes a merry merry go round. So here is my manifesto:

I will choose God even if it breaks my upside down heart.
I will trust God. Again. And Again.
I will wait on God. Again. And Again.
I will love. Again. And Again.
I will begin to believe every part of me was made for a purpose.
I will let God rule my creativity instead of it ruling me.
I will not give up. Even when I fail. Again. And Again.
I will laugh more.
I will be more thankful.
I will not let fear move me.
I will live up to my inheritance in God and light up the sky like a star.
I will sing.
I will write only when I feel inspired too and am able to pour my whole heart and joy into the work. I will believe that God is in whatever I'm working on.

Michelangelo

2009-05-06T07:26:00.000-07:00

Whenever I'm as still as I can be in this world...I just keep hearing God only ever say one little line to me over and over and he's been saying it for the past 2 years. That I'll be better than I ever was. And this is the hard part. He never did say when. If you knew me well enough you'd know I have little patience and yet I find myself in the position of always waiting. Inside I feel irritable that God didn't make me a Michelangelo. A great heart and passion for the love of beauty anywhere I can find it on earth or in heaven but unable to express it as I wish to when I actually know it. I suppose when you've seen angels things can become complicated. Michelangelo used to pray that God would grant him the ability to do more than he thought he could accomplish just so he could try and accomplish it. A man with the patience of Job. In the last few years I've traveled a mountain of a road. The loss of Karma has terribly saddened my soul among other things. How can I ever be better than I ever was? But I Know I've made some progress. I've been told don't mock the process of things. But I don't want to walk I want to run. I get so tired of my somber moods and irritability when Christ's kingdom has come. The things I know in my head usually do not light up my heart. But hearts are much like the weather you'll find the tempest and sunny skies all within the same day. I pray that God draws near me because I find at times I'm still running away. I want to run or complain or be sad or laugh or rest anything at all but be creative. Anything at all but use my gift and let my words collide upon paper. So I pray as often as I can that Christ takes hold of me. He is the only one that can.

Writing and Running

2009-04-24T11:54:00.001-07:00

These days I'm not sure what kind of writer I am. I'm still writing very little and my love affair with words is on again off again at its best. There is no tension of push pull dogged determination like there use to be. Maybe thats a good thing. But I do know writers need to be persistent and devoted and passionate. I am none of these right now though ironically I felt strong enough to write about it. I guess God will have to talk to me about this feverish creative thing in me or stir it up in me. Although I'm not too terribly worried about it. But I wonder how you all would feel. Those who love my writing see my potential and what I could do if I was persistant. What if I really decided to never press it anymore. Would you be o.k. with the now of what I have become? I've decided to try and do some physical activity and focus on running...or an attempt at running. I have running shoes and an ipod. Maybe that makes it official. I just wanted to see if I could and to see how far I could get. I'm starting slowly but I like my rythem. A passing pass time for now I suppose. I love the sun. It lights me up from the inside out.

Sun

2009-04-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

There is a rhythm in my hands. A river in my hands. Forgiveness in my hands. Words become symphonies within these reaching palms. I cannot hold the world within me and all its intricate beauty. Even sunlight whispering on grass becomes too much for me. Knowing that there are cleanslated stars anchored in a jubulint sky while walking becomes too much for me. I can only let it all wash over me in the blinking of an eye. And it leaves me longing. I can hold onto nothing. I am the grass. And it is only God who takes hold of me.

Zander's Paper Cranes

2009-02-27T12:06:00.001-08:00

Zander's 2 small paper cranes can each fit inside the palm of my hand. They are delicate and in bright colors. One is canary yellow the other is jet blue. They sit at my desk at work reminding me every day of a small boy's heart and joy and creativity. He was so excited to give them to me and I with thoughtful care decided not to crush his wish or his prize and placed them inside my wool coat pocket. The reality is they have brought me a tender kind of happiness. Wishes and Dreams can be unfolded from your pockets.
Thinking of pockets, I used to have a small compass in my back pocket, whenever I became lost in this life I'd pull it out and listen to it. Jesus always seemed to point true north. But what if I hadn't lost it? What if I had just misplaced it on the mantle for awhile? Or left it in my other coat? The summer one not the winter one. Seasons of winter make your hands crack, your voice weak in the blustery coldness. Spring seems to be thawing me out... my hands...and... my voice. I think its time I started making paper cranes of my own.

Birthday...

2009-02-27T05:31:00.000-08:00

I have this habit of celebrating my birthday's as if they were Christmas. I mean there is only one me and only one God who is the maker of me. Somehow I know he is celebrating and laughing and having joy and dancing and singing about this vagabond lightening child. Oh precious, precious child. I never feel that way half the time but I still know that its true. I'll go home and have dinner with friends far away, then have dinner with friends here, then my parents will visit and we'll have dinner and then my husband will take me out to dinner too. They're will be cake and phone calls and Grandmother's Birthday cards and my brother's "Hey, Happy Birthday." They're all happy somehow that I'm here able to just be me and give them me. I'm old...er today. Growing old with God, being still in love and holding on to God is a blessing more than I could have ever asked for. This year, is gonna be a year of jubilee...when you get back seven times what you lost. Propehetic and creative and peaceful and joyful seven times over and its only ever God. Best be watching out for this waterfall. I dunno how I know but I know. I dunno why but God...my good friend Jesus, closer than a brother Jesus, started talking to me last night before I was drifting off into sleep, and it was nothing but joy and goodness and blessing. I had made him happy in all my turmoil and sad and stumbling humanity and I don't really know how. I will raise my hands in the darkness, in the morning light, when the sun is rising and setting upon me. Tonight, my parents are visiting and were headed to Chicago to see all the museums, eat deep dish pizza and ride the subway. It will be terribly cold but this Birthday will be all warmth and hope and light.

Sleep

2009-02-26T17:39:00.000-08:00

Dear God,

You taught me how to breathe. You flipped the light switch on the inside of me. And it was a brilliant stunt. You and you’re miracle magician’s son who lent us rest until the Holy Spirit had come. I want to lie down in green pastures and have your hands pass double portions of blessing over me. The good stuff the pure stuff the blessing that’s crushed and poured out in measures greater than half pints. We raise our hands in churches and sing words that say “lift us up.” My voice mingled with them only
I’m singing come rain down. Lift us up and rain down. If we cry out in earnest with any sound of suffering you said you would come. I know it’s there somewhere in your word how a prince shackled and dragged and spent, pleaded with you for his freedom and you heard him and you came to him. And you sing not love lost songs over us. I don’t hear them with my ears but I can feel the reverberations of them somehow when I’m passing untouched golden fields. I feel like my hands are eyes, my throat is golden and I’m dreaming of water so often but never drowning, never drowning by the purposes of man but being molded by the spirit of God as he bathes me with only himself as a lover’s lover. I have lost many days perhaps in this longest night. I never thought it would be this long. You went thru the longest night too in the garden counted the hours, wished your friends would have woken up. it is the way of man separated and never complete I understand them well. You help me to breathe again like it’s the very first time breathing in you. All my worries and my doubts and sin can be redeemed. My rebellion can be taken backwards and every day is a new day. My mother reminds me often Jesus is right here just on the other side of the looking glass waiting to pull us through to that other dimension. I find that you are everything that is everything and yet the soul wanders and wonders. Doubt is as faithful as faith. Two sides of the same coin it seems you can’t have one without the other here on this trodden down Eden. I’m like the father pleading for his son’s sickness to leave him God I believe but help my unbelief.

Sonnet

2008-10-21T10:42:00.000-07:00

Forlorn Songbird Bound up in Wintry Sky
Break through Soaring along Silvery Tongued
While Reckless moon laughs at your tune as you Fly
Untouched wings meet Untried breathless Lungs

Pendulum Swings as I tell the Tale
Colliding, Crashing human Frailty Falls
Take my Ship Wrecked Soul and let me Set Sail
Holy Spirit this Heavy Laden Heart Forestalls

Peace Reigns like Golden Fire Fields in MoonLight
God captivate me like a Hurricane
Seerer Seeking Something like a bound star with no StarLight
Take my thundered heart out of this poor Vein

Healer Help me Heal and flash like Ageless Lightening
Jesus Blazing Phoenix let me feel the Heavens Heightening

I'm Living...

2008-09-09T06:22:00.001-07:00

I'm living in these veins but its not what I've been used to. I am bone and sinew and I find it odd my humanity molded by a Spirit. By the breadth and mind of God. Flowing thoughts of I AM making Me. When he spoke my name thunderous or whispering I Became. There is always that familiar sound...of my Father's voice trembling the Universe. Stars shine and wail halleluja's or become silent and dim on a black canvas by that same voice. I was born of Spirit at the split beams of Christ. There was salt upon his chest and his blood trickled down cedar. Thorns in flesh. His brokeness bearing paradise for the rest of us.

My spirit has lingered at the heights of heaven's doorstep. But I in brokeness, in falling, in healing, have gained a finer room within this soul. Found an ocean in this heart and I seem to be sailing along to new worlds. Scrolls plucked from my tongue from angelic hands at the throne. Tell Karma Jonathan went ahead of David too. Tell Karma I'll see her soon.

103 You May Not Know About Me

2008-05-18T17:20:00.000-07:00

Well...its a start.

1. I love peach cobbler.
2. I was in a Black Gospel Choir in college. Sang next to a handsome boy named Leo who had a beautiful lion tattoo on his arm.
3. I always seem to dream about water. I dream I'm diving off high cliffs into the clearest bluest waters, I'm at a pool party with childhood friends, or canoeing on calm rivers, I'm walking through the sleek hip streets of New York and its raining. I think it has something to do with the Holy Spirit.
4. I can snowboard. I've had the same slick red snowboard for over ten years.
5. When I'm excited about something I tend to ramble and talk faster.
6. I have 2 cats. Gunther and Madison.
7. I've been to London. When I was young I always wanted to marry an Englishman.
8. One of my favorite characters is Sherlock Holmes. Jeremy Brett and Basil Rathbone portrayed him the best.
9. I was in a drama team ministry called LION Players.
10.I'm a fan of Lyle Lovett and have seen him in concert.
11.I also own 2 cowboy hats. One was my grandfathers.
12. My favorite t.v. shows are Monk and Dr. Who.
13. My grandfather, grandmother, mother and brother all play guitar brilliantly. I've only just started taking lessons. So I'm a little behind.
14. My grandmother's potato soup is one of my favorite things to eat. She would occasionally make it for me for breakfast as a child. Yes, I loved it that much.
15. My dad used to play the cello.
16. I admire my mother. She has never been afraid to try something new. She snowboards, ski's, plays guitar, drums and piano.
17. I went to Kent State University and had a double major in English and Journalism.
18. I can Rollerblade.
19. I occasionally dabble in painting with acrylics.
20. I love all museums.
21. My favorite artists are Georgia O'Keeffe and Monet.
22. My favorite paintings off all time are in the Chicago Museum of art. Monet's Haystacks.
23. As a child I collected stuffed animals. My favorite was a little stuffed tiger I named tony.
24. I wanted to either be a photographer or veterinarian when I was little.
25. I always believed I was beautiful no matter what other people thought.
26. I have a fear of sharks.
27. I love to travel. I've been to Las Vegas, Chicago, New York, Toronto, Niagara Falls, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., St Louis, Daytona, Orlando, Miami, Atlantic City, Boston and Nashville.
28. I tend to think in poetry.
29. In high school I played the trumpet. It was silver.
30. I'm fascinated by two things always....God and nature.
31. I have a favorite tree. Its an old oak that I would take walks too. I have kept a few small pieces of bark from it.
32. My great grandmother was a Cherokee Indian.
33. I'm fascinated by the nature of opposites. Light and dark, sun and moon ect.
32. I never wear a watch.
33. I like the quiet of airports. Maybe its because of the carpet in the aisles.
34. I've seen angels.
35. Whenever I see a homeless person on the street I always give them a dollar.
36. I've written a fantasy novel. Its 390 pages.
37. I love all types of dark chocolate.
38. I love the sound of the rain against window panes.
39. I love when it rains on slick streets with low lit lamplight. It creates a mirrored sheen that's fascinating to me.
40. My favorite books of the bible are Acts, 1 & 2 Peter and John.
41. Every year as a child my family vacationed in Gatlinburg TN. We would hike and camp in the National Parks.
42. My favorite color has changed these last few years from violet to red. I find that strange for some odd reason.
43. I hate maynoise.
44. I recently discovered that I like mustard.
45. I'm a minimalist when it comes to decorating. I require wide open spaces.
46. I love Bob Marley. "Buffalo Soldier" is one of my favorite songs.
47. I love Rich Mullins. I have every album he ever made.
48. My best friend is a piano teacher. I've known her for over 23 years.
49. When we were little in the summertime we would pick 2 buckets full of blackberries and ask her mother to bake us a pie and she always would.
50. When I write I require absolute silence.
51. I like Chai Tea with soy milk from Starbucks.
52. I like freshly made guacamole.
53. I must be hungry while I'm writing this.
54. I married at 21 and have just had my happy 12th year anniversary.
55. I first met my husband at a Pizza Hut.
56. When I was little I would write my grandmother poems.
57. I don't like change but I've been told that I handle it well.
58. I'd much rather be hot than cold.
59. I dream in black and white and in color. Sometimes my dream starts out in black and white and then changes to color. Maybe I watched The Wizard of Oz too many times as a kid.
60. I always believed that God was good no matter what my circumstance.
61. I am neither a morning person nor a late night person. I'm a mid day person. Lucky me.
62. All the clocks in my house are slightly ahead by a few random minutes. The only time that is correct is on my cell phone.
63. Funny that I like to be on time then isn't it?

Struck

2008-04-28T10:16:00.000-07:00

When I hear the purity of sound in a lonely, lovely deeply lit cello...or in some slick renegade underground back beat of electric heart pounding drum or that singular perfect thrumming of falling Icarus guitar (you know that soul sound that makes you feel so insanely happy or beautifully sad)...something inside me holds so still as if I know the world I'm breathing in can't contain anything so beautiful. And its like the essence of time...can't seem to keep its hold on me either. Maybe its not really about the cello...necessarily...I tell myself...everyone has that perfect striking chord, that when its struck makes you feel so alive its almost painful. There is a spiritual clarity in music I find. The music speaks to your spirit before you even know what the musician is really trying to tell you. I recognize the pain, the uncertainty, the pleasure and the sheer humanity by how someone sings a single note. I'll sit and listen to a sound bite of a few seconds ten times over just here U2 sing those two words One Love and he's singing like its that prayer of the sinner laid down and choking in the dirt desolate and hungering for God. I like gospel and the blues (I'm a musical kleptomaniac stealing everything that makes my soul sing) they feel the notes besides just rushing the lyrical out of em...they take their time and make their songs that kaleidoscope of dance too. Strange to think we've been created with all these notes and chords of elegance inside of us....waiting to be struck, or lighted up, or inspired just by a work of art, a kind word or the sound of the stars. I know the stars are silent you say. Or are they?

Sometimes when I'm out walking somewhere with my headphones on...anywhere...headed to someplace and everyplace even in the moonlight..its not the place I'm really trying to get to..not really. I'm really trying to get to God in my own way...I'll walk and pray and lift my heart towards him in the only way I know how. And I know I'm walking too because I like the rhythm of my footsteps...I like just trying to be for once and not trying to become anymore. I'm attempting to be still and maybe all those musical pieces help me find some semblance of peace. There all road signs telling me ahhh....there's the beautiful...there's God working whether I'm listening to Cheryl Crow or Timbaland.

Waking Up....

2008-04-27T10:47:00.000-07:00

To the dreamers who are delirious and maddened by their dreaming and To the poets who are spinning out their words...words that are crashing in waves....creating that ceaseless wake of beautiful and melting into all those sojourn crystal-eyed castles we've all been steadily building. We've been building them in one form or another I suppose but I'm sure you already knew that. And I think its about time I came alive again and joined your eternal promise of song. I hear it as I walk barefoot amongst the little daffodils and when I can sense the Eye oF God leaning down from the heavens towards me. There are hallelujahs in the sound of the rain and there is a glory that's buried somewhere deep in this heart that's continually bending and beating that I can't quiet explain. Does your soul ever ache with the want of wanting God? Ahh this clothed humanity...I often wish I could spread these gilded golden thoughts like wings and fly right up to God's doorstep.

Lately, I've been wondering if God gave the Apostle Paul a beautiful, velvety voice so when he was in prison bruised and sore and aching he could have a measure of comfort in singing praises when the moon silently passed upon those broken nights. I think I'm finding a song here and its more wonderful than I ever knew too Paul. Brokenness always brings revelation and I think were all a little broken and a little lost and a little lonely at times. And so I wait on God...for whenever he comes to me...making the day new again...like he does and the sun like the stars are ever so diligent in their rising and falling and breathing and hanging around... reminding me how temporal the world is and how eternal I'm meant to be.

K.Knight