au coeur de

My Neighbor's Glory

2010-03-14T19:08:00.000-07:00

As Iron Sharpens Iron...

I have been so blessed to have certain people in my life be completely honest with me. The Lord reveals wisdom in the inmost places (psalm 51) and for me, He is gracious enough to use the words of people in my life - whether they are people I've known forever, people I will know forever, or people I'll never see again. The truths I've been told are what penetrate the heart, they've peeled away the layers, exposed the charms of this world that wrap tightly around our hands and tongues. The words that I've been told have cut deeply, and sometimes tears of frustration come flowing out. I've been shocked before by the weight of sin, I've been shocked at my ugliness shown in the light. I've been defensive and utterly repulsed by accusations that later smoothed into beautiful grace and redemption. Oh. Has. My. Pride. Been. Broken. Over. And. Over. Again.

And it's times like these that I cannot believe how loved I am. By an invincible love - and a perfect love that is spilled out into His adopted children by the blood of Christ! Just when this life begins to break, we are reminded that the power, authority, and love of Christ is hidden in all who believe through the Spirit. There is hope in Christ, and we see a small sliver of that love and a small reflection of who God is in one another...
"And while God does not ask any of us to bring Christ into the world as literally as did Mary, God calls each of us to become a God bearer through whom God may enter the world again and again."
- The Godbearing Life

The friends that have told me the hard truths have been those that genuinely care about my spiritual growth. A friend once told me, "it's the painful growing that gets us there." Whether it was phone calls late into the night, stubborn resistance to God's sovereignty, notes when I wake that urge me to have confidence and not fear, or just tears and surrendering to shame - I have felt the cool, sharp reality that says, "it's not about you." These friends have taught me to have reverence in a Gracious God, and that His passion is for the zeal of His name, His glory. My friends have pointed me to the gospel, and they cared enough to press me down with the truth. These believers were firm in living out these realities of Christ and stood by their words beautifully, even if they sounded harsh to everyone else.

I came to realize, in absolute horror, that I am 100% a pacifist. In realizing this, I've come to understand that it is due to a lack of true compassion. In a lot of modern churches today, we have forgotten the fear of the Lord. Growing up, I did not know that God disciplined me because He loved me (Rev. 3:19). I did not know much about discipline at all, for that matter. In fact, you could say I was a free spirit (not to offend any free spirits out there, but I say 'was' because I've been given true freedom). So the thought of anyone telling me what biblical truths were or telling me that my interpretations were incorrect, or that my life was not producing the fruit of the gospel because I was centered around my own world and living in sin, I would have said 'screw you, you're stifling my creativity, go tell some other mindless follower.' What I failed to realize was that I was too wrapped up in the idea of individuality and 'I do what I want when I want' to know that I was actually living for approval, and being like-minded, submissive, living in humility and love was true strength and came with a peace this world could not offer me.

"If our religion is something objective, then we must never avert our eyes from those elements in it which seem puzzling or repellent; for it will be precisely the puzzling or the repellent which conceals what we do not yet know and need to know."
- C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

What might be even harder to grasp, however, is that even with the knowledge of Christ, I fail to boldly proclaim that we exist for His Glory. I fail to clearly express truth in peoples' lives because I am either a.) not confident in His assurances or b.) afraid I'll hurt their feelings which actually leads me back to a.) and my knowledge of that confidence.

I've been truly frustrated that I cannot seem to love and care for some of the people in my life in the way that others have for me. I've had people tell me before, "look, I need you to tell me when I'm wrong. I need you to tell me to look to Jesus. I need to know I'm loved." And Oh, Father, I rejoice in your mercies that I can say these weaknesses of mine freely, because my faith was a free gift, and it is not mine to cover up. He has all ready paid for my sin in full, and I can rejoice in that freedom.

In Him, you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.
- Ephesians 1:13-14

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned...
- Romans 12:1-6
And so I can rest in the fact that I was bought at a price, and that I can freely offer my sacrifices to God, a broken and contrite heart, (psalm 51) knowing that His love never fails.

I am repelling downward into this sinful area of my life, praying that the Lord will continue to confront me with these areas that need transformation and reveal Himself to me, and I've discovered this FEAR OF MAN is, quite simply, a heart issue. For some reason, I have this preconceived notion that I have to sugar coat the gospel. I've realized that you can't walk on egg shells when it comes to the gospel.

But I guess you can - but when I say it's a heart issue - I mean, why would you want to? If you knew the reality of sin, and the knowledge of Christ that surpasses all understanding, and that that authority was within you, WHY would we want to?!
If we really believed that:
Christ abides in us through the Holy Spirit
That He was coming back
That faith is a free gift
The Lord is sovereign
Our Christian neighbor is the holiest object presented to our senses because Jesus dwells within them
On a DAY to DAY basis...

think about how rich the gospel would become to us!
think about the reverence and honor our Lord would delight in!

I think about these things and I am truly humbled. Please read the following passage from C.S. Lewis The Weight of Glory. One of the most beautiful passages on fellowship and community I have ever read. I know it is a little bit long, confusing or may seem out of context, but do read it; it is unbelievable..

The following Him is, of course, the essential point. That being so, it may be asked with practical use there is in the speculations which I have been indulging. I can think of at least one such use. It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hearafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor's glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. And day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feelings for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner - no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat - the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

You knit me together in my mother's womb

2010-02-17T20:55:00.000-08:00

Chantelle radiates light.

If you have felt the binding of an old book, crinkled at the pages

If you have danced in the sand and remembered an old conversation

If you have heard the sound of crickets and angels singing in the dark and open fields

If you have layed on a roof top and watched the stars break into a m i l l i o n pieces

If you have left in the middle of the night to be with a friend

If you have seen the skinny rim of daylight creep over the spilling mass of open water

If you have stood in the bed of a truck going through a tunnel just to feel infinite

or spun around in circles to be in two places at once

If you have walked along the railroad tracks to find their secret's end

If you have read words that make you laugh and music that makes you cry

If you have befriended the silent and promised to make the mundane beautiful

If you have seen that light

Then you have seen a little piece of her.

There is no one like her. Not one.

Since she told me the news, there was heartbreak, fear, and tears, but through it all - strength evaded the surface. I have seen her grow in her faith, her love, and her tummy. I have stayed up late listening to her beautiful mind try to reconstruct what was so often like broken glass - small reflections of what was true because of the sin and muck of our world, but pieces that could not fit together. Pieces that she tried to mold into justice, identity, and comfort, but what for so long remained little holes and cuts of an open wound.

Prayer became like breathing. I will never forget the little reminders of Christ, his perfect love reaching out in the back of Hooters where she sat, reading in awe of the reconciliation of the Lord when he said, Come. I won't forget her words, sitting at the dinning room table in the middle of the day after grocery shopping, rolling out of her mouth like heavy paper the words of her past, her mother's past, ancient past. The look in her eyes was desperate and relieved at the same time.

Waiting in those dark rooms for the picture to ingrain a figure, or outline a map to a new world. Waiting for the picture to envelop the essence of life inside blood cells, little blue veins, and a daughter. We saw her little spine curve and bend, we saw her hands praying. Praying and breathing.

Oh Lord, You crown us with Your steadfast love. You call out the starry host, one by one. You are the great divider, from present past to future eternity. You knew the depths of our hearts before You even flung the universe into existence. You knew the depths, and yet You made us Your children. How great is Your love! How great is Your name! God, You gave me this friend, to cherish her life dearly. And although You didn't have to, You gave me the peace that when I couldn't be there, when we couldn't be there, You were there. When I failed her, You were still pursuing her and giving her wisdom. Thank You for allowing me to see the moment: Sitting in her chair, reading Your Word with her hand on her stomach, cradling her child with Your presence while the whole room filled with other people's noise. When we didn't see the glory of what You were doing, You still gathered Your child and her child to Yourself.

When I hold this baby, I will praise Your name.

God, because You created life out of desolation. I cannot wait to watch this baby grow up to know her story. Your story. Your beautiful story of redemption, and I pray that she is so much like her mother. That music and words move her deeply, that she desires to feel infinite and loved. That she sits on top of a roof overlooking your splendor, talking with an old friend, and knowing, this is it. That You are light.

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, You delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
- psalm 51:5-6

O Lord, You have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
You discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
Where sall I go from Your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, You are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there Your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,"
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.

For You formed my inward parts;
You knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was one of them.

How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with You.......
[psalm 139]

in silence.

2009-04-15T18:35:00.000-07:00

I took a break.

from writing I guess you could say.

I stuck with prayers, but all other thoughts and poems were put on hold. I don't really know what caused the writers block/strike, but for some reason I felt it was needed and would bring healing. Sometimes the mention of words is another idol that I believe in.

Since this summer I've really realized the failing power of words.
And sometimes when its time to write, I'm overcome with grief in the reality that words can also cut pretty deeply. I'm not always ready to hear them, feel their cold and lifeless shape in front of me.

But I am hopeful.

uncrowd my heart, Oh God,
until silence speaks
in Your still small voice;
turn me from the hearing of words,
and the making of words,
and the confusion of much speaking,
to listening, waiting, stillness,
silence.
- Thomas Merton

i like you

2008-09-07T16:37:00.000-07:00

What is this welling up inside of my very heart

should I fear the touch of your eyelashes on my check bones

whispering gently the purpose of their being

enthralled by the life in your lips and the way that they curve and bend

I cannot seem to ever leave them

Your hands are so sweet when they meet my own

I want nothing more than to lose them in your embrace

I pine for one more kiss

one more promise that this is different

can it be?

I am so bewildered by the sincerity in your voice

the desire to instill in me the belief that

I am something worth holding to you

It penetrates and evaporates all other thoughts of doubt

Your heart seeks adventure and life

in simple goodness of the day's first promise

My mind is awake with the thoughts of

what God will graciously pour into my life

I wait in the storm of your eyes

reflecting clouds and complex mosaic structures

that keep me still and at peace

for He has made you to be a heart so loving

something I have never known or dared hope for

but I pray to know deeper still

even in the simple touch of your eyelashes

against my slender check..

time, words, and fears

2008-08-27T20:43:00.001-07:00

Oh beauty, why are you not enough?

Why am I crying after love?

- Sara Teasdale

Translucent time is closing up its moments
and ripens inwards, throwing out its roots,
it grows within me, occupies me wholly,
its foliage flings me out deliriously...
- Octavio Paz

Words hang like wash on the line, blowing in the winds of the mind.
- Rameshwar Das

a cross-centered life

2008-06-25T17:31:00.000-07:00

Rilke said "if you think you are capable of living without writing, do not write" and I've tried to live it but it gets too heavy.. you know? I've gathered up my thoughts from this summer, weaving them together like waves, like particles of light (deb talan's method) and I too have imposed it on myself like a vow made in war: I will write or die. But you'll have to bare with me, its all very hazy, its all very grey. It's all very obsolete as everything becomes without recollection. But all the more, I figure I can at least poke at my thoughts with words and see what comes of it. Maybe a few rambled on pages, or maybe something from the heart. Who really knows?

I've come to the horrible realization of my ugly failure. Now I've said it often in the pit of inadequacy which seems to always rise around the time I must write it or die. But this time it sort of blind side hit me, with more hopelessness I could ever dare imagine. He lived the life we were created to live, and then He died to pay the price for the life we now live instead. We've heard some form of this over and over in our lives, as if it were some sort of an equation and we're supposed to figure out where we equal out, where we fit into it all. But the truth is, I don't think I'll ever be able to figure it out. What could possibly be in exchange for that kind of beauty?? And yet I do it everyday, this great exchange. We hear about the "great fall of man" This great descent into darkness. How foolish are we?! It wasn't a descent at all, it wasn't a fall, a trip, a hiccup, it was an exchange rather, a great exchange of truth for a lie. And that's why we will always be victims in a battle that we never had to fight. Then why. Why do I feel like I'm fighting everyday? If everything is said and done and paid for in the full with more grace than I will ever be able to understand or be gracious enough to pay back, than why does my brand new heart desire this world's attention so easily? If I am made new, not just a cleaned up, better version of my old self, why does my heart still love what is only temporary?

John told believers "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense - Jesus Christ, the Righteous One." - 1John 2:1
John tell us not to sin, but he knows that if anybody does sin (which we will, and he makes that quite clear) than we have an advocate in the Father. Jesus becomes the substitutionary atonement for the believer's sin. In this way the Father's wrath is propitiated, satisfied, turned away from my sin and directed towards Christ. So when I wake up everyday with this idea of who I am, what I think I have, what I think I can do, Jesus stands beside the Father and says No. You cannot punish her for that. You cannot punish her for her sin, her selfishness, her fear, her pride, her envy and jealousy, her lack of trust in everything You are, You cannot punish Mollie for the way she is grieving you, because I bore it all. I already paid for that, and Your grace is sufficient of all things.

This hurts. A little.

So by asking God for a redemptive heart, I've discovered a few things. It hurts. Redemption is a two way process. First its repentance, and then its like a downward slope into discovering the depth of how deeply sinful I am. I am more sinful than I've ever dared to imagine, but He is more loving than I've ever dared to dream. Until we see ourselves as "big" sinners, we cannot see Him as a "big" savior.

And this is where it hurts.

John also said, God is light. in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with Him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
- 1John 1:5-7

It hurts me because It's hard to walk in the light. I can walk in the light in a lot of aspects of my life, but a lot of areas remain cold and lifeless. I can have fellowship with God, and yet I deny the fellowship around me as a witness to my family.

This conviction has knocked the wind out of me:

being able to love on friends and the young life ministry, pursuing those relationships
and yet not being able to love my own family outwardly and deeply in the same amount.
It breaks my heart over and over again,
because I can preach the gospel in my foolish wisdom, something so dangerous and arrogant,
but the real tragedy, the real hurt, the real violence that is more alarming to me than seeing them stray from the path of Christ, is not what I say over and over to make them see the need for Jesus, or my ignorant attempt to persuade them the truth, it is the way that I throw away that need everyday, it is the way that I have not lived out the gospel to them in such a way that they can rightfully blame me for the way that I live and point out the gap between my words and my actions, the gap between Christ's salvation in me and my response to it, they can point at my faithlessness so raw and lifeless that I have nothing more to say about God's joy in my life.

And the truth is any potential I have for transformation in me is Christ himself, none of it is me. And yet I don't receive it. Day in and day out I leave it there because I say Yes Christ, I believe in you, Yes Jesus, I trust in you with my WHOLE life, but right now, in this moment, I need ___ (this) to make me happy.

It makes me sick. I guess this is where I am.. On the edge of diving into the depth of my sinful nature.. where I will then repel downward into this lonely, painful place, until I have been broken down to where I can only see Christ.

....................______......................................______
......................................................\................................/......................
........................................................\_____/.......................

He will be my trampoline back up and out of my despair, and even still, knowing all of this, it breaks my heart that I can take the beauty of His grace, and accept that salvation for myself, what He did for me on the cross, and then turn that beauty into filth as I try and earn the rest of that righteousness with the way I follow Him and my behavior to constantly be proving my faith to myself, Him, and other people. Jesus says that my best attempt is like a filthy rag. Ouch.

So I guess the purpose of my writing is to make it known so that loneliness, something that Satan uses in me often by isolating and suppressing my emotions so that I feel like literally the only one going through this, wont be able to enslave me any deeper. I need to see these shattered, frustrated, and confused pieces of my life that are still walking in darkness so that I can begin to respond not simply by a 'right behavior' but by being truly compelled and consumed by a love much bigger than I ever could dream, and letting that fall afresh on my life, breaking me free of my chains, and transforming me.
The deeper I dive into the pit of my sin and need, the deeper love and electrifying grace I will find. I just pray I can be brave enough to surrender to it all, that I can have Him search all of me..

Please, make this a dialogue.
I need to see more clearly.

doctor doctor my hearts made of glass

2008-05-23T23:14:00.001-07:00

I heard a song today and it made me think about something.
There are a LOT of songs out there that include the whole doctor metaphor.
Although, it's interesting, because the lyrics seem to reach out for more than just a doctor to help with cures or phsyical needs, but they seem to reach more profound places, touching on a need for something more.. our world is crying out for a Healer, it's absolutely everywhere, just turn on your radio and do a little more than just hearing the music.. really listen to it.

How long must I wait held up in depression?
I tried to erase my past, to make a good impression
But my broken horn's lost the tune
And only shattered mirrors fill my room
Fell for you and only got me down
Well Doctor Doctor come give me the cure
Easily obsess on an open sore
Doctor Doctor can't get no relief
This losing sleep is misery
Won't you come and rescue me?
Doctor, Doctor
- matt costa

I came upon a doctor who appeared in quite poor health.
I said "I am terribly sorry but there is nothing I can do for you that you can't do for yourself."
He said "Oh yes you can. Just hold my hand. I think that would help."
So I sat with him a while and then I asked him how he felt.
He said, "I think I'm cured. No, in fact, I'm sure.
Thank you Stranger, for your therapeutic smile."
So that is how I learned the lesson that everyone is alone.
- bright eyes

And despite what all the studies had shown
In what was mistaken for closeness was just a case of mitosis
Why do some show no mercy
While others are painfully shy?
Tell me doctor can you quantify?
‘Cause he just wants to know the reason why
Why do they congregate in groups of four
Scatter like a billion spores
And let the wind just carry them away?
How can kids be so mean
Our famous doctor tried to glean
As he went home at the end of the day
In this Nature show that rages every day
Well does anybody's intuition say
That we are all basically alone.
- andrew bird

Since my people are crushed, I am crushed;
I mourn and horror grips me.
Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then is there no healing
for the wound of my people?
Oh, that my head were a spring of water
and my eyes a fountain of tears!
Jeremiah 8:21-22...

Nevertheless, I will bring health and healing to it;
I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security.
I will bring Judah and Israel back from captivity
and will rebuild them as they were before.
I will cleanse them from all the sin they have committed agaisnt me
Jeremiah 33:6-8

Praise God! There is a Healer!

i feel it

2008-05-22T20:46:00.000-07:00

"I was shocked not so much at the blow

but by the calmness of my own voice.

But tears had jumped into my eyes."

scared

2008-05-14T19:20:00.000-07:00

I guess if there is a place to talk about your deepest fears, this would be it.
Even though words, like everything else, fail you.

I'm scared.
Let me start off by admitting what I try to cover up. Because its not worth it, and in order for anyone reading this to understand why certain things in life get under my skin, you should probably know that its really only because I'm scared. That way, we can both be enlightened on how pathetic that really is. Okay. Good? Good. Moving on.

I kind of always knew I would struggle being a young life leader. Well, a leader at all to be real with you. I'm the most disorganized, scatter-brained, unreliable, flaky person you'll ever meet probably (it's okay, I'm going to be extremely honest with you in this blog, so don't let anything shock you even though I'm sure it hasn't yet). I was blessed to be on a team with Jen Lewis. Meet my mom of the middle creek/holy springs team. She's fantastic! I can honestly say that when I got a phone call that they affirmed my calling of being a young life leader, I was still hesitant until I saw that she was on my team, and then I decided to breathe for the first time. She is organized. She calls me when anything is happening or when I need to be anywhere, and more than half of the time, my reaction is usually "oh! I had no idea.. okay, be right there." She is patient with me, understands me, is always pursuing me and loving me. I love her, really. Austin is the most enthusiastic, energetic, positive person there is. I've probably only had about a MILLION frustrated choked-up-snot-dripping-down-my-nose kind of cries with him firmly saying "Mollie. Trust. This is going to work out. This is the Big Man we're talking about." He is the constant reminder of the group that we can do anything He calls us to do, and that kind of encouragement is hard to find. Like I said, I've been pretty blessed on this team.

Needless to say, I've never really felt that heavy feeling of ... its all on you. I mean I guess I have in some situations, but never so .. real. (Not usually fond of the leader role, keep that in mind don't forget that one its kind of important in why I suck at this, oh and also I hope you haven't already forgotten the main reason things get under my skin -scared, remember that one.) So basically, I've come to find that my responsibilities are a little overbearing right now. I'm not going to lie, I've been really frustrated with the lack of help I've received with what needs to be done before camp happens. No ones fault really, I just like to be whiny about a lot of things. But like I said, I've been blessed to have Jen who has already stepped up to say that since I am helplessly in Richmond and cannot help any girls raise money for camp, she would be around to take them wherever they need to be and stay by their side. Did I mention I love her? I mean, that's amazing lets be serious.

I was just informed that the team I love is splitting into two teams. I guess people feel like I can tackle middle creek without Jen and Austin, which I would love to see how that thought process played out, really. But in all seriousness, they feel strongly that Jen and Austin need to be at Holy Springs, and I need to be at middle creek. Let me start off by saying, I am overjoyed with what has already happened at Holy Springs. Christ is all OVER that place! I mean, I'm not kidding, I'm faint with joy about how Jen and the others have really pursued administration, kids, parents, and how such ease has been the reaction to meeting kids and introducing young life to this new school. I really had shivers at hearing about how real Christ was on the move there. Reaping the Spirit there, and those benefits.. its something to be praised, its pure and beautiful and I want nothing more than to say GOD IS GOOD!
Christ is all over Middle Creek too. In a different way, I see so many opportunities to let Him in, I see him in the need and the brokenness, It's so crazy how I personally have seen Him in just the few times I've been there.. (we're not allowed on campus here, but the days that I have been able to be there, they have not been coincidental and Christ is totally there).
So initially Jen is focused on Holly Springs (and rocking it, because shes awesome and did I say I love her 10 times yet, because I should) and Austin is both holly springs and middle creek, and has met guys at both schools, also rocking it. I am focused on middle creek. I don't have a car. But no excuses, Morgan has graciously taken me out there, not even on her team, and each encounter has been so exciting that I probably talk her ear off about how much I love them already.

I just found out that Austin is now solely focused on holly springs. I want this. But lets go back to my first problem.. I'm scared. I know that holly spring needs attention. I am excited for everything going on there. But I've heard Austin talk about his excitement for middle creek and holly springs, but I do understand its hard to focus on two different schools. I just pray that Middle Creek would know my Jesus, and I am so scared to tackle that alone.

so that's one little perspective of my big problem of being scared, now lets look at it as a whole. I mean why not? If I'm going to put my fears and insecurities and ugliness under a microscope for everyone in the world and their moms to see, I might as well examine everything.

I'm scared. I am so deeply afraid of what I'm doing all the time and who I am all the time that I am enslaved to that fear of failure, even when I know that the God of the universe personally loves me and has provided for me abundant life at my fingertips, I still chose death everyday, I still run from that life through these things that enslave me such as fear, and THAT is why I am human and sinful to the core of who I am, to my painful, broken, and poisoned heart. I. Am. Hurt. I still need Jesus everyday, just as much as I did the moment He found me and I accepted Him.

They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.
- 2 Peter 2:19

This is the very reason that I fall more in love with my Jesus everyday: He refines me. He is so patient in revealing Himself to me, He never gives up on me though I give up on myself and others give up on me, His love never runs dry to the point where the concept is so absurd and no longer familiar but outrageous and becoming harder and harder to grasp in such a beautiful way that it makes me laugh..

" I chortled and then prayed, wondering if prayer and laughter gurgled up, sometime, from the same spring" - Sena Naslund

He disciplines me because He loves me, He knows the longings of my heart, even deeper than my own understanding, and even I know that the ways of this world are constantly competing for His place as Lord of my life. I fail, everyday. He is sufficient and STILL I search after love, comfort, satisfaction, happiness, in all different places, illusions, and areas of my life. Sometimes I think about why I cannot forget myself fully to glorify Him and full fill His purpose for me. This fear that enslaves me just buries pain and bitterness, anger, indifference, feelings of intense separation and nothing feels right or whole when I let it seep into my life.. I admit it, right now, to God and everyone: I let jealousy reign in my life. I compare myself as a young life leader, as a sister, as a daughter, as a friend, as a christian. It is the THIEF of all joy. I let illusions and appearance overcome me and get in the way of loving Him, even when I KNOW that charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman that fears the Lord is to be praised. It controls me sometimes and I cannot filter out what the world may think about me. I let doubt consume me, I cannot trust with so many areas of my life. It swallows my heart. I fall into self pity, when it's utterly ridiculous that something so small should upset me considering the blessings I've received. The norms of society enslave me. Am I too afraid to live a radical life for you Lord? Am I too uncomfortable with being bold for You? Wanting whats comfortable! Wanting. Why do I settle for that? I am so selfish. I am SO. selfish.

I pray, Holy Fountain, consume me with You. Captivate me with You. I constantly let my self consciousness and doubt tell me what I fear: failure. I tell myself I cannot possibly be what You called me to be. God, Let every chain break around me. Forgive me for what I am, for what I do, for what I don't do, for horribly representing your Son, for all of this fear that blocks your Spirit like a spring of living water, I am deeply sorry for my sin grieving others, for the way that it grieves You. Take me away from this place. Teach me to die to myself so that I will not be a slave to these things that have mastered me any longer, God. You are much bigger. You're presence is thick, your presence is tangible. That strength.. you never leave me. I want to yearn for your word, Put your desires in my heart, make me so open to your will, take everything else out, every selfish ambition out of my heart and purify me. I don't want to be apart of the ways of this world any longer, renew my mind, it's because of your precious Son and that he's chosen me, It's because of what Your Son has done for me that I can pray to you. Thank You God, may it continue to grow into such an absurd, beautiful love.
Amen.

novels

2008-05-09T14:28:00.000-07:00

Sena Naslund is unbelievable with her words.. her language is so lyrical, alluring, and wise... I thought I'd share some passages i've recently come across:

O Sunny Day, O golden sand, O loving breeze -- I would lounge and loaf forever, my spirit basking in your clear goodness, if I could. From how far away does the sunlight come to fall upon this one glittering grain I hold between my forefinger and my thumb? This grain is square as a quilt block, its edges straight as any carpenter cuts wood or glazier scores glass. Perhaps it is glass, or salt-- a crystal left by the water. I put it on the tip of my tongue and taste nothing salty. I push it sideways with my tongue and it is grit between my molars. I take it out again, all wet from my mouth. My stubborn sand grain lies drowned on the whorls of my forefinger. It can tell its fellows that it has been in a strange place. A wet, pink cave.

Perhaps the mind as well as the mouth is a glistening, pink cave. As a child that image was available to me, for my mother read aloud how Plato likened his mind to a cave. But his was dark instead of pink. With this writing I wish to enter that opalescence and inhabit the pearly chamber of memory. Hindsight, retrospective wisdom, I leave, to the extent I can, at the threshold. But as a child, I was given much of the language of adults, and I continue to use it, even to describe my youth. I court the freshness, the immediacy, and all the resources of language that make the past tense strangely shine as though it were the present.

___________________________________

The home where I first found my body, my feet not so much being pulled into this sandy beach as seeking downward, toes better than roots; then my mind, built not to chart this blue swell of heaving ocean, but the night sky, where the stars themselves, I do believe, heave and float and spin in fiery passions of their own..

____________________________________

I ceased looking through the window in order to contemplate the wavy glass itself. What was a window but a machine for making the opaque transparent? Then I regarded the window framing, which divided the four small lights by a slender, equal-armed cross between the panes..

_____________________________________

I sat on my mother's knee and listened to a bird sing. Mine was a darting mind, and it darted after the bird and its world, while I partly talked with my mother. With its song of Pretty, Pretty, Pretty, I imagined its crested red among the high green leaves of the tulip poplar, and then again diverted, imagined the way light shone through leaf so that you can see compartments and veins within the thin flatness.

_____________________________________

With the closing of the door, her image was lost to me again, but I pictured her by sound. When she straightened her arms, the wood rolled down to the hearth, and the rumble of the pieces jouncing each other, bruising and kissing the bark of their fellows and tumbling onto the hearthstones, was as pleasant and promising as any sound I know.

Beautiful.

ghost

2008-05-01T19:54:00.000-07:00

comfort was hard to find when you're a child who can't sleep.

For some reason I always found myself tracing my little fingers

along the wood design of your door

wondering if it would be okay to let myself knock.
wondering if maybe I could walk into your life and it would be okay,

It would be better.

I could usually see the light on, when I was younger.

you always seemed so much older than I was.

but even still, I was infatuated by the way you distanced yourself

the farther away you became the more I wanted to know you

but I didn't know how.
I still don't know how.

I followed you everywhere. We joke about it you know,

but I really wanted to be near you all the time.

I saved everything you made me, and the nights we fought over

silly childish things, I would cry with such strong conviction,

even so young I could feel that separation, so unsettling.

you. were ALWAYS. right.

no matter what, you knew the secrets of the universe, and I believed it

for so long. I became bitter soon after I realized it was kind of impossible

to be indulged in your world. I don't think you meant it,

but I will never forget the times you wanted to be left alone

and all I wanted to do was be anything for you.

anything.

Soon I just detached myself. Growing up for me was realizing that

you aren't really a hero.

It pains me to say it because I don't want you to think you've disappointed me

I don't want you to think that I look down on you, because I could never feel that way.

I still want that love from you, so much sometimes that I can't get past it

I get so angry.

I just want to know why, why don't you call me?

Why didn't you ever tell me you loved me, why can't we hug and talk about our lives?

no, not talk about our fucking lives but talk about who you are

and who I am

and what we really think and feel and want from these layers of life

I'm so sick of it, i'm so mad, i'm so hurt seeing your brokenness and just watching you

growing up for me was when I figured out what you need and what I need and

they're the same, we're the same.
and you don't see it, knowledge isn't everything, this is something I learned on my own

a man who is hurt will make himself an expert, but if you can't recognize that

than I don't know how to reach you and i've been looking for ways

but I've come to find its not so easy.

So I guess its like this: I'm still waiting at the door wondering

in case you're waiting on the other side and wondering..

I love you.

You should know,

2008-04-29T19:23:00.000-07:00

You taught me how to love people.

It's hard to believe really, the way you made Jesus so real to me. I hardly knew you when we first talked about the beauty of our minds.. but seeing you weep because of it told me everything
and I never really let you go. It was a gradual thing, the way you seeped into my heart. Right down to the core of who I was - you saw all of the ugliness inside of me, and you bore every pain with silent listening. I really believed the things we lived for then, in the most pure way that I think I could.. in the most selfless way that I think I ever could.

you showed me how to forget myself.

you challenged my spirit! My settled, sleeping bones weren't satisfied with the ways of the world, all because of the way you let Jesus live inside of you. The way that He touched people through you.. the sweet nostalgia and the painful attempt to get to know my heart,

you told me that everyone wants to be known.

and you knew me because I let you in.. I let you into the brokenness around me when it wasn't even fair. Maybe I let you too close.. but I saw Jesus so close to me in the most real way. I saw Him so early in the morning that the horizon was still pink, I saw Him in the dead of the afternoon in a familiar coffee shop, I saw Him in the middle of the night in a chocolate chip waffle.. You taught me what fellowship meant. It was the painful growing that got me there. You assured me that it was okay to let my mind wander and skitter away, and you never thought that my thoughts were too 'out there'... so for the first time in my life I didn't feel alone.

And then I let you go.

a little at a time, and I saw it draining by..at first the sting was too much to feel, so I just suppressed it all and became so recluse and eventually I choked it all down. I continued to live day by day, week by week, month by month...I see you sometimes and your eyes are like glass. No more late night words. It always hurt me to see you hurting, but I never felt like I deserved to give you anything.. because I always took more than I gave and some nights I couldn't sleep because of it -but other nights I couldn't sleep because of the joy in my heart. I never knew I could be so happy that I physically could not sleep. Someone once told me that you'll always know those people that make such a strong impact in your life that they aren't made to stay in your life..and I always knew you'd leave. Like that night in the car. Like smoke in the trees.
So I just want to say thank you,
you're heart is so big that it breaks for everyone,
your heart is so big that I couldn't help but be changed by you and what is inside of you
I couldn't help but be changed by the Holy Spirit, so please know that Your prayer that you always pray has been answered in more ways than one:
He uses you, He used you in my life and I will always be thankful.
<3

conversation

2008-04-12T19:52:00.000-07:00

i'd rather stay quiet and not let it be said, i'd rather let it be floating around me where it's still beautiful and limitless than let it be stale and familiarized. I can't understand the way it feels sometimes, and I know they can't either. Its too painful and exhausting to try and make everyone understand, it just reinforces loneliness. We sit around in circles and begin to talk, we talk about things we want to talk about and things we don't, we talk about adventures of the heart, we talk about sadness and joy and enthusiastic moments, fears and laughter, and when the layers unravel we share memories that have faded and aren't so significant to the outside, but mean so much at the same time. We remember things that no one else can relate to even if they wanted to, but there is comfort in their willingness to listen anyway, to see our painted images the best that they can and to smile at our stories that are absurd but sometimes beautifully simple.

It's a peaceful energy, its selflessness, its love. It connects us to intricate thoughts that we may never remember again, and how funny it is that something in our lives once meant so much and now struggles to be forgotten. There is something mesmerizing about the state of childhood, and everyone loses themselves in trying to get back to that place. The place when you were a child where you first connected the feeling of sadness with something sad, and your emotional maturity was so outside of yourself that it shocked you, because you were able to put something solid with a feeling. What was it that made your eyes stream with innocence and sadness? Its something beautiful and selfless, what was it that made you cry that wasn't about yourself at all but purely out of love for someone else? It is the fall of man that brings loneliness and confusion, an inability to be fully in fellowship with another, an isolation due to the illusions we create, materialistic walls and masks, taught to be composed and rhythmically in tune with the world, and enslavement to our own fears and society boundaries.

But in the brokenness of those moments isn't it so beautiful that we see God is so good, isn't it God that shows me, the desire of man is to be pure in Love, one in Spirit and community, because we weep for others, because we feel that tug on our hearts in the darkness even as children that are alien to such real concepts?! So we spend the rest of our lives in circles with each other, sometimes at functions or events, around bonfires, at park benches or looking up at the stars, we spend our lives searching the depths of each other with an aching to know one another the way that the God of the Universe knows us, and to see into the windows of our souls what little moments broke us and then made us whole again, how significant they really are...

theres something so real about it all that i almost don't want to make it known, just let it float above our heads like the memories we will soon forget, the emotions we are soon to feel, and the interwoven love that we are soon to pass on..

Astaire the Tree

2008-04-02T18:41:00.001-07:00

The flowers on Astaire are not really pink at all, they just appear to be pink as the buds are, but the petals are white as milk, only tinted by their tiny centers. Climbing a tree was the best advice I have ever gotten, it was one of those moments that kind of resonate in your mind and seem to make everything flow together. I was told life looks different from up there, and those little pink buds reminded me of that so clearly. Her trunk is twisted and old, the little flowers seemed to snow on the ground as the branches draped over like a mother holding her baby. She cradled me in the crevice of her heart, tangled limbs above me, the dirt below. The saddest admiration I may ever know was the way she still carried empty homes in her hands and her hair, three or more little nests. They were hollow shells of once nestled sticks and feathers, and she held the nests like crusts of the earth, beautiful and forgotten. Astaire, with her milky eyes and steady heart sings a song so pure and lonely that no one can hear but the pink and the wind. But as I sat and remembered, I drank in the pink air and instantly loved her like an old friend. She is the center that I long to come back to, my sweet and divine origin

bird by bird

2008-03-19T13:58:00.000-07:00

I am water. Am I anything I was before?
the moon was so sweet when we saw our little hands
for what they really were
God made them fly, such little hands, like paper planes that soar
quiet ripples of clouds resound in my mind
I am water, nothing more.
Your petals have crinkled beautifully, delicate and dry
they've withered so flat in the summer grass that
my hands won't hold the sky
i've been mistaken for someone else, someone never found
I sit in a bucket seat, been called your type
I laugh a hollow sound
Well here it is, is it ever endless when the water cuts so deep?
we sit in our planets and count our good roses and
such tiny hands we'll keep
bird by bird i'll make it through
at least thats what he told me

home

2008-03-05T14:33:00.000-08:00

I literally stared at the wall for 10 minutes, it was just this naked white. just completely bare. I felt so embarrassed for it, like all of its secrets were stripped and revealed. Not just white walls but all of the furniture is gone but a few tables and beds. Its gone, its like a hollow shell of some part of me that I can never come back to. I sat there and felt the sting, it was like a heartache that shocks you every time it comes, I was myself years ago with a crush on a boy. I was myself years ago when a loved one died. I was myself staring at the wooden door frame that has been slammed shut numerous times because of family fights. I couldn't possibly dive into the pool of memories that were swimming around me, there were so many brilliant moments, so many painful ones. There were so many images coming to my mind that I haven't remembered in years, and how sorry I was for it. How sorry I am for these white walls that were washed clean of their life. I felt so old. I looked down at my hands and saw myself as nineteen. Where did it go? My childhood? Its in a box in the garage. That is the thing about time, it gradually moves who you are with who you will be, and soon you forget it all behind you. I am a ghost in this empty house, I am an outsider in this little town. If those walls could talk of the conversations they held, of the laughter they witnessed, the tears... I will never know. And soon my quiet window will be nailed shut and the roof will be just like an unfamiliar face.

You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone.
You'll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for you kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.

- garden state

2008-02-28T12:32:00.000-08:00

"Hey. Could we do that again? I know we haven't met, but I don't want to be an ant. You know? I mean, it's like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. "Here's your change." "Paper or plastic?' "Credit or debit?" "You want ketchup with that?" I don't want a straw. I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be ant, you know?"
- woman at the stairs

So like, um, for Bazin, what the ontology of film has to do is it has to deal with, you know, with what photography also has an ontology of, except that it adds this dimension of time to it, and this greater realism. And so, like, it's about that guy, at that moment, in that space. And, you know, Bazin is like a Christian, so he, like, believes that, you know, God obviously ended up like, everything ... he believes, for him reality and God are the same. You know, like ... and so what film is actually capturing is like God incarnate, creating. And this very moment, God is manifesting as this. And what the film would capture if it was filming us right now would be like God as this table, and God as you, and God as me, and God looking the way we look right now, and saying and thinking what we're thinking right now, because we are all God manifest in that sense. So film is actually like a record of God, or of the face of God, or of the ever-changing face of God.

But, you know, you don't first think of the story of the song, and then make the song. It has to come out of that moment. And that's what film has. It's just that moment, which is holy. You know, like this moment, it's holy. But we walk around like it's not holy. We walk around like there's some holy moments and there are all the other moments that are not holy, right, but this moment is holy, right? And if film can let us see that, like frame it so that we see, like, "Ah, this moment. Holy." And it's like "Holy, holy, holy" moment by moment. But, like, who can live that way? Who can go, like, "Wow, holy"? Because if I were to look at you and just really let you be holy, I don't know, I would, like, stop talking.
Well, you'd be in the moment, I mean ....
Yeah
The moment is holy.
Yeah, but I'd be open. And then I'd look in your eyes, and I'd cry, and I'd like feel all this stuff and that's like not polite. I mean it would make you feel uncomfortable.
Well you could laugh too. I mean, why would you cry?
Well, 'cause ... I don't know. For me, I tend to cry.
Uh-huh. Well ... Is, is full ...
Well, let's do it right now. Let's have a holy moment.
Okay.
(Long moments pass with them staring at each other)
Everything is layers, isn't it?

- waking life

avoidance

2008-02-15T16:54:00.000-08:00

Pass by the morning
Though we both see it coming
We don't run.
Let the silence settle in our bones.

doubting thomas

2008-02-08T21:24:00.000-08:00

It is a sense of space, a fear of failure.
Its a fear that we will spend our entire lives merely traveling to the place where we will leave it.
Can I be made into a leader?
The comparisons and standards and worldly ideals and definitions of success - they surround me, they take me away from the Cross, they put doubt in my mind.
Oh the Lord has blessed me and opened doors and I can see just a faint line of His picture, His perfect plan. So much bigger than I am, it was never a story about me, and how thankful I am - for I am nothing apart from Christ.
And in the midst of the joy I am overwhelmed, I am troubled by my sin. All my longings lie open before you, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you (psalm 38:9).
But I will follow the Lord, who said Lo, I am with you always (matthew 28:20).
Forgive me for my doubt, and be patient with me...
I pray that my life would be a hymn of praise to You God, and that You would guide me throughout this ministry that I get to be apart of, because You have found me, chosen me, transformed me. Use me, I pray. Amen..
In Love,
Mollie

What will be left when I've drawn my last breath,
Besides the folks I've met and the folks who know me,
Will I discover a soul saving love,
Or just the dirt above and below me,
I'm a doubting thomas,
I took a promise,
But I do not feel safe,
Oh me of little faith..
Sometimes I pray for a slap in the face,
Then I beg to be spared 'cause I'm a coward,
If there's a master of death I'll bet he's holding his breath,
As I show the blind and tell the deaf about his power,
I'm a doubting thomas,I can't keep my promises,
'Cause i don't know what's safe,
oh me of little faith
Can I be used to help others find truth,
When I'm scared I'll find proof that its a lie,
Can I be lead down a trail dropping bread crumbs,
That prove I'm not ready to die,
Please give me time to decipher the signs,
Please forgive me for time that I've wasted,
I'm a doubting thomas,
I'll take your promise,
Though I know nothin's safe,
Oh me of little faith
- nickel creek

the journey is too great

2008-02-04T19:33:00.000-08:00

I came to understand it as I watched the laundry turn in quiet desperation.

3And when he saw that, he arose, and ran for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there.
4But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, I've had enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.
5And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat.
6And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again.
7And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for you.
8And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mountain of God.

1 KINGS 19: 3-8

two ideals

2008-01-12T22:46:00.000-08:00

Coffee is pouring out my ears
It's the only thing they have in here
And my heart stops beating
Number tree still on my plate
I heard the trains are running late
And I laugh out loud
My life is a mess
I have gone too far
In my lifelessness
-Emiliana Torrini

I was talking with a good friend - you know, the three in the morning kind of talks when the lights are out and you can hear so sharply through the night that it is almost piercing and you can't see their faces but it makes you feel so close to them at the same time...
She told me it dawned on her that most christians are after these two ideals:
One is to live a life after God's own heart. Completely surrendered not worrying about this world's desires. The other is a life defined by worldy success, or rather a "picture perfect" life in whatever way that may be, not necessarily rich but comfortable, desiring to be pretty, have a pretty husband, have a pretty family and a pretty job and a pretty life style. She said that its these two ideals that for some reason, we think we can have both of them. By packing on my make up and buying the most expensive clothes there is and saying that I follow Jesus is letting seekers know that it's okay to hold onto that other life, its letting them know that you can have both. And you can have both, but its not a full surrender, there will always be something holding you back. She said she was at a conference FULL of Godly women, and looking at them she realized. They were plastic, completely colored by the tanning bed and bleached teeth and curled eyelashes, talking about how we must truly believe that God can satisfy all of our needs. When will the world not consume me? what will it take? Then later the same night my other friend showed me a song that was so beautiful and so convicting for some reason.

used to be one of
the rotten ones
and I liked you for that
now you're all gone
got your makeup on
and you aint coming back
bleeching your teeth
smile like a flash
talking trash under your breath
or under my window
park that car
drop that phone
sleep on the floor
dream about me
- Broken Social Scene

are we all made to be radical with the way we are living? For some reason there is something in the way right now, and it's a little unsettling. I can't keep still about it.

i'm really only sure of this..

When I go for a drive I like to pull off to the side
Of the road, turn out the lights,
get out and look up at the sky
And I do this to remind me that I'm really, really tiny
In the grand scheme of things and sometimes this terrifies me
But it's only really scary cause it makes me feel serene
In a way I never thought I'd be because I've never been
So grounded, and so humbled, and so one with everything
I am grounded, I am humbled, I am one with everything
- Kimya Dawson

conviction

2008-01-02T21:08:00.000-08:00

I was talking to a girl across my hall once that was agnostic and I asked her why she believed what she did, or rather why she didn't believe what she didn't and she said
Everyone wants to be loved
but no one wants to love
and as I agreed and sat in silence, I wanted so badly to tell her I was sorry. Sometimes you don't have to be painfully aware to hear the painful truth, it just kind of knocks on your door and you hear it loud.

it's the painful growing that gets you there.

I know someone that wants to love
I hope they find each other.

[ I believe in windy days when everything
gets blown away 'cause when our eyes close we're the same... - Page France ] <3::.

new year

2008-01-02T20:39:00.000-08:00

What’s happening here?
I was once so alive and now I’m so full of dread and almost dead
Show me your wounded head that is lead to communion with the father
But where did he go? His presence seems farther and farther away each day but I’m trying so hard to steer his way
Yet still lonely and confused on this cold hard ground I lay
Speak to me wise mouth and say “it’s all good kid, it’s nothing that you did, and though it feels like I’m not here with you right now just be still and silent and listen for that sound..Shhh..Did you hear it?
Listen again.Did you hear it?
That silent voice that just spoke nothing, that is me, I’m listening to your plea with open ears Counting all your tears flowing from your irritated eyes
Searching the skies looking for that hope that beyond there lies.Oh you young worrisome sparrow, find rest
Lay your battered head upon my omnipresent breast and make it your nest
No strong cold wind could ever blow and carry you from this your home
Look around, see the life shooting up from the ground
Spring colors springing fourth and celebration of your trusting
It’s a constant process this is
Growing you into the man you are to become
But when you sense the setting of the sun know it is only rising and has just begun
Now go fourth, sing songs of faith, and lift up others in the midst of this race
And if you can’t keep the pace or lose sight of my face
Know that I’m always near so you need not fear
But don’t worry about all that right now
Just sit here and enjoy the peace I offer in my silence
When I am silent I am listening, and not abandoning.
-- Bradley Hathaway

"The world has changed a lot. We are dinosaurs walking around in a sea of digital realities;
things do not weigh as much as they used to. "
- Sean Hayes

Be present.
Be present.
Be present.

I don't think I believe in New Years resolutions. Don't ask why, it just feels too forced. But I guess if I really reflect on the upcoming year, I'd like to look back and feel that I had learned to love people more outwardly and pursue people more deeply. I want to be present. I want to abide. I want to listen and be outside of myself. But mostly I want the desire to have Him radically transform my heart.

listening

2007-12-28T09:59:00.000-08:00

"If you're really listening, if you're awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly."

- Andrew Harvey

urgent and awake

2007-12-26T21:36:00.001-08:00

i feel urgent
alarmingly awake. I don't know what the hell I was thinking - leaving all of those books and journals and words in my dorm room. I can't function without them for 3 weeks, what did I possibly think I would do without them! It's like trying to quit smoking, I get that itch for them, to hold them, feel the paper on my fingertips, read the words embedded deeply into my mind, hear the way they sound in the air. I just need it to convince myself of myself. Why? This must be some sort of cycle - I mean, spiritually, we go through all sorts of cycles, right? All sorts of valleys and mountains, all sorts of lessons and songs. Well I'm not quite sure, but it has to be connected somehow. I've come to realize I need to be reminded that those stories and words fail me so that I can only see Him, because even though I know it in my head I always seem to think my way is fine. Fine, it's fine.
Old friends are leaving and taking bits of me and regret of words unsaid
family is becoming blurred faces in a crowd of millions to be left soon crying out for truth
futures are being built brick by brick and suffocating my feeble hands to where I can't accept the depth of my past and the clear and fearful footsteps of my future
and none of it feels right or whole..
I'm so exhausted with being wrong.
I'm so exhausted with fighting myself, prolonging the pain of laying it all on the line, all the layers of myself that the world molds and shapes me to be. I'm just prolonging the raw truth of my brokenness and inability to cope with reality, its like telling myself it's okay to pretend everything is alright for just a little longer even when I know that I always lose when its just me.
Is it just me? Of course its not, He is bigger than a feeling. Sure, I'd love to feel that love right about now, but i'm so indifferent and numb and in this pit and I can't really see where my footing is, so I grab onto anything because I just can't trust that His hand will be there, yes I grab anything, rocks, branches, crumbled sand and holes, they all fail me and I fall deeper into the dark when I'm telling myself, just a little longer, or just let go, it doesn't matter because my mind and my heart tell me two different things.
No this is not a desperate cry for anything really, its just a simple acknowledgement that
Oh My God
I can't do it by myself and
I know I'm not made to.
But praise God all the more, and I really mean that- with every scrape from every rock and every blow that the world can give me - because I am being made weaker, closer and closer to admitting defeat and what a beauitful thing it will be, knowing that admitting defeat means joyful salvation. I know it, and I praise Him, that all of his works would be made in me, that all the doors will be open and His light would shine through, that He would be manifested in my body and my heart and everything that I do, that I would find refuge in the God of the Universe - Praise God! I Will, and I will wait patiently for the Lord, for my God never fails me.

In Love,
Mollie

oh but a softer side

2007-12-25T21:57:00.000-08:00

Beams of night light from our Christmas moon
Offer snow shine and red light blooms
And a glitter haze on a hilltop far away
Makes this cold cold eve a warm holiday
But take me into your world
Shake me and shape me into pearls
And oh that face pressed to this palm of mine
Soft and dear and oh so kind
Lilting choirs sing all their carol tunes
Love transpires under the Christmas moon
And couples sleep hand in hand eyes wide
For the morning will draw near with God on their side
But take me into your world
Yes shake me and shape me into pearls
And oh that face pressed to this palm of mine
Soft and dear and oh so kind
Soft and dear and all mine

- Brooke Waggoner

I've never felt this feel so heavy
And I've never felt this feel so low
Yeah it is a weight inside my whole soul
But You are my strength, I won't stand alone
And ask for the things you lack in heart
And You can begin a clean new start
Oh to be the purest of pure in His arms
Yeah He, He will shield you from all harm
I tried my best alone but it got me nowhere,
I can't do it on my own...
But I've never felt this feel so heavy
And I've never felt this feel so low

- Brooke Waggoner

commercial love

2007-12-25T21:39:00.000-08:00

christmas is a ghost;

but it used to be different

we're all chasing after a reoccuring dream thats never as colorful as it was before

&& the world is a vampire

I didn't want any flowers

2007-12-22T20:32:00.000-08:00

"He's alright! Aren't you, cat? Poor cat! Poor slob! Poor slob without a name! The way I see it I haven't got the right to give him one. We don't belong to each other. We just took up one day by the river. I don't want to own anything until I find a place where me and things go together..."
- Audrey Hepburn

I love this, it makes me smile when I look at Freddie in his fish bowl. I named him, this is true, but I still like to entertain the thoughts that we just happened to find one another and we don't really belong to each other. It's light. He is blue green and cute. He loves poetry. What is better in life than to read your fish some poetry? He especially likes tulips, by Plath. Oh I wish everything was as simple as life with Freddie. Maybe it is,

maybe it is.

In Love,
Mollie

lyrics always find me when I need them

2007-12-22T20:14:00.001-08:00

why did it never occur to me
that Your love runs deeper
than my moods or reservations
- This Providence

Out of my bondage, sorrow and night.
Jesus, I come; Jesus, I come.
Into Thy freedom, gladness, and light.
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of my sickness, into Thy health,
Out of my wanting and into Thy wealth,
Out of my sin and into Thyself.
Jesus, I come to Thee.

Out of my shameful failure and loss,
Jesus, I come; Jesus, I come.
Into the glorious gain of Thy cross,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of earth’s sorrows, into Thy palm,
Out of life’s storms and into Thy calm,
Out of distress to jubilant psalm,
Jesus, I come to Thee.

Out of unrest and arrogant pride,
Jesus, I come; Jesus, I come.
Into Thy blessed will to abide,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of myself to dwell in Thy love,
Out of despair, into raptures above,
Upward forever on wings like a dove,
Jesus, I come to Thee.

Out of the fear and dread of the tomb,
Jesus, I come; Jesus, I come.
Into the joy and light of Thy home,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of the depths of ruin untold,
Into the peace of Thy sheltering fold,
Ever Thy glorious face to behold,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
- Shelly Moore Band

a little christmas reminiscence

2007-12-22T19:40:00.000-08:00

It's almost Christmas but it really doesn't feel like it at all... maybe it's because i'm back from college and that is just how it will be from now on. I don't know. Maybe it's because most traditions you have growing up seem to fade and it no longer feels familiar. How can everything make me feel so nostalgic, and so unfamiliar all at the same time? I guess that's what the holidays are, all wrapped up together in bows. I miss the excitement. It makes me grasp onto what I have right now so tightly that I suffocate... I keep thinking about my window and how pretty soon it will be sealed and nailed with a screen, preventing me from going out onto the roof (we're selling our house). And then I think about this house being gone, and meeting with the family in random houses that hold no memories, soft or rigid. I think about my kitten Stella that I wouldn't let sleep anywhere but right under my neck for 5 months and then having her disappear to some new home where she probably sleeps on someone else's neck. I think about the people that used to be a big part of christmas that are no longer here, and how strangely... accepting it is to move on without them in the picture. I mean you choke a little bit when you try to swallow it all in, but eventually it just dissolves in the back of your mind. And I think about who else will fit that mold one day. Oh- it is a beautifully sad holiday. That's all I really wanted to say...

In Love,
Mollie

life

2007-12-17T13:26:00.000-08:00

what is life?

everytime you move.

everytime you speak.

everytime you blink.

what is life?

everythings a mess.

everythings a laugh.

everythings a song.

what is life?

everyone has stories.

everyone is lost.

everyone pretends.

what is life?

every blade of grass.

every grain of sand.

every beating heart.

what is life?

never silent.

never predictable.

never waking.

what is life?

always spinning.

always failing.

always beautiful.

and to think your speck of existence made all the difference

a fleeting thought inside an open mind.

yes - this is life.

frivolous life

2007-12-17T13:17:00.000-08:00

fluttered and frivolous;
slipping in and out of consciousness like crystals in the sun
To stop myself short of breathing in this dust
these rays of sunlight that seem to disillusion
and hide the pain of years long gone.
I would keep every drop of candle wax
every scrap of paper, every dimpled face
if I could
its enough to keep me still
inside the simplicity of a child
I search through boxes of paper and treasures
only to find myself digging through bones
unnaturally and painfully aware
its enough to keep me terribly awake
when all I desire is to fall asleep inside of each picture
I sleep under magnolia and smeared lipstick
dragon flies and pennies
the inability to let go, the grasping too tightly
it suffocates and exceeds my reach
the sleeping mind,it never sees the truth
but which truth is to be heard
and which is mine to choose
I try to scream in a room yes,
I could scream in this room
a room with four walls and chairs and people
painted doors and lightbulbs keep my silence
i'll be someone new
pretend to be a stranger to myself
a stranger with courage and knowledge
I could do without your facts
I really could
live without the blank answers
that tell the tale of how my world came to be
I could live without knowing the physics and gravity
the analytical stripping of the stars and the
day to day opinions of politicians, celebrities, and
biological breakdown of what chocolate cake does to my body in calories
Yes I could live without knowing why
but I guess that makes me small
and I guess my sentimental attachments create frailty and innocence
and I guess innocence is instability; innocence is ignorance, naive
and childhood is no state to be in
to be living successfully in this world
well then I will tell you i'm none of those things
i'm not a philosopher I suppose, i'm not an engineer
i'm not even a magazine full of the top 10 everything
and I was perfectly content
with my life of boxes
but you know sometimes its time to erase the windows
and pack up the old things
put them away and never speak of them
yes, maybe thats what growing up is
with sorrow in your hear
tyou become the magician --no longer in wonderment
but knowing the tricks, and leaving the magic.

in awe

2007-12-17T13:11:00.000-08:00

Do I know You? - like a beautiful melody that the whole earth cries
You are the familiar feeling of summertime as I lay in the grass
The moon pours over me and the stars have yet to pass
Do I know You? - You are never ending with Your light
I am a rose petal drifting in your infinite rivers
Your grace fulfills me and my soul shivers
Do I know You? As the wind knows the waves
Powerful yet calming blankets it covers
Chasing the swirling sky like lovers
Could You know me? I wear such a worldly mask
Covered beautifully in perfume and lace
Deceitfully lost in this broken place
Would You know me? I’m nothing to a crowd
I scream out my name to know who I’ve become
I search in mirrors only to find myself numb
But You really love me? I cannot fathom
In high waters how could it be true
How could a rose petal mean anything to You?
Oh to love You - my life seeks Your truth
You see my heart through this choking shell
Your love echoes through the story I tell
Do I love You? - Your mercy has run so deep
I want to tell You in so many ways
I love You as the sun loves it’s rays
Oh Maker, You pour over me like honey so sweet
Your unchanging rivers run over me
You take off this mask and allow me to see
Just how wonderful life can be.

something more

2007-12-17T12:55:00.000-08:00

It soaks into my skin like something I used to remember
Reflections of moments, fractions of a line
I can feel them etched into the palms of my hands
I’ve been here before, this state of awareness,
This raw sense of my surroundings
once oblivious to my own lifelessness
I hear the outcry from laughing walls and Cold metal bleachers
I hear the shaking gasp for something more
Dying like the pale orange sky
Fading thinly through the silhouettes of trees
And it’s so beautifulSo broken and beautiful
Something solid, it’s all that we can find
When its not even there to cradle our desperation
And calm our restless, aching hearts
Keep walking past each other, saying the same
Damn things over and over until you’ve been convinced
That you’re aliveYou’re alive?
Are you?
There’s not one day that you’re heart has stopped it’s rhythmic dancing
But your sporadic breathing and welling eyes tell the storyI
t’s a story that has always been told
words that fit into the shape of a lie
Step out of your worldly mind, the ignored hum of mother culture
That flows through your veins and sings you to sleep
Don’t you want to feel alive?
Don’t you want what you can’t imagine?
Because the sky is slowly fading
And the lies are suffocating

my yellow bird

2007-12-16T21:34:00.000-08:00

I once heard a woman say that poetry and words were mixtures of the heart. I liked that. Annie Dillard said that she wishes to remember it all, as no one has before. I liked that too. Maybe my own mixtures of the heart are paved by simple words of others like these, phrases and fractions of lyrics, poems, conversations light and profound... How many times do we truly open our hearts to embedded words or beauty, whether they truly change us by their meaning or we simply love the way it sounds on our lips, our bodies radiating an echoe of ourselves. The answer I have come to settle with is that those times are few and precious, and yet they build us to become something more than ourselves, interconnected and reflecting something greater. It is when we recognize the beauty in being deeply human that we see whats beyond the deeply human. I read once that everyone should write, everyday. Because it brings you back to the origin of your being, the center of who you are, renewing your mind and spirit, with peace deeper than your conscious state of mind. I want to drown myself in words, and bring myself closer day by day to that beauty - because everyone has stories. My friend told me "WAS" was the most beautiful word in the english language, because it signifies change. I liked that. Another friend told me infinity was the quiet hours of the night when you were a child, eyes open to the frantic blackness of the room. I liked that too.

I was in an old antique shop a few weeks ago in the record section, and the old radio next to me was playing christmas songs and oldies. A raspy voice spoke through the little box, "And here's Molly, she's studying story telling... lets hear her tell us a story..." I think thats when I told myself. I want to tell stories, or describe moments that are easily forgotten. Easily forgotten like the door to one of the numerous rooms in the antique shop. I've fallen in love with broken doors and windows, chipped walls and paint, peeling colors and clumps of wood, old and telling a story of who it was before. Brian Webb's lyrics say "I want to fall in love with who you are without me," I liked that. Bright Eyes' lyrics say "and I never knew this life was possible. You're the yellow bird that i've been waiting for," I liked that too.

In Love,

Mollie

fiction writing: missing

2007-12-16T18:51:00.000-08:00

I’ve been here for five months and thirteen days. I know this because every time Vince goes down the street to get food I take some toilet paper from the bathroom and record the days on it and roll it up under the floorboard of the basement. There are a few other things down there in my secret compartment beneath the floor boards, like an old hello kitty keychain my little sister gave me and a promise ring my parents bought me when I was thirteen, an old movie ticket stub that was in my pocket the day I left forever. My heart is underneath those floor boards, the life I used to know is buried in that dirt. The idea of never knowing what will happen next, that fear that subsides in the pit of your stomach like a seed growing into a tree, it eventually turns into a garden, a beautiful garden, and you soon forget what it looked like before. The fear that has held me captive for so long now is who I am and nothing more exists. I used to be a daughter, a sister, a best friend, a girlfriend. I used to be a ballerina, a mermaid in the summer and a snow angel in the winter. I always led the family in Christmas caroling and I could speak a little Spanish, enough to brag about, anyway. But I’m not that girl anymore, I vaguely remember her, like an old photograph shoved in a box in the attic.

I hear the door to the basement being unlocked. The familiar smell of vegetable soup and old leather fills the room. Vince is here. I’ve come to the point where the sound of the door slamming shut no longer makes me jump, it no longer sounds like my heart screaming, as if someone were finally here to take me back, back to the world that I’m not a part of anymore. Now it is just another sound like the wind and the dripping faucet, nothing that would bring me hope or salvation. I let the noise sink into my skin as I cover up the hole in the floor and run to the rocking chair that faces the wall. There are only two pictures on the wall, one is a serene picture of the ocean and one is of a little girl with curly brown hair. She looks tired, more tired than a little girl should be. I’ve stared at that wall for far too long, knowing every crack, line, and colored flaw. The dry paint that dripped from the wood paneling along the edges is horrendously noticeable, and some days I sit and think about what I would say to the person that painted this room. If I ever met them. I might scold them, or maybe the surreal brilliance of it all would make me cry at their feet, feeling grateful to see another human being and convicted for judging them all at the same time. These are the ideas that have filled my mind day in and day out, and now I can’t remember what’s real and what isn’t.

“Here. I got you this.” Vince’s voice is startling as he walks toward me. He hands me a candy bar. He is getting better at being less defensive and less aggressive, it is like he is beginning to trust me, and as much as I fear and hate him for what he did, his small acts of kindness are somehow becoming more humane and more genuine to me. It is like I can’t help but be grateful, like he is doing me a favor or something. It actually makes me quite sick. I take it and don’t say anything.

“Jimmy is coming over soon. You know what I told you about when Jimmy is here, you keep to yourself down here and stay out of our way. I can bring you some movies or something if you want…” It is unbelievable really, the way he talked to me before and the way he talks to me now.

“Thank you” I say.

I used to never look him in the eyes, but I am getting better at a few glimpses here and there, just to let him know I appreciate the somewhat twisted kindness. I don’t understand it and I really don’t understand why I return it. Vince is a tall, lanky man, with a young face except for the wrinkles around his eyes and his slightly graying auburn hair. His nose is large, and his eyes are like two small almonds, full of dull darkness and rimmed with red, as if he hasn’t slept in days. It gives me chills.

Jimmy is, to my knowledge, Vince’s friend that comes by every few weeks with a lot of cash. They sit at the table upstairs smoking pot and counting bills. Every time he comes over I hear some yelling and a few doors slamming, and then silence. Five months here and I still haven’t figured out what the cash is for or where it comes from. But then again, I haven’t figured out why a lot of things happen. Vince looks at me suspiciously, like he always does when I say thank you, and then turns to walk up the stairs. I wait.

I’ve left Vince’s house maybe four times since I’ve been here. Each time the ground beneath me feels more and more soft, almost fluid, as if the wet grass could not keep me still. And then the gravel so unforgiving, making my trembling legs hit the rocks lightly like a scared rabbit. But I never forget the blue sky and playful white clouds, they haunt me from the back of my mind. I follow Vince quickly to his van, where I then cover my face with different scarves and lay in the back seat of the van so that no one can see me from the window. The only time he ever lets me leave is when he gets that “feeling” again that the cops might come by, so paranoid that his eyes are constantly shifting from me to the windows and doors. I’ve come to understand Vince’s irregular breathing and periods of distress, so intensely chained to his own fear that it almost eases my own.

I remember one morning when Vince hurried me into the van, we were driving past an old flea market about five miles away from my home. It is amazing really, how the same locations that you know for so long can become so disoriented and empty, and that I can peak into my old life so easily from the tinted windows and yet be so absent from this neighborhood. I used to be pained with anger, thinking that I could be found so effortlessly, and yet no one has come for me. Then Vince stopped the car as he got to the stop sign, and after warning me not to move from the car, he ran across the street into the flea market.

I sat up cautiously and looked out the window, seeing nothing but an old street lamp near the sidewalk opposite the flea market. I looked at a flimsy piece of paper taped onto the pole with bold red words “MISSING PERSON”. The words were deep and running off the page, etched into my palms and sending a cool wave down my body. I stared into my own face as if I were seeing a ghost, a picture that I knew from my sixteenth birthday party about four months before Vince found me. I hated the picture, my shoulders were awkwardly hunched over and I was trying to pick up my kitten who was playfully running around my ankles. My best friend Meriella was in the background laughing, and I never noticed the admired look on her face until this moment. Here was the first time since I’ve been away that I began to weep, uncontrollably weep, unaware of my eyes streaming and my body falling over the leather seats. I didn’t make a sound, but I cried heavily into my mass of frayed brown hair.

When I sat up Vince was leaning over the front seat, looking at me with bitter disappointment and a small amount of sympathy. “What’s wrong with you?” he nearly shouted. There was a crack of weakness in his voice, a note of guilt because he knew what was wrong, and he knew that I was so very broken. I watched him swallow back his vulnerability and he searched my eyes, begging me for affirmation, as if he really cared what I thought of him. But in this moment I believed that he cared, he cared and it was his downfall, it was the very thing that led him to his own tortured life.

After that day, I wasn’t angry anymore. I stopped pitying myself and began to focus all of my thoughts on my family and friends. I knew that they cared. My family is pretty close, I guess. Ever since I can remember we’ve held the best Thanksgiving dinners that everyone in town comes to. My dad is a likeable guy, always playing golf with his buddies from work. My mom teaches an etiquette class, she’s quite the southern bell… so you can imagine how challenging it was growing up to exceed her expectations. But they were great folk, and their reputations were flawless. My little sister is president of her 6th grade class and informally president of the “perfects,” a group of girls in her grade that are already shaping together the exclusive and status-centered world of middle school. She never stops blabbing about it. It’s quite shocking, hilarious, and repulsive. My brother Patrick is twenty-two and the farthest away, physically and emotionally. He left for college a few years ago and didn’t call us for a year, then reported that he had been living off the land with some Hippies in Oregon. My parents were disgusted, hurt, and outraged, and even though I’m not supposed to, I admire him for it. Every so often I went to the upstairs closet and called my brother secretly because my parents didn’t want me talking to him. We talked about everything, and he was my escape from the cookie cutter world that I lived in. Sometimes I think about him and wonder what he’s thinking, maybe he is secretly glad like I was for him. But nevertheless, I always rationalize myself into believing that these people are the ones that truly know me, and because of that I long to see them again.

So I imagine Jimmy left now, because I can hear Vince yelling again. But this time it’s more piercing, more urgent. I look at the door, expecting it to swing open at any time. Usually when Vince gets angry he paces, and he doesn’t like to be confined in one room. But he’s not coming downstairs. This time he starts moaning, as if he were in unbearable pain. I sit there dumbfounded, not knowing what to do. Maybe I should go upstairs and make sure everything is okay… I usually wouldn’t be so bold, but his howling makes me incredibly uneasy.

I walk up the stairs soundlessly, keeping my small hand along the wood of the door and listening more intently. He is weeping gently, and the sound of it sends shivers down my spine. I creak the door open that to my surprise is unlocked, and he stops.

“I - I’m sorry… I just wanted to make sure…” I can’t get the words out, I feel like I’m not even speaking. He stares at me blankly, and then turns to look at the door.

“Get out,” he says. His words are cold and lifeless, but I don’t feel them sting. The room feels like a cloud, and I don’t recognize anything. I’ve never really taken a close look at the setup in here, it’s quiet but unsettling.

“Are you alright?” I am really asking for it this time. He doesn’t answer. “I just heard.. It sounds like you’re hurt.. I just heard this sound and..” my face is heated and my feet start backing toward the door again.

“Does it look like I’m fucking hurt?” This one stings.

“I .. I guess you aren’t, I’m sorry I’ll go back downstairs--” My eyes fall to the floor. I am so afraid, but mostly I am sorry. I am sorry that he is hurt on the inside, something that only a child could see. I still hold my childlike eyes, it is something Vince did not take from me, and it leaves me broken. His life is a gaping wound, and I pity him for it. It is beyond trying to understand why I am here with this man, it is beyond anger. It is sorrow.

I walk solemnly down the stairs and sit in my chair, my apple cheeks too raw to feel tears trickling. My pale olive skin is flushed pink, and my tall posture gives me the demeanor that everything is alright. Those damn etiquette classes - they can cover up any humanly unsatisfying emotion. Suddenly Vince opens the door and walks down the stairs, dragging his feet like he’s drunk. He collapses on the floor opposite my chair, his back against the wall and his knees bent in front of him. His sigh breaks the silence.

“Maybe I am hurt.” His eyes are at my feet and I don’t say a word. My heart jumps and I want him to keep talking, to say anything. He looks for a response, and I open my mouth but nothing comes out.

“What do you think is the hardest thing to accept?” he asks, so thoughtful and gentle. I remain still. What does he mean, the hardest thing to accept? Where was this coming from? I shake my head like I refuse the question.

“Just… in general?” he asks patiently. I can’t believe this is happening.

“Myself… I guess,” I said. His eyebrows raised as if I were tricking him.

“That’s really it? That’s the hardest thing for you to accept?”

“Yeah. What’s the hardest thing for you to accept?”

“I don’t know. I guess myself too,” he says.

“We’re not so different.” I say with a smile. He is unbelieving of my comment, but I think it comforts him in a way. He picks up his feeble body and walks toward the stairs, pausing at the foot of the step.

“Do you miss it?” he asks.

“Sometimes.”

He nods and walks up the stairs. For the first time, I feel close to someone other than my family. I may not know Vince the way I know my family, but I know him the way I know myself. We have both hidden our weaknesses for so long that we are conditioned to feel alone. And whether we’re crazy or not, we accept what we will, and cannot accept the rest - and that is what brings us to accept each other.

I ponder the words that were spoken as I try to sleep on the cot in between the wall and the stairs. I can feel each spring, and the stiff sheets that smell like smoke are pulled over my eyes to keep my head from spinning. I begin to doze off as thoughts turn into colors and swim around my cot, they pick up my mattress and I float up through the door and out the window, flying through the night sky and landing in a sea foam green ocean with daffodils all around me. In the distance I see my family and Vince all around a dinner table, eating their thanksgiving turkey - everyone but Vince. His plate is full of dry bones and nothing more, and my family does not offer him anything to eat. I become very angry, and try to stand but fall into the ocean, my lungs filling with salt water. I can see the transparent layers of sand and clear blue, passively looking through the water and seeing a wave of the sky, broken with salted stars. My brothers hand pulls me up and we fly into the blanket of clouds, finally reaching the table that my family and Vince were sitting at. My brother takes the plate of bread and hands it to Vince and me.
“We are travelers on a journey. I am one beggar showing another beggar a piece of bread. Please accept it, what more are you than dry bones?” he asks, smiling.

I wake in a cold sweat. It’s still dark outside and my heart is beating faster. I don’t know what is happening, but I feel very urgent. I run upstairs, screaming for Vince. It is like nothing else in the world matters.

Vince is standing in the middle of the hardwood floor, the lights are off and all I can see is his face illuminated by the moon from the skylight. I hear the rain tapping gently against the tin roof.

“Vince.”

“What is wrong with you?” he asks. He is shaking.

“Everything. But that’s not the point, the point is that we’re more than this. Vince, I don’t blame you, for anything. I accept you, I accept myself, I don’t want to live this way anymore, but it’s more than that. I don’t want to live the way I lived before…”

“What are you saying?” he is getting angry.

“Vince, don’t get mad, I’m just saying that its oka-”

“You want to leave, don’t you?”

“What? Vince, that doesn’t matter, I’m trying to tell you -”

“I know what you’re trying to tell me. It’s okay, you think I’m nuts, everyone does. Jimmy thought I was nuts last night when I told him I didn’t want the money, you think I’m nuts because I took you away from this perfect life, and, and,” he is sobbing now, his shoulders are heaving and his fist is clenched tightly.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“It’s nothing,” he says.

“What does Jimmy have to do with this?”

“Don’t play stupid! He comes here all the time, you’ve seen the money, you’ve heard the yelling, don’t you play stupid, damnit!” he is screaming at me.

“Vince. Tell me what is wrong.” I try to calm him down, but he starts pacing.

“I love her, I really do love her…” he is being hysterical now.

“Who do you love?” I ask.

“I love my daughter Emma, I love her so much.” He falls to the floor. “When Karen and I broke it off, she left me with the kid, she left me with this beautiful little girl that didn’t have anything to do with my scum life. Karen, she got to get away, she’s a pushover business woman now and so everyone pitied me and I got the child support. Emma could have been such a good girl, she was beautiful. I really did love her…”

My head is spinning, I sit down on the ground and look him in the eyes as he uncovers his past, spitting out the words like they would slowly kill him if he keeps them in any longer.

“So Emma just left. As soon as she was about 15 she left me, and I didn’t blame her at all, in fact I was glad she wasn’t there to see the way I was for any longer. It killed me! So I didn’t tell anyone, anyone except Jimmy, he’s the middle man between Karen and I and he brings me the child support every month. I know its because Karen doesn’t want to involve other people, she’s hiding something from them and me and I don’t even want to know, I’ve never wanted to know. Well, the government never found out that Emma left. Karen either. Jimmy always wants me to start up a drug dealing line with him, but I always just save it. I would give it to Emma, but you don’t understand, I need it, and I…I don’t know where she is. I can’t tell Karen because she’d be heartbroken.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, he began to resemble a husband and a father, his face looking older than I thought and his hands warmer. The girl‘s face on the wall in the basement comes seeping into my mind, her soft curls and tired face. I begin to see the heaviness in her eyes. “Vince… I don’t understand…”

“ So last night Jimmy was bugging me again for the drug dealing, and all I could do was think about Emma… And you. And how you’ve been so nice to me, and I don’t know why… So I thought maybe Emma would give me another chance. Or at least maybe I could give her something that she needed, maybe some cash or something. I told Jimmy I was going to send it to her, I was going to get the government to track her down so that they would stop sending me child support. I couldn’t take it anymore. I’m a terrible, terrible man and I can’t accept the way that I am. That‘s always been the problem…” He buries his face in his hands and whimpers.

I sit beside him and put my hand on his shoulder, tears streaming down my cheeks. “You love her, and I know you do,” I say. The rain slows and the wind that is howling calms down as the pale orange horizon begins to peak through the silhouettes of trees. His eyes are transparent.

“I’m sorry. When I saw you walking back from school that one day, I - something in me snapped and I thought of Emma.” I hug him until the heaving stops, and my breathing slowly rests with his heartbeat. I remember so vividly the day that it all changed. I remember his cloudy face through the glass of the windshield, I could barely distinguish his eyes from the rocks in the gravel that I was silently kicking. I was thinking about Meriella and how I wished she would have waited to walk back home with me since I was only in my meeting with Mrs. Wilson for about ten minutes. Mrs. Wilson told me that afternoon that I was failing her English class, and all I could think about was Meriella’s impatience and the grief it would cost my parents to tell them their perfect daughter was failing. I remember the self pity, me, me, and me. I kicked away the rocks in my path like I kicked away Vince’s abnormal staring. I can remember it like an old family story or a scrap on my knee. The image is systematic and haunting, it is always right there to hold my hand and let me know the mistakes that I’ve made infused with the rough unpredictability’s that you cannot control, perfect daughter or failing student. How quickly your thoughts can change. The ease in his arms as he dragged me into his car is what I remember the most. But now I can put away the image and let it fade away. Eventually I fall asleep, right there on the cold wooden floor, exhausted from the truth.

When I wake in the morning I am in my cot, and I wonder if I dreamt the entire night. I run upstairs, and the room is empty. I shout for Vince, but he isn’t there. There is a note on the counter that reads:

I claim to have loved and lost many people in my life
We must see that they are gone to see them at all. I am now painfully aware of myself…
Intensely awake with reason and presence
By your acceptance of me,
I have hope for myself.
Thank you.
Vince

I fold up the letter and walk downstairs, not knowing what to do with myself. I notice that the picture of the little girl is gone, leaving a bare white mark on the wall and oddly a sharp pain in my heart. I put the letter under the secret compartment in the floor board, along with my old life. I close the hole and walk away from the abandoned house, looking back ever so often. It was always abandoned, just like Vince. The leaves are burnt orange, falling around my feet, and I repeat Vince’s words in my head over and over as I walk slowly down the dirt road that is five miles from home. I have hope for myself. Painfully aware. Intensely awake.