Astaire the Tree

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

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

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

"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

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

doubting thomas

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

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