visit

it is as if i have left
never
to return
for a very serious face has turned mine
that says i cannot live like this any longer.
i was created for something less than a lie.
something only the truth can bare.
always the truth was there before the lie, only listen.
as promiscuous as the time has become
there is a place for me in the erie silence of
breathtaking trust.
for when i do less
i do less.
and when i do less
he does more.

-update on my dad-

thanks so much to all of you who have asked about my dad, he is doing well!  here is an e-mail excerpt he sent recently:

"I thought you'd like to pass along to your friends the results I've had with "hanging upside down" to stop kidney stone pain. It works! Two times today when I was teaching the pain started to come on, so at break time I went downstairs to my Soloflex machine and hung upside down on the chin-up bar, hanging by the back of my knees for a minute or two. 

The pain came back again within an hour of the first trial.

For the second trial, I drank a glass of water about 15 minutes before hand and I also gently swung back and forth a little. The pain seemed to go away more quickly and it hasn't returned (as of four hours later), so adding water seems to be beneficial. I'm really excited that when I am home I can do this and thereby avoid having to take the tylenol #3 with codeine tablets.

For a long term solution, I've ordered an herbal product that appears to be capable of slowly dissolving the kidney stones and helping to improve kidney function at the same time."

he did get this product in the mail and is going to give it a try.  as i mentioned before, he does have several kidney stones and while i am hopeful that this product will in fact do great things to reduce the size of the stones, i still have some reservations.  he is on the waiting list for the lithotripsy procedure and i will keep ya'll updated, but thank you again for all your generosity, thoughts and prayers.  i cannot express how deeply it has affected me.  incredible!

this is

this is the day

this is the day

that the lord has made

i will rejoice

i will rejoice 

and be glad in it!

(song based off psalm 118:24)

 

today i was laid off.  and so it is, i cry and i rejoice for god is with me always.

faith

("we have to have faith, even though it's hard

and easy for me to say"

-phil quirk g/chatting)

faith is one of the most complex issues i have ever dealt with.  in what other parameters of life are we asked to place our complete and blind trust in a being so divine we cannot even understand in it's entirety?  

none.

except faith.

and why?

why, god?

well, i have no idea.

love maybe, maybe that is what love is, showering unconditional faith over a situation we deem impossible, or dismal at best.  

that no matter the outcome, we have still trusted

loved

hoped for what we could not

would not

should not

see.

we have to have faith even though it's hard.

always.

invisible

glass in my thumb.

obnoxiously invisible.

wondering wounded wishing someone would

notice.

mumbled, fumbled dropped.  a thing of perfection turned raw

cutting to the

quick!

invisible to everyone,

but we all see it

all feel it

invisible

pain.

oh hope

hope oh hope where are you?
for all these years ,forever.
i have believed in you. in me.
but now i feel empty, despondent.
like the believing isn't worth it, a different thing hasn't happened.
this is NOT THE END OF MY LIFE.

not.



oh
hope.

i need you like rain on my upturned face. i need you like a walk.
i need you in everything i do, every moment i choose badly, or well.
hope? you are all i am ignoring, for you have come at the wrong time. from the wrong place. from a future that wouldn't work, i say. i refuse to believe you now. not that i cannot, but
won't.

my friend says i will learn from this, and i say i need to pay close attention. then i make that comment, the one i often do.
'yes well, i only have the one chance. this one life.'
and it is true. but how i hate saying it! trying to placate myself, make my hurt sound trite and trivial.
oh hope take me!
away from this bitterness and aged anger. take me to faith and trust and willingness to be hurt, yet again. to opening myself up to the possibility of a future different than the one i imagined when i never said i knew what my life would look like. but i lied. i had a plan, in the back of my heart. but i don't want it anymore, not the way i had it set. i want what you have for me god. if it is the same or if it is the opposite. oh lord even the very opposite! it hurts, but i give it. for i want you more. i cannot live without you. i do not understand you, i don't understand your love. i do trust you god.

i trust you.
i trust you!
i trust you.
and your hope.

amen.

dreamland

last night i didn't sleep well. i tried reading before i went to bed, thinking that surely i was tired and i would begin to nod off sooner or later. come 1:37am and i am still wide awake, so i turn off the light and lie there in the semi-darkness that is my bedroom mere blocks from i-35 and a shopping center.
it is surprisingly quiet.
except for that pesky (not to mention seemingly invisible) branch squeaking periodically on the window pane behind my head. i start on my back, then turn on my left side. i know it might be somewhat tedious to explain all these slight nuances, but it is necessary for the obvious reasons: i am doing everything i normally do to induce sleep but instead get an unpleasant, atypical response. when i turn on my back again i start to pray. for all the people that come to the forefront of my mind. i empty myself of all thoughts i deem to be bothersome or complicated and therefore "keeper uppers". i turn to my right side, still praying and too hot, but knowing that if i turn my covers down too far my arms will get cold. *sigh*. i drift off, finally success!

only to be taunted of all too real and, once alertness strikes again, all too forgettable: dreams. vivid interactions so present i can hear myself laugh or talk out loud sometimes, in response to the situation going on in dreamland. unbelievable! why will rest evade me? i am tired! i say. i need to put away these dreams of the future, of a hope i long for. they are not mine. not now. to covet them is to hold something captive that i cannot live, not now and perhaps never. i give up the present for a mockery of a future. i love my life now! i say. to attempt to live in my dreams never works out. i never get what i need. i need to rest in the love of my father god, his comfort in the middle of confusion, i need to rest in the plans i trust in when i am awake. i need my dreams to listen to god too.

life always gives me something i am not expecting. i say that about a lot of things. a lot. where do i get these expectations from? honestly, where did i really decide that my life should be X+Y=Z? i think it's time to change some of my alphabet. with the alpha and omega. and take THAT to dreamland. HA!
(i hope this works. and i mean that in the most conventional of ways i.e. more rest, as well as the idea that i will rid my life of expectations that attempt to take over my future. for i only have today, right now. i love you, i love living.)