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        365 days have passed with this thought in mind, a theme I cannot escape, and these thoughts and observations may have been on my heart for much longer, but they haven’t burned as white hot as they have as of late. As I look to the next few months I wonder how to make peace knowing I seem too damaged to take in or not damaged enough? This is the strange enigma that is communicated to those who stand on the fringes, silently. Perhaps it is done so unknowingly. But in all humility I can muster, I know I’m not perfect, I know I can be poisonous or wretched, but I also know I can give and bring life, love, beauty, and I long for a life that exchanges both, good and bad. In a struggle to find a home, a place I could retreat, recover from daily work and battles, I have heard the words in my heart to trust, to risky m fears of humans and their forgetting to let their yes be yes and their no be no in their lying and selfishness. I heard the words in my heart to give people a chance, to risk, to make a leap not knowing if I would land safely, I thought real love cannot exist without trust, real love cannot exist without humility and full knowledge that we are not perfect and accepting your neighbor means everything they are.

             However the hardest thing for me this past year has been realizing that as much as I know this a little bit, enough to talk myself down from rage and hurt it seems like others do not know this at all. We seem to be ready and willing to burn our neighbor down for their faults, and yet also put others on a pedestal of marble and gold trim just as easily. So I guess now I am thinking humility is something that should be an outward as well an inward expression, and this is what I have meant and felt all the times I have said we need to treat each other as human, not subhuman creatures who are unworthy of forgiveness or grace, not superhuman beings who can do no wrong, who know all and do all perfectly, flawlessly. This seems like common knowledge, but is it common practice? I ask over the past few months how many times did you put someone down for their opinion over the drama of Ferguson? How many times did you praise and exalt someone for the same issue? How many times did you say someone is a lost cause or someone is so amazing, and wonderful without weighting out the depth of your words?

             Aright, I guess here’s where I will draw this closer to home, this is where I’m aiming at, I am a damaged person, who fears commitment and very much cannot commit even when there is a deep and fervent will. No when there is a will there is not always a way. Last year I left one community of support in my faith feeling God pushing me away from there for many reasons, and fully content to do so, to be honest, it was because I felt alone, forgotten and overlooked, yet soberly knowing in my heart this is something I will potentially battle my entire life. My soul has scars, deep ones that I have trusted to God’s hand to heal and I He told me I needed to trust others in order for Him to do the work. Because many of my hurts involved people, some who followed Him some who did not, as much as I wanted to write off the world it’s a deep conviction in my heart that saying “let the world burn” is the opposite of love, and since God is love I would be writing Him out of my life as well, a sacrifice I am not willing to make. In obedience I started looking for another home, another community to have a network, a resting place, and a place I could draw close to others and know them, love them, fearing what we all probably fear they would see my scars and never look back, knowing I have potential to do the same to them. Though it wasn’t hard to find a place I wanted to be rooted at all. In reality I found two, very fertile soiled communities who had beautiful dynamics, and who were both wonderful and warming, welcoming that is until I realized they were physically out of my reach.

              As I wrote before, you may or may not have read it; I have experienced a draw bridge when it comes to relationships. This is because I can easily travel to where I need to go (work and home etc.) but I cannot easily travel to where I want to go. As much as I wanted to plant my roots and soak up the sun in either of these communities and their hearty (yet imperfect soil) they are far from me. Week after week, month after month, I had to fight, beg, cry, and pray for a physical connection to them, and though once in their presence my heart, mind and soul felt connected I always had to go back, and face the isolation again until the next battle of travel. The main reason I stayed in a community that I had outgrown was because I could be self-reliant and trust my own two feet to get where I needed to go, it was close, we met within a mile of my dwelling place, and I could comfortably hide my fears, and be dutiful and diligent and forget my hearts desires, while I was there, all the while feeling like a liar, a hypocrite, and a shadow of myself. I knew no one really knew me, but it was such a large and congested community it didn’t matter. It was easy to wear a mask, even when I wanted to encourage others not to do likewise.

              That is where I have been for the last year, being called out by God to stop wearing a mask and be known, for whom He made me, the woman He has shaped with the beautiful life He has given me as I lived out every step. This time away from people has been one of nostalgia and the longing in my heart for true connection, a real exchange of good and bad with other humans has grown ever more ardent and fierce. It is easy to slip through the cracks when there is no one watching, when there are plenty of folks to stand in the spot light and take charge. It is easy to skirt by and live alone while saying to oneself you are not alone, but I have never been the type of person who agreed to skittish friendships and superficial encounters and call them real and true. Do I think we can have deep and real friendships with everyone we come across, maybe, should we probably not, we all have those who are easier to connect with, but I bring this to mind, as I spent a few years where God gave me a handful of people to care for and watch over, as a friend said to me a few weeks ago, love is a choice. She was speaking of romantic love, but I will argue that we choose to love everyone we love in our lives.

              We can choose to love or not love our parents, children, siblings, friends and strangers. Some may say love of our families comes natural, because we are blood related we have ties that are unable to be severed, okay, but if they hurt you do you forgive them as you would anyone else who hurts you? I know I have been more sever in withholding forgiveness from my family, and finally I had to ask myself why? Why were those hurts so close to my heart? I expected unconditional love, and therefore thought that meant no mistakes, no errors, no humanity… Isn’t that what we grow up learning about love? That it is perfect, selfless, kind, patient I can’t quote, but most of you know the definition, this is what we expect about love, and when we are hurt by those we love a lot of times we choose to not love. Thus I feel it is the same with others who are not our family we must choose to love them, forgive them, sacrifice ourselves for them, smash down our selfishness and pride, so as I realized I would never commit to somewhere I could hide, and somewhere I could fain reality and in my heart I knew they would never love me for the same reasons, because I was not a whole person there, I left that community. The trouble is, however, I find myself to be unlovable, because of my life and my situation, and in my heart of hearts I feel like that isn’t the case, that I was made to be loved, and love others, but somewhere in the idealism I live, and the reality I endure, these two don’t connect.

              I see a community at large that treats others as projects, business ventures, commodities, even as they fight for those who are in need to not have this oppression, I feel we are all trapped in a system that only knows this way of functioning. Our lives consist of decisions that weigh the favorable and the unfavorable, that look at the outcome of our choices and how they affect our comfort, our functionality, our ease. As much as I was told, and wanted to trust, that I could have a way to reach over the void, that the bridge would be let down so I could cross from this desolate island to a world rich in opportunities and support. The doors closed in my face over and over again, and quite frankly it hurt. The idea that I was not needy enough came to mind, as I saw others have a way to cross over, as I saw others receive a love offering of sacrifice (though I know not the toil on the part of the receiving end) and the thought that I was not enough came to mind as I saw that I was always taking, always asking, always feeling like a beggar and pleader, and this was more than pride that hurt. It wasn’t about how humiliating it is to ask and ask and ask and ask for a ride, it was how I have nothing to offer in return. “Why would they want me around?” I asked. Is that true? Maybe, maybe not, should is matter in a community based on love? No, but I wasn’t even around enough to communicate this hurt, or fear because I can’t trust what I don’t know, and that was probably my biggest error, but I was also never sought out.

             It has been months since I have visited either community, and no effort has been made to ask why. Maybe there is hear say, because I don’t live in a vacuum, but can I really trust that, can I really think they know what darkness I face unless they are asking? No, I cannot. Just as I see a good friend of mine live her days and nights in a lonely struggle for basic food and shelter I cannot even invite her to a home to rest her weary soul because I don’t have one myself and even if I did, I cannot promise to not put her through the same pain I live in fighting to find a way there. Moreover I am a practical person (sometimes) and as much as some have advised I just take the matters into my own hands and make my own community to call home I am in no way mature enough or supported enough or ready to do such a thing. I don’t even know what a real community should look like, why would I want to start one? Honestly I’ve seen the results of someone who was left to fend for herself doing such a thing, and as her heart is in ashes and I, with her, am blotting out the cinders that are still glowing because of it I wonder if anyone noticed how she was sent to build a palace with a deck of cards, or how she was thrown out of a nest as a hatch-ling.

             Even still I believe the hearts of these communities are genuine, I wouldn’t want to be with them if it was otherwise, but their actions communicate the opposite of what their hearts may actually be, and I wish this were not the case. I was scared to write any of this because in pride did not want to make it a “cry for help.” I did not want to bring it to attention and then be the only thing that brought a scale off the eyes of another, yet something in me knows that unless truth is told we die, we cannot forgive, we cannot grow, we cannot reconcile. I hate the thought of anyone being wasteful for my case, what is easy and what is logical seems right, it seems obvious, but sometimes I ask, was dying for the sins of a whole race of people who did not deserve pardon just so they could be loved unhindered easy? Sometimes those of us who are stuck in a desolate land just want a helping hand, because I am too weak to help myself, because I am not privileged enough to be fearless and trusting or bold. I even hurt someone dear and close to my heart this week because of all the hurts and fears that come with my simply asking for a ride, and they might or might not know it, but I know I hurt them in my heart, and that to me is enough. As I age another year today my wish is to be able to love another wholly, to be given that chance by being loved enough to be sought out, and that may not happen, but I am leaving my heart open and risking to hope and maybe hurt again even though I was ready to write off the world a few days ago, and I hope we can grow together away from a world that is all business and closer to a world that is love, forgiveness and grace.

In Reply...

It's one of those days with a beautiful number 01.05.15 and I think my post today will be in reply to The Wells' Post about abundance... They closed with asking about our dreams of Heaven on earth... and I think of suffering, and solitude, and invisibility.

I think of all my friends who suffer alone, away from others unable to connect because they do not have the same resources that most people do, little things that people take for granted, and I think of how most people do not see that pain and day to day loneliness. Sure, they go to work every day, they have a roof over their head but a normal day is a fight for a meal, a fight for inner peace, a fight to remember they are loved, and a fight to remember that they are a gift, beautiful and needed. Oddly enough, when I think of heaven, since it is something so intelligible I think of what hell must be like, because sometimes in my deepest pain that seems more tangible, readily understood, and I know the sting of our suffering here is still dulled by God’s grace because we can live love, and beauty and everything that is praise worthy, even if it isn’t as complete and endless and whole as heaven might be, so I think of opposites.

I ask myself, what would end my friend’s silent daily soul death? I ask myself, what would make my friend know they are loved beyond a doubt, that they are wanted and needed, that they have a place to give and receive. Ben spoke of abundance, and how gold is only as valuable here on earth because it is rare, but sometimes I feel like genuine love and compassion are even rarer. What could move the heart of someone in abundance to share with someone without? What could also show that person who is without that they are a treasure beyond words’ capabilities despite their lack of monetary value, or lack of resources? When my friend cries himself/herself to sleep because what they have to offer cannot be given or is not wanted? I ask what if there was a way to be truly and endlessly connected to one another with or without a car or a bridge or the illusion of connection that social media and the internet offer? What if we all saw each other in humility, as who they are, a gift from God, endlessly precious no matter what we have or lack and then fought tooth and nail to reach every person we could possibly reach.

I know I fail at loving those around me, and I often feel forgotten overlooked or unwanted, though God wants us, does not forget me, and loves me I know we were made to also love one another. I personally want to love more than I am capable of loving and pray to have God fulfil that prayer, that wish because I don’t want to forget any of the precious and beautiful people He placed in my life. Even as it feels like I am holding sand that is slipping between my fingers I fight it to exhaustion, and try to catch each grain that slips away again, as soon as I can, as well as I can. My dream is that if we would all intertwine ourselves so tightly that not one grain of sand could slip through the cracks, and not one of the precious gifts God has given us could slip through. I think that being accountable to one another, in seeking out the wayward children, the lonely widows, the damaged ones who are hard to love, the hateful ones who refuse love, the scrooges, the ignorant, the bigots, the idealists, the humans around us, far from us, near us, and those we have yet to meet, and giving them our hearts even if it hurts like hell, and could virtually shatter us knowing God is more than capable to put us back together… I think that only then we could reach a little bit of heaven on earth. I know that the times I have been able to forgive a little, to love a little, to grace a little and have gotten love a little, forgiven a little, and given grace a little to my imperfect heart and soul and mind and body I have seen a glimpse of heaven, and felt like I was in the full presence of the creator of the universe, for He loved beyond His human body so that we could be with Him, unashamed, unafraid, un-condemned, forgiven and loved and receiving grace upon grace.

So I remember one of my favorite movies, which is also a book I intend to read soon, Les Miserable, where all I could see was the battle of law vs love, and remember Jesus came to fulfill the law, and I leave this post/reply with the last bit of the Epilogue…

And remember the truth that once was spoken To love another person is to see the face of God!

Chrous: Do you hear the people sing? Lost in the valley of the night It is the music of a people who are climbing to the light For the wretched of the earth there is a flame that never dies Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise. They will live again in freedom in the garden of the Lord They will walk behind the ploughshare, they will put away the sword. The chain will be broken and all men will have their reward! Will you join in our crusade? Who will be strong and stand with me? Somewhere beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see? Do you hear the people sing? Say do you hear the distant drums It is the future that they bring when tomorrow comes Will you join in our crusade? Who will be strong and stand with me? Somewhere beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see? Do you hear the people sing? Say do you hear the distant drums? It is the future that they bring when tomorrow comes! (Singing chords) Tomorrow comes!Read more: Les Miserables - Epilogue Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Later days!

The Exchange

12-06-14---12-07-14

Let me lavish you with beauty
That overwhelms the soul.
Let me sample you a moment
Of bliss to call you to my side.

Me extrañas,
Cuando estoy lejos?
Me recuerdas,
A cruzar la mirada
Con la luna?
No me olvides
Te espero
Ansiosamente.
No me extrañes,
Mi aliento te seguirá
Y te llenara.

I'm a singer not a player
My heart constructs sounds
While my fingers grasp at ideas,
Mere breaths of melodies,
They could spin a million webs
Yet none could house the kiss of your love

Me escuchas?
No tengas miedo.
Me buscas?
No se corra.
Siento su calor
En los pulmones
En las venas
Y en el corazón.
Mire haci a mi
Y llámame con entrega
Aquí estaré.

The exchange continues...