For Some.

For some,

Days like today are not filled with joy.

Instead it is a square on the calendar

That is marked with an ache.

A reminder of all that is not.

A pain that runs too deep for words.

Mothers taken, children stolen.

Love cloven in two, broken, and buried.

Leaving empty arms, longing to be filled.

Brave smiles are fastened on.

Even as all the world reminds you

Of all that you yearn for, but do not hold.

For some,

There will be tears instead of laughter.

Whispered, fractured prayers rising 

From wide gashes and deep cracks.

With shards of shattered dreams held in trembling hands.

For we live still in the sad middle chapter.

Hold on.

You are not forgotten, dear heart.

Your tears are collected.

Caught and held in scarred palms.

Till the day when all that is sad shall come untrue.

For you are dearly loved, always remembered. 

Grace

"I am not what I ought to be.
I am not what I hope to be.
But I am not what I once used to be and by the grace of God I am what I am."

~ John Newton

The Magic of Green

How can you describe the magic of green to someone who’s never seen it?

You must see green to understand and grasp the enormity of its existence. 

Imagine being born into a dim sunless world, only able to see sooty shadows. Unable to see, feel, or experience the reality of the solid things, only able to see their flat, inky stains. 

We can no more imagine glory unfiltered, than we could imagine an oak tree, if all we had seen and known was the dark smudge that it cast. 

Imagine living with eyes straining to see what was behind the shroud of darkness that obscured everything, knowing deep down there were colors and light—but never actually being able to see them, not even knowing their names. 

Chasing those shadows, knowing deep down that the beauty that you find around them...in them; is just a foretaste of the solid, untainted beauty that is coming.

Brighter than the sun, greater than good, more than real.

What if we are stumbling around touching, seeing, feeling the edges of real and there is something more than real that is lying just behind the dim veil that we find ourselves swathed in.

...what if every tree, star and sunrise is only a shadow of what they really are?

What if we’re all the man who has woken up but lost his sight and forgotten who he is--save for the deep ache inside his chest.

Wouldn’t it be wise to chase that ache until we found home?

We are to love this world because of what it mirrors, although darkly.

I love ever sunset, star and tree, not because I think they are the ultimate reality—but because I know they aren’t, I love them for the reflections, the shadows they are.

I like Puddleglum love the lamp and the cat, because they remind me of the sun and Lion that are just beyond the crust of the world that I find myself in.

What if every person we meet, is just a shadow of what and who they really are,? What if we could see ourselves and each other as we were created to be? What if we shook off all the chaff and burned away all the dross and were left with just the grain and gold?

What if all the beauty, glory and wonder that we experience here is only a shadow of what really exists?

Love

Here is something that I would do well to remember, given my deep love for good rhetoric.

Well formed arguments don't change people, only love can.

But I like arguments because I can control them, I can piece words together and form air tight logic, I can package them into bite size morsels to easily force on others.

Love on the other hand is good, but it is never ever safe. It's wild and fierce. It's raging and reckless. It breaks every box I've tried to shove it in. Love lives in the riddles of dichotomies. I can't tie up love into a neat little package, I can't capture and confine grace within words, for they both are messy and life shattering. Love is full of mystery. Love is rule breaking, paradigm shifting. Love demands all so it can give us more. Love isn't sterile and detached, for love crawls into the trenches, elbow deep in the muck of life and joins in the fight.

Love is the table turning Rabbi with a whip in his hand, Love is a King who bends down to wash the feet of His followers. And love is a roaring Lion who's breath turns stone statues with hearts of marble into laughing, singing, dancing throng.

Poverty

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, homeless and naked. But the poverty of being unwanted, unloved, uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.
-Mother Teresa

Shadows or Mirages

We either chase the dim outline of something that exists or we pursue that which looks more colorful, captivating and enticing, but leaves us with hands grasping, fingers brushing-- on air.

Shadows or mirages.

I have run after the bright things that shimmer, waver, and glisten like the image of an oasis in the desert, I have chased them down and I have felt my heart drop and shatter as I grasped handfuls of empty air.

And I have chased the dark outline of beauty unseen. I have run my hands across it seams, and hear the rustling of truth and beauty that the wind whispers to trees.

Blind to the reality that lies behind the dark veil, I have pushed through the shadows towards light; for even shadows grow clearer as you draw closer to the blaze.  I have trace my fingers along the borders, marveling how the lines become sharper and more defined the closer we get to the light.

I exist for the moments when I stumble into the shadow of Beauty.

Shadows denote something real, solid and I will chase them until my heart no longer beats inside my chest.