a story of stories.

I'm sitting here in franklin TN, watching a documentary about sharks, not surprisingly. a friend texted me today to tell me that she was sitting on the beach by herself, sans family. i could feel the rest for her bones, a thousand miles away. she asked me how the transition was going, and i told her i felt alive & at home.

there are probably times where that answer has been true, probably even in recent times. but i can't think of them. i feel alive. i feel at home in my own skin. i would pen words to that feeling but I'm not sure they're adequate.

 i moved to TN 3 weeks ago. my old testament professor-turned-friend brought her daughters over to help me pack up. a few sets of hands joined in & we finished packing the uhaul with plenty of time to spare. so we made breakfast together because there would be no more appropriate way to move out. emily manned the pancakes, dr qualls took care of the sausage & i had the bacon & eggs. a full kitchen to balance out my empty room. goodbyes were emotional & we prayed together. and i was loved. i was so very loved & so very grateful for that love.

I've moved myself a couple of times but I've never had anyone load up my car. it was new and nice and kind. they waved me off as i reluctantly put my foot to the gas petal. it felt like the movies. i cried for the first 30 minutes of the drive and it was the ugly kind because id lived there 7 years. minutes after my eyes dried, i got a phone call from christa, where we talked about crying & trying new things. and then the call got interrupted by one coming in from dr qualls. (whilst discussing her brazen prophecies for our future). aside from my slow winding trek through the mountains, i spent my entire drive on the phone. but i made no outgoing calls. these were my friends, walking alongside me through 6 hours of highways. it was so beautiful. christa & dr qualls traded hours where they would call me. i felt so loved. it was so wild.

i pulled into the parking lot in nashville & felt like i hadn't yet left. a friend of mine once said in regards to our tribe, "i carry you all with me always." thats what it was like. it was the scene from harry potter where he's turned the resurrection stone (except obviously i wasn't facing lord voldermort, and i had no world saving to do.) i was in the company of everyone who had walked with me in friendship. what a kind thing for love to do. a refusal to leave me stranded.

ive thought of my friends often in during this move. really, i think every post in here eventually comes back to them. but they are my grace and God has not pulled them from my view.

i worked my favorite camp for just a week this summer. it cranked like an old car; rusty but resolutely faithful. the pace of camp requires a tremendous kind of energy. one that i legitimately cannot sustain in real life. but for a week, i can live in that exhaustion/aliveness. i got to participate in people grace & friend grace & team grace.

 i watched profound social anxiety turn into LITERAL dancing. i met a boy named sam, who came without knowing a soul & taught him to play vance joy. he became a camp rock star during the volleyball tournament. i played soccer with a boy from nepal named deepan & another boy from some profound country in africa. his name was gadsoni, and together we all played soccer. i got to sit for worship and breathe. i felt life in a way that i have missed. my sense of spirutuality is not so fine tuned & sensitive as it once was. the vocabulary of spiritual insight feels bitter & foreign in my mouth. but the gritty work of hands on plows makes sense to me. that is where my spirit comes alive.

it was so good. luckily, there was another mid tenty on the team & we connected well. camp life is this wild thing where time passes like it does in the narnia series; slowly & all at once. (and also the john greene series, since i love that quote) you live a year in a summer & a month in a week. we shared stories and comments that fermented a few years longer than for the rest of the team. and it was good. 

it was good to meet someone in my own skin. it felt good to share life again in danville & to be in a way better place. the last time i was there, my personhood was still pretty fragmented. i was still trying to fit into my old skin with my old words,but the  skin  had a tear & no longer fit. i actually read some older posts from that time. i referenced my demons coming out of the rafters & the anxiety in the posts was so loud. its almost jarring in how that picture was juxtaposed this time.

marilee and i shared stories, demons & dreams with ease. THAT is what i believe in. being seen & heard. trading stories with honor instead of shame & fear. it felt so good to sit in my own skin again. to feel alive in yourself again is a profound grace. 

i dont understand how passport camp works. in general, its WAY outside of my comfort zone. but its a place to my hands in the dirt. i get to reconnect to myself. i get to see these tiny glimpses of Gods kingdom & where God is moving me inside (& outside) of that kingdom. i can see where my design has niche & my presence is specific.

 i used to be afraid of that. today im not. today im 25 & 4 years have passed. the broken pieces mended & today i get to breathe with my fearless lungs. that feels so good. im not anxious right now. i am alive & i am well & that is not always the case, so i celebrate.

when dr qualls asked me how nashville felt, i told her that i felt alive & at home in my own skin, in a way that i hadnt felt in years.

we dont get all the pieces back when the paradigm shatters. but if we'll steady our hands, the mosaic on the other side sits in the same space, just in a different shape.

feels nice to be alive again. to open & honest & brave. 

i pulled out my box of letters, just to browse in the midst of transition. i have gracious friends who wrote me letters & told me what they saw in me. some of these date back beyond college & into early high school. in almost every letter was some semblance of, "im grateful for your friendship.. i love your honesty.. i love how real you are.. i love your courage." its neat to come full circle again, sharing life on a kitchen floor & sharing stories, breathing life back into those qualities. neat to make a new friend (who you shouldve met before but didnt bc of diff circumstances) & to wear those badges again. differently, but still authetically. neat to share life & know that dark doesnt always win (& it dossnt always mean bad or forever). 4 years can be a capping point & a place to re-walk your own personhood.

florence + the machine has a new song called Third Eye. her whole album sounds like a diary/self-talk-mirror, but there is a line in that song that she screams out of herself, in a loving desperation to make herself hear. "hey look up! you dont have to be a ghost here amongst the living! you are flesh and blood! and you deserve to be loved! and you deserve what you are given!" so fitting that a florence song frames this post. full circle, shake it off framed the other one. 

you deserve to be loved.

you deserve to be loved.

you deserve to be loved.

amen.

ben howard and deep graces.

write chelsea, just write. write all the words that you are thinking and sort out the difference later. write on, right on.

i think the only time i truly feel compelled to write is when i am in the midst of transitions that i don't readily fathom, though they are usually borne of the choices I've made.

im transferring, leaving this tiny town. i made my bed here, made it my home & laid down for some rest. a few months from now, ill be packing my bags properly and shipping out. i will no longer be the host for visitors, i will be the visitor.

last night a group of us stayed with a friend who fits like family. she is a mother to us all and we are gratefully indebted to her service, though we know that she would never ask us to return the favor in any way. as i was leaving this morning, she reminded me that soon my departure would be a little more permanent. she said any time i come back, i will always have a place to stay with her and her family.

i came really close to melting. and by melting, i mean crying. i didn't. but the tiredness of this week and the reality of my roommate moving out somewhat unexpectedly, enmeshed with coming down from the natural high of the past 2 weeks spent with great friends & i had in my hands (heart) all the feels. maybe not all of them. but something in the depths came out to play. and it knew that walking away would be more like speeding off.

this is a good place with incredible people. hannah and mary came into town from richmond and chicago and they were welcomed back in celebration. they both felt inexplicable love and swelled with gratitude. i listened to them talk about their re-entries into this town and i recognized that at some point in the year, that would be my story.

bri came over from nashville last weekend and we filled our house with as many old friends as we could. that is what boiling springs means. forget the piddly little spigot. its not the dribbling stream. its the rocks that surround the stream. that i recently found out were strewn near the waters edge in honor of a young woman named pam.

its the good rocks that surround us. the ones that allow us to scale the walls when we fall into our own deep wells. the good rocks that we throw into lake hollifield on nights when our realities are far too tremendous. that what makes this town so sacred. that when we are here and for as long as we remember, we have soldiers that guard us and keep us company. 

im taking my time on my way out. i withdrew my application from a job i LOVE, one that has been feeding my soul for 3 summers. just so i could say goodbye slowly. so i could walk past the daffodils and know their names. stroll down the trails at the mighty broad river in my own time.

im not there yet. time has not hit its mark. but as i watch the gait of those who walk ahead of me, im taking notes (perpetually). i am picking up the things i want to take with me. building a small shrine to the last 7 years of growing up and  re-growing up. retrying things for the first time. 

walk well. pick your feet up, pick your head up, and walk well through this season.

hey october, nice to know ya.

woof, its been a minute. but i know that once i start a sentence, there will be no shortage of words, useful perhaps, but more than likely not. it'll be a bunch of not-shocking rambling. again.

its mid/later october. where did these 2 months ago? it is madness to me. to be fair, i wished them away, and i only slightly regret it. but i made it through them, and that is victory enough. in the last 2 months, i have quit 2 of my 3 jobs, decided to go public about transferring, and started a new job. for about a week i only had 2 roommates, with all of the rent info in my name. but that got sorted. and i was working 7 days a week, hating my jobs, not sleeping, and praying for 15 minutes pinches of time to read for class. i dropped a class and my student bill double. i officiated my first ever memorial in the same week that my parents put my dog down. i used every time crunched survival card i had. i was mind stumblingly exhausted, but this time, i could feel all of it. and it was terrible.

and then october graced me with its presence. hallelujah, what a month. i now work for Fastenal & i literally sell nuts and bolts. every time a grizzly man walks in, sizes up my femininity, i work double to find what they're looking for. and I've gotten it right a few times. i finally started sleeping again, and now, i leave work happy. i see my people. i laugh with the TAs. i do morning prayer with matthew. I'm watching the 5th harry potter movie in a row with my roommates. (good life) i re-enrolled in a class and my professor gave me so much grace.

its october, thank God. this summer, i healed & i got my F back. i am a survival thinker, but i think the feelings are more honest. i cried 4 days in a row a couple weeks ago. and it was freedom. dr qualls & dr mcconnell let me cry in front of them, and with grace. i eat at the qualls house once a week now, and she sends me home with love and food. i sit at a table that is not my own, and i sit with a family, not by myself. refreshing. i traipsed angrily through august, and stumbled through september. on october 1st, after morning prayer, i saw a sunrise and remembered its grace. i held onto the rising with less desperation than i did as a junior. but i saw it like noah knew the rainbow; as a sign of God's hope and faithfulness. there is so much grace in the sunrise, in painting the world with a golden light. the metaphor of rising is good to me these days.

i have hope again and i laugh a bit more. i call friends, but not as often as id like. i don't write much, though id like to. i do end up sending off some letters, but not as many as i say i will.

i turned 25 a week ago. and i was ready for it. 25 is good already, and i feel like i have been in it more than a month. i invited folks to my house, said bring what you'd like to have, and we laughed & ate and sat around a fire. I've got good folks, always and forever. i am going to make it this semester, and i will enjoy the freedom of no school in the next. the reality is though, i am too tired and not saying anything, but i made myself write because if i don't make myself, i won't. so cheers and goodnight, and keep putting up a good fight.

what i believe. most days.

i don't have the world figured out. i don't even know what makes up my soul. but i believe a few things pretty strongly.

i work for a summer camp/mission crew called Passport and i love it. it is a place to put your hand to the plow. it started over 20 years ago when 2 seminary students saw a need for a more missional camp. and they did something about it. they only hosted the camp for a week, but it took off and grew into a non-profit that employees me for 2 months of the year. and its something that I'm audibly proud of.

at the core of Passport is the willingness to engage the world as it is. not to fix to the world. but to love it. to be gentle when gentleness is required. and to be rough when some grit is needed. I'm a millennial in seminary (just like everyone else) and as much as i love it some days, sometimes i get tired of the voices. there are a lot of issues in the world. thats not lost on anybody. but with social media and the distance between any given computer screen, there are so many opinions. i love to read the articles with the best of them. I'm a thinker & it grinds my gears to get my hands on more information..

but its exhausting. 

we collect information, repost what we think is worthy, and then we pat ourselves on the back for "raising awareness" on another issue. that we don't touch with our bare hands. we stroke our keyboards with our finger tips and fulfill our duties as a well-informed citizens. but thats not enough.

i love Passport because it carves out a space for you to cut your hands on the edges of humanity. you develop callouses. you do the work that is asked, and you hope for the best. it could be painting houses, or feeding homeless folks, or packing up boxes and pallets of books to send to Africa. the people who plan the mission sites try to dress the most relevant wounds. they know that students coming through Passport are not paid professionals. they're high school students. but any group that comes through has some time and a few sets of hands. so we set the plows on the hard weathered ground, and we work through the dirt, tilling up whatever happens to be in the field that day.

if we're going to cultivate a garden that can sustain itself after we leave,  then we need to tend to what is there. in digging grooves, the plows breaks through more than just the literal world. maybe breaking up the soil is letting the kingdom of God break into earth, as it is in heaven. maybe its releasing whats underneath. if i learned anything this summer, its that Jesus is in the dirt as much as he is in the details.

this summer, over a 7 week period of time, we hosted a couple hundred students and their adult chaperones inside literal church walls. we asked them to clean up after themselves, and to serve each other while they were here. the whole thing is called M2 and it has changed my life. the entire session is run by 4 people, and by some grace laden act of God, it works. we ask students (and each other) to interact with the uncomfortable. we challenge them to view their experiences differently. to be molded by the story instead of thrashing around with bullheaded assumptions. we get our hands so dirty, and we usually have to forfeit the shower afterwards, because there just never seems to be enough time. we show up to worship with things moving around inside us, with dirt in every imaginable crease, lacquered on by sweat that has settled into our skin more than once over the course of the day. its messy in every sense of the word. but it is so good.

it is owning the role of the worker in the harvesting metaphor. we asked students to engage the bigger picture and to question the role that their hands have in the world. will they bind or wound? what do you do with homelessness? why is the kid in camp being such a punk? what if he can't help it? what if his angry consuming fits of rage are for attention, because he isn't getting it at home? what about the guy who shows up plastered to the soup kitchen? what about the billion other countries in the world that don't have books? or teachers? or medicine? what about those things?

i'm tired of reading opinions about what needs to change. letters to congress that we say we'll write, petitions that we should sign, but forget about until the next article comes across our Facebook feed. articles with skewed statistics that NOBODY ever checks. i'm tired of opinions and soft handed theology. I'm tired of opinions with no callouses.

as much as i want to hear your story and what you think about things, i'd rather you tell me about how you did something about it. i'd rather you get up at the end of the week for our m2 declarations and talk about how it made you so uncomfortable that the woman who you sat with at dinner stood in juxtaposition to the iPhone you had in your pocket. that your phone costs more than what she makes in a year. id rather hear about the time when you tried to read with a kid at literacy camp, but he was a runner, so he took off as soon as you sat down. id rather you tell me how boring it was to pack boxes, but then you realized that your hands were the last ones to touch those books before the boxes were opened in kenya. id rather you tell me that you don't know how to fix the big picture, but you were willing to try with the more local one.

thats what i believe. thats why i work for Passport. because regardless of your denomination, regardless of your church's theology, regardless of your background, you still have hands. and you still have time. it doesn't take very long to see needs in your own community if you're looking for them. or really, if you're just willing to look for them. we're all human. we're all coming from somewhere, going somewhere else, mostly on our way, give or take. and we can do stuff.

i don't know what the answer is to poverty and homelessness. i don't even know who my senator is, and as much as it makes me a poor US citizen, i don't care. id rather not waste my time arguing politics that i don't understand. that i can't control. the rules of the land are totally important, and for someone else, that is a worthy and enjoyable endeavor. it is not for me. but i see the guy on the corner asking for money. i don't carry cash, but i can carve out an hour and take him to dinner. i can walk home from the coffee shop and give my long sleeved shirt to the woman who is in front of me. even though she is lying. even though she is absolutely strung out. i can leave space for uncomfortable conversations when my team feels like they can't win this week. i can reconcile a moment when i spoke sharply to a friend. i can do those things.

we have to dig into this world with our bare hands. we can't use gloves for everything. even if they're just computer screens. sometimes we don't get the tools that could actually change things. we don't always have the right resources. but when jesus commissioned his disciples, he told them to take absolutely nothing. a few sentences later, they fed five thousand people. i'm okay with that. I'm okay with dressing wounds with only a few of the right bandages. i still think its better to try, and to not make it, then to just talk about it and walk away. to post our opinion on social media.

the atlanta portion of our M2 summer dealt with homelessness, and faulty systems that keep poverty in full swing. we partnered with Park Ave Baptist Church and jumped into the incredible ministries that they sustain all year round. they are folks committed to doing the work, and honoring whatever lies before them. at the end of each week, we host a community meal where we invite our students, people from the church, kids from literacy camp, and men from the soup kitchen. we feed whoever shows up and our students rotate through serving food. every week it is magic. students sit down with folks from every walk of life and they engage what might be foreign to them. it is a beautiful messy life changing grace.

today was the last day and id be lying if i said i wasn't sad about it. after we waved goodbye to our final group, we hugged & prayed one last time before our staff split up. i stayed at the church while my staff left for their respective means of transportation, hanging out for a few more days in this city. i took the MARTA to the aquarium and nestled into my spot in front of the whale shark tank to reflect on this crazy beautiful summer. on my walk back, i passed a homeless man who asked for money. i don't carry cash so i told him that and apologized. he said its alright, and thanked me anyways. i walked another 30 yards and prayed for him. i thought about all the things we ask our students to do, and couldn't keep walking. i turned back around and asked his name. Otee Johnson, he told me proudly. i asked him if he'd join me for dinner. he initially said no, but if i could maybe buy him dinner from the restaurant.. i asked again if he would join me, and i meant it. so he did. he was so gracious and kind and he told me his story. grew up in foster care. studied music and even knows how to play the violin. signed up for the army and happened to draw the short straw along the way. been homeless in atlanta for 30 years, and is okay with it. he told me his homelessness doesn't take away his humanity. he told me about how he prays, and how he had 129 asthma attacks, but he's still alive. he told me about his friends who have already passed. his long time girl friend died last year. she got really sick and ended up on life support and the family only waited 2 days to pull the plug. he grieved, but he knows that its what the family needed to do. he told me about making the newspaper because he used to push a woman around in a wheel chair every day. he had nasty sores on his hands, but he had hands that could help, and this woman didn't have anyone. nelson mandela came to atlanta, and the woman in the wheel chair wanted to see. so otee pushed her past the barricades, past the police officers, and she got to lay her eyes on the one and only nelson mandela. he made the newspaper for that day and his face glowed while he told me. (you can see part of the article here) i bought him a makers mark burger and a coke. i ate my bratwurst next to him and listened to everything he said. it was one of the most profound things I've experienced all summer. i know it wasn't "safe". but thats the real world.

i could hear some opinions.
"if he's homeless, he deserves to be there"
"he's probably a drug addict; you can't trust his stories"
"taking him out to lunch doesn't fix the issue. you're not helping anything"

but even in that, i still see your soft hands. i still you see you shying away from the things that you can do too.  i didn't fix anything for otee. i don't know that we ever fix anything for anyone. and thats not the point. the point is there are people in this world. there are problems in this world that don't have easy fixes. there are a lot of them. you could be overwhelmed, and no one would blame you. i don't blame you for being overwhelmed. but i do question your manicured hands. id love to see your fingernails with a little dirt beneath them. you can't fix it. i know that. but you can make an extra sandwich for lunch, and take it to someone. you can sit down with somebody you don't know. the Coca Cola commercials are cheesy, but they have an element of truth in them. you can buy an extra coke if you can afford a five dollar coffee every morning. you can put your hands in the dirt in your local plots. you can do these things. they matter, even if you never get to see the fruit.

working with Passport has changed my life. it is the thing that i was looking for in a faith community, but didn't really see. a place to put your hands and do work, even if you don't always enjoy it. even if its hard. its the real stuff. it started because someone saw a need, looked at their resources, and said, 'lets try and do something about this, even if it doesn't work.' and it grew. some efforts will fail, and weeds will over take the garden. but some things will grow.

may we at least be willing to do something about the things we talk about. and if we are not willing, may we fill the world with silence instead of our soft handed opinions.

meet Otee Johnson, my new Atlanta friend. here is to hoping that our paths cross again one day. 

some stories make you move slower than others.

today, in this moment, my staff is dead asleep & i am happily awake. for these things we give thanks.

camp is two weeks in, and already brimming with stories. a lot of them are riddled with grace and infused with mercy. and a few of them have been demanding in ways that have pushed us all to the thresholds. the first weekend off, i slept over 24 hours in a 48 hour period. I'm not even sure that i did that after surgery.

but its what i signed up for. its what i love. come, bring your weathered soul, bring your mess. we will sit and maybe walk. i will not fix, but i will pray. i will listen, mostly i think. and thats what the last 2 weeks were. maybe not directly. maybe it was just the overhearing of the messy parts, and the subsequent addressing of some of those messes.

i laid out my safety net along the way, leaned into those who love me. and we walked, with a ton of prayer because that is my response to not knowing what to do. which is often. and the messy parts were brought to light, where we talked about them and collaborated as a team. we reconciled as we went, instead of walking back to a heaping mountain of unaddressed things. and we did it together.

the community of grace is a funny thing. we walk & wound together. we cry together. and when we work together, it can be such magic. the difficulties did not end, but we learned together about how to choose courage over fear and lean into the new work of today. it is so very well.

such great and marvelous things.

today is a sunday and for the first time in a long time, i am home for that. i did not travel this weekend and jon myer picked up my shift from tonight, so i got to live into my sunday.

i don't know if i am nostalgic because of the books I'm reading, or if its just that time of year. but i am. nostalgic for the things of this year, and of years past. I'm reading a barbara brown taylor book again, because why not? I'm also reading a book about all things anglican, and i finished one a few days ago about being a humanitarian in afghanistan. they are books about navigating the heart, whether they intend it or not. 

in the last few weeks, i have finished up my classes and begun to settle into my summer. i am starting to believe that you learn the most about your heart when you are finishing up your term papers. my distracted heart leaked into my distracted mind, but there were assignments that needed a little tending. so i told my distractions that i would get to them after grades were done, i promised. and i did. i wrote down all the things that grabbed the hands of my mind and i saved them for a later day. about a week ago, i was talking to my friend bri about "free writing". just starting somewhere with no goals in mind but to write and to empty out the flooded cavern between your ears. how we both could benefit from doing it more, but hadn't done it in a while. one night i filled a sheet of computer paper with everything that came to mind. i took pauses and sipped my drink, letting my thoughts gather up the courage to be seen. it is funny to me how the writing resembles a conversation. with who, i am not sure. but it does seem that the words were begging an audience, even if it was just me. i suppose they were probably for me, but no matter. i wrote them, and penned them on a blank page. it was pretty liberating. i am learning in life these days, that maturity has a lot more to do with listening than telling. so i listened to all the things that i was thinking, and instead of using logic to drive them away, i let them sit in my company. i paid attention to what i have wanted to say for so long. and on the third day, there was healing and reconciliation, and God saw that it was good.

some times in life, all the things that you have worked so hard to earn end up walking away anyways. some times they are ugly on their way out, though some times they are kind and sad. i gathered up all the lost things and the remnants and i made a memorial. i stood by the grave with my memories and allowed them all to say a word. some paid homage, and some just wept. i lit a candle for good measure and i sat on my porch, watching the world on its way. some days, you need to lay things to rest. but some times you have to wait until they are ready. and my things were ready. i don't think it is wise to dwell in your past. i know that i do that some times. but i also knowing that healing doesn't occur in metered time.

back in the day when i lost a lot of things, i lost a lot of myself too. i saw myself as too damaged for repair, so i let go of all the things i used to hold close to my heart. i used to call it a season of deconstruction, but i think it was a season of destruction and disintegration too. the latter is probably more accurate, because the former seems to imply a sort of method. there was no method at the time, just muted madness. and in some ways, maybe not even muted. i read my old journals from that season and i sighed out compassionate noises, because i ached for that time. since school has ended, i have tried to give myself a better chance at those old things. i have tried to listen, and to bring back the things that were mine. the things that make up who i am. i think some of the things have been following me, waiting for me to gather them into my arms and reclaim them. so i am trying to turn around and face them. to treat them with loving kindness in the same way i treat all the young children in this community.

 i used to take notes on how to live, feverishly scribbling down 'how-to' moments, so that i would know how to act appropriately again, since i had clearly lost that ability. since i was clearly defective. i stored them in a filing cabinet in my mind and pulled them out when i was in uncharted territory. i was always ready. and always exhausted. that year, after the embers of my seared foundation had turned into a smoldering pile, i looked at my marred hands and let go. i assumed that the mess in my life was solely my fault, because i had no other way to wrap my mind around that tragedy. i cared nothing for the texts of Job because i had not lost like Job had. or at least i told myself that. God had already proved his point to Satan, he did not need me to do it again. i did not tend the fire nor re-stoke the flames. i didn't even attempt to rebuild. i wept and walked away, making promises in the concrete that now filled my heart. never again little mocking bird, never again. i would stop trusting my own mind, though i would not lean into the Lord's understanding either. so i walked along for a good 3 years. 

i did good things in that time, and i laughed a lot of genuine laughter. i made friends and i was decidedly loved. not all was lost in those three years, but some was lost. i could tell my friends that i still felt a little left over crazy, and most would assure me that i was not crazy. but my good friends, the close ones; the ones who have walked across that chasm themselves, they would listen. and point me back to the source of good things. in remembrance and honor. they would walk with me, or at least near me. it seems that for some time i have walked two paths at the same time. or maybe held a balloon in my hands, filled with the things that scared me, only partially committing to the paths beneath my feet. i walked towards integrity and wholeness but i still had a balloon around my wrist, pulling me in a different direction. but recently, i got to deflate that balloon a little bit. i got to take it off for a moment and explore the wilderness around me. i got to grieve some wonderful things that will never happen and grieve some really incredible things that did happen. cause life works with both. 

at church this morning, our deacon read a poem by Andrew King called And We in You. there is a line that says,

"as grief is in the loving,

and loving in the grief,

as belief is in the hope,

and hope in the belief"

i heard it loudly. the rest of the poem is wonderful too. much of it is to say that we cannot separate such things. that all of the grief and love work in tandem. and some times, to love yourself is to grieve yourself. until you accept that both live within your very bones, you will rail against that which cannot be separated from you. it is grafted into your being. sewn together in the sinews and joints. inescapably yours. and for that we must give thanks. i am reclaiming. admitting my wrestling and owning my life. i guess i say that a lot, and i do mean it every time. but this time is different. all of the authors whom i value most, all write from the core of their being. their insights were gained by leaning into the messes they made. they stopped running because running was no longer an option. i don't think it is one for me either. they wrote the things that tended to their battered and tired hearts. my busyness is no better than drinking, which i have such strict rules concerning. the goal is the same. i am no better than that which was wounding to begin with. and it is mine. i am listening to my heart as intently as i can because i have the space to do it. and i am recounting all of the things that have been gentle to my little heart. and i am choosing to use that word instead of scoffing it away.

last night after work, justin and i grabbed some canvases and acrylic paint. i have never painted in acrylics, and i think the last time i painted with anything, it was water color and it was some time in elementary school. we said cheers and got our hands messy. smeared colors across whatever was beneath us. with no aim in mind. just to let things go where they were already going. it was magic. i painted two boards. one is a board that naively blends colors from yellow to a deep blue. i might add to it later. the other one interesting. it is made with dark backgrounds and a figure that seems to have its fists in the sky. but the way the figure stands, you cannot tell which way it is facing. either direction means that it is using all of its core muscles to hold it up. it is not quite stable. you cannot tell if it is triumph or defeat. winning or losing. good or evil. justin smirked at the ambiguity because like me, he believes in art therapy. we stayed in the studio till late and enjoyed the last of whatever was in our cups, walking past the graveyard in each others company, instead of by ourselves like we might do on the walk home any other night. this morning he came with me to church, as did danielle. we discussed pam's sermon over lunch and came home to a day of netflix. took a nap in the living room again. cooked together and cleaned the house. i was home. i am not good at being home, but today i was home. i have been letting my heart rest in it like i belong. because i have done the doable things to make something a home. and now it is time to rest there, as it has been for a while. simply because i live there.

learning to walk in your own skin is powerful. it allows you to be you in a way that nothing else can reproduce. i love it. i hope that as i get older, i will always be allowed to invest as other have invested in me. guiding me along new routes, and letting me wander when it was time to wander. i am grateful for the hearts and hands that have held my life. in pieces or in wholeness. i think everyone in the world is looking for a place to belong. a place to feel like home. some people get it right out the gates, and they live into it. some people don't get it till they make it. and some others won't see it until they sink down into the work that they have already done; that has already been done for them. in my grooves, i am learning to find home. i am letting my caverns become familiar. i am their guardian and it would do me well to know their lay. to intimately know their paths. because they are mine and they are home. this is my soul's address. i am learning to love again, like that mat kearney song says. i am learning to live in the light as He is in the light. and learning to walk in the dark like others have walked in the dark. here is to guidance, guides, guiding and being guided. here is to the uncharted and the never before seen. trust the newness and let it befriend you, like it has anxiously been waiting to do. 

ben howard has a song called Under the Same Sun and its just as good as everything else he has done. in an interview recently, someone asked what he was thinking about while he played on stage. he said that he tried to stand in front of the thing that the song was about. he said the bigger the crowd, the more he draws into himself, remaining both distant and wholly vulnerable. he sits in front of the memory that spurred him into writing an ink marked melody. he said it takes you to some trippy places, along a weird path. as if we are meant to honor those things that we remember. in Under the Same Son, the lyrics are simple. 

"will you be there when the day is done will you be there under the same sun?"

to the best of my abilities and with God's help, amen. 

hey kindness, i see you. i welcome you & i am grateful that you are around.

so much kindness. learning it, living it, and leaving things to it. because kindness is as much a subject as it is an object. it is doer, and it is done. ive been learning kindness and listening over effort and telling. both have their places, but kindness wins this round.