Euro2017

It's here now! Tomorrow night, I leave on my first leg of a 6 week Europe trip. It's unreal and a little nerve wracking, but I think all of that is normal.

For the first two weeks, my girlfriend and I will traipse across Scotland & Ireland. Veronica & I will meet in Philly on Wednesday, and leave for the UK on Saturday. She's finishing up most of her packing as I scribble away here. Below is my packing list for clothes and though I think most travel blogs are overrated (and poorly written) I do appreciate the visual of a pack list.

Tomorrow, I'll spend the day tying up loose ends & finishing my Irish passport application. And making Chex mix for the first leg because we're both snackers.

Welp, everyone needs a good crappy into, so this is ours. Join us on our wild adventure!

2am and i must be awake (not lonely)

oh saint clarity, won't you sit and keep watch with me
over those who weep and watch and wake
in this unslumbered night of clattering possibilities
resting between my lungs and me is the steady beat of the i am, i am, i am
and i have been, i have been, i have been
nearer to you than my skin could've known
settling just beneath the synapses
like pulses, steady and ready to quick fire
we are here in the uneasy newness and nowness of every waking moment...

good news.

each night

for the last week

i have come home.

i sit on my porch 

in the seductively cool night

watching the sky flash and dance

i am waiting for october

i listen to julien baker croon

the songs are just beyond my range

so i reach for them any ways

and the only way to hit the notes

is to sing through them

to fill my lungs with swelling breaths

and scrape every last molecule of oxygen

into the shape of meaning

to breathe deeply

like my heart is beating

because, my God

my heart is beating.

when you are wanted

there is an unnamable warmth 

that occurs when your whole person is deeply wanted.

it is not entirely foreign 

& it is not even rare. 

but when that feeling nestles in 

& climbs into its rightful seat at my soul's table,

 i am flooded with light and warmth in ways i cannot comprehend. 

it is like having the galaxy,

resting between your lungs.

 

advent.

(as a tangent, i appreciate that advent precedes "ADVENTure".)

a few weeks ago, during the actual season of advent, i got to partake in a writing group. amy lyles wilson is the one who leads it. it was shortly after a trip to SBL, during which one of my professors told me i needed to actually write, because she believes that the way my brain functions is valuable. i think she's weird. but i also think she's brilliant, so i listened. i strolled into church a few days later and heard the announcement that one of the sunday school options would be the monthly writing group that amy puts on. so i went.

the prompt was about advent. it was from a devotion that i can't quite remember, but the words were good. "God of darkness and light.. make pregnant my hope.. I know there is a Bethlehem inside me.. we are a people of hope.. what do you hope for? ... where light shines with tender memories..."

this is what i wrote when i briefly pondered on the ideas of advent. (this is also what made clear the fact that my brain does in fact work differently)

can i tell you of my sacred ash ridden stories?
would you sit and weep with me while i laid bare my tender tempestuous soul?
because if you would, i could show you a gently ebbing tide
that still washes away the tiny fragments of terror
i could grab your hand 
and show you the intimidating brilliance inside every violent flash
i would point in wide-eyed hopeful wonder to the coming hurricane
stirring in the distant waters
doesn't your skin tingle with the hope?
 born on the warms winds racing across your face?
can you feel that hope?
i still see you walking there
unmoored and fearless
you've wept and been swept away from the harbor
and you survived
with great loss and barren caverns, you rose
and now
what is left to fear?
the steady carving dug out for you an altar where only the brave ones meet
marked 
etched by wear & tear, but fearless
dancing in streams of wild uncertainty
singing, "i was struck but here i stand"
could you wash away the fear in your own life?
will you come to know this bruised and battered body
that you might run and jump, once more?
would you make the trek to Bethlehem
and face the desperate possibility of your own end?
and rise
oh to sing and dance and rise once more
to remember with calloused hands that no hand remains full or empty forever
that no man is an island 
that within humanity, there is a tiny thread bare patch of hope 
offered to those whose seasons have torn them to shreds
the needle might prick and puncture
but to be comforted and made warm by your own story once more is a gift no other hand could give you
would you risk once more the feigned protection of the thimble 
to stitch together your pieces?
for the moment when the last patch is secure, or at least sewn
there is no greater hope
for the clothed now knows in triumph that this naked body has found cover once more
torn garments have not the last word because the stone was removed
the space left was defiantly hopeful in a way that could not be silenced
nor could it rightly be understood
so honor the remnants held together by patchwork
hold in high regard the sacred things stitched together
having softened them by the art of grief
breathe life into the hope of your story
even if it is still in pieces behind the tomb

tiny human.

a first post back & all i have to hand you is cloudy thoughts on sorrow. what a week it has been. 

berwyn is not my dog but his passing is still sorrow. it reminds me of my own little puppy who called it a day in september of last year. it was awful. 

berwyn was diagnosed with lymphoma about a month ago. his glands started swelling one day, no other indicators. the doctors said 2-3 months if left untreated, maybe longer with steroids. 

they were wrong. 

he's known the last week. he knew and i knew, and so did everyone else. there was no pretending. just lots of loving. lots of lying on floors with a sick beautiful puppy who was still full of love. 

thursday night his nodes were bigger than they'd ever been. friday morning around 4am, he tried to jump in my bed but he missed. i woke up & and carried that sweet little furry human into the bed. for the first time all week, he wanted to be near. his heavy breathing gave away his fears. so i held him and prayed and told him how loved he was. after a few minutes of settling into the coming sadness, i prayed again and texted brianna, who was asleep down stairs. i don't ever wake people up in the early hours, but this time was appropriate. she sat with her sweet boy & worked through what the day would look like. her sister eventually came in and we tried to figure out who would be where. it was time to let berwyn go.

in general, heaven means very little to me. it has never been something I've cared about and for me, it doesn't do much for my framework. I've been studying Christianity for 8 years now, tons of different eschatology options, arguments, all of it. what is at the end of life? what difference does it make. but then there are dogs. dogs make me believe in heaven. i love humans and care so terribly much about humans. but as far as rewards at the end of it all? meh. but dogs? there better be a rewards at the end of it for such faithful little companions. the world seems unpalatable if berwyn isn't running around a giant green field somewhere.

before i left for my internship, i laid on the ground with berwyn with all the tenderness of sorrow that i had left. he knew. i kissed his tiny little forehead and said goodbye. my boss gave me permission to leave when i needed to so as soon as bri texted me, i started towards the clinic.

 i knew when the drip started and i knew i wouldn't make it in time. it didn't matter. i had already loved berwyn as much as i had in me. i walked him and sat on the curb with him when he got sick the first time. i threw a ball around with him. i played within his limits at the end. i fed him in the mornings before i left. i stopped doing homework to play with his red bone. i followed him on the carpet when he moved away. i curled up with him to sleep. i loved that tiny little noodle. so when bri texted me that it was done, there was no regret about not leaving earlier. and knowing that she had the space and privacy to grieve over her dog was important. 

the weather on the drive back was crap. gray and foggy and rainy. the perfect mixtape for loss. i read the text and felt the grief crawling into my chest. and instead of fighting it off, i helped make a little pallet and said 'you are welcome here, stay as long as you need to.'

 i thought of cassie last year and the sudden absence of your most responsive companion. i think my dog taught me about moving through sadness. she would sense it & just sit with me. no barking, no playing, no moving. just sitting and letting the silence find the porous pockets in your bones. i don't often feel lonely, whether its the companionship of friends and family or my own insistence at including noise in my life. but when my mom called me and told me about cassie, i came home to a raucous silence. it was the most violently loneliness I've experienced. to walk through the house and not hear the tiny clicks of little paws. that is where i understood sorrow the best.

so this past weekend, without a 30lb heater curled into the bed, i heard a loud silence. i felt the absence of a tiny human (not actually a human) who interrupted most of my homework. i missed the beautiful brown eyes and even the startling barking when i stranger would think about walking past the door, never mind cross the line of vision. i miss those beautiful things and i feel the grief in it.

today is new and old. full and a little less robust. today lacks a certain furry companion to ward off my demons. and my academic bear traps. i raise you the fury heard in ben howard rewrites, and the grief of noah gundersen. i miss you little berwyn. i miss you a lot. 

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.