Scandalous, Wild Hope

Tenderness is terrifying. The risk of vulnerability and being truly seen and seeing others clearly is a scandalous hope that hurts. Like a sharp intake of brackish water into lungs built for sky.

I cannot bear it.

I step into the light but I keep my eyes squeezed tight. You can’t see me if I can’t see you.

I feel your hand brush my hand but I pretend that I don’t.

I feel your eyes search mine, but I avert my gaze.

Your tenderness reaches out, looking for a heart to touch and I pull my lapel up to guard my neck.

I send my intentions from behind a curtain, hoping to be regarded but safely from a distance.

I can’t respond to any hint you give of tenderness even when I want to! I simply never developed the muscle to. I don’t even know how to try.

Instead, I wait. For what? Assurance of safety? Transparency of intent? Some guarantee?

We all wait with bated breath.

Build up walls no man (or woman) can scale- walls of unrealistic ideals and falsified hopes. Excuses to guard from disappointment and rejection. From things not working out one more time. From hoping again and watching those hopes turn to dust...

Jesus, tear down my walls. These monuments I’ve built to validate the lies I have believed protect me.  Teach me how to receive your tenderness so that I can receive the tenderness of others. So I can give tenderness freely from my heart, without fear. And without hesitation.

I want to speak all of the languages of love, Jesus. I want to speak them in all the ways- softly, loudly. I want to love so fiercely and so bravely that people feel loved even just sitting in the silence with me, in the dark of night under a star-filled sky. I want to breathe love- in and out. I want it to pour from my eyes and from my lips. I want to be known as someone who loves like you do.

And I want to be able to receive love with the same ferocity. With the same open arms. With the same fearless, brave and wild hope that YOU love.

You are never scared to love with all you have and to open your heart wide to receive us.

Even when we hurt your vulnerability and your exposed heart. Even when we reject you and defile and mock your love.

Still you are both relentless and patient. Both pursuing and steady. Calm and wild. You are the storm of the calm.

I want to be just like you. Teach and empower me how to love and live like you. Increase my faith and my brave heart and my wild hope.

Living in Season

Have you ever noticed how often people say things like: “I feel this is my season to grow in this area…” or “I’m ready for a season of change in my life.”  You can interchange “life” with: job, location, relationships, etc.  You know you’ve heard them all.

Just as the natural world marks seasons by change and process, we mark our seasons this way as well.  Seasons string together and what is gained in one season is needed in the next.  What is planted in one season is yielded in the next, which is consumed or stored in the next season, and replanted in the next and on and on.  The truth is, we need these seasons to have productive, fruitful and full lives.

I think the biggest error we can make is to not allow ourselves grace to be present in the season that we are in.  A single person can become full of sorrow waiting for a match, while a married person can be resentful of the freedom someone single enjoys.  Those who have children in school can become tired or burdened with the busy-ness of extracurricular activities and slumber parties, while the parent who has just seen their child off to college yearns to have those years again.  Children can’t wait to grow up and then adults wistfully look back at the “days of their youth.”  You see what I’m saying?

We can waste our seasons wanting to be in a season other than the one we are in and miss the gold that is waiting for us right now.  Some lay about in plain sight, but others you have to climb for or dig for.  (Think of the squirrel and how he forages for acorns.  He goes AFTER it- even through many obstacles and difficulties) Every season, even the difficult ones, are an invitation into a process of “becoming” and the joy that can be found there.

I’m learning (or re-learning, I guess) how to find peace and joy in whatever process I find myself in.  It’s like when you are baking brownies.  It’s such a mess: flour everywhere, sticky measuring cups, gooey countertops…but at the end, brownies exist.   Something so delicious came from ingredients that apart from one another are simply ordinary.  Sugar is too sweet, flour tastes like nothing, salt is well, salty…

But in process, with time…they have the potential to be something truly delicious.

Sometimes when I’m in the midst of cooking something in my life, it’s so easy to just stare at the ingredients and get overwhelmed or anxious that it’s not going to turn out or taste right.

Allow your season to be what it is.  Embrace the mess, the pain, the discomfort of becoming and allow yourself to become.  Enjoy the process!  Tasting the batter along the way is part of the fun.

Dusty

I recently took some time to read over the entries in this blog and my other blog, Calamity Jane.  I was amazed at some of the things I have written over the years, and these are just the things I have shared publicly.

Truthfully, I have journals filled and neatly organized computer files brimming with the musings and meanderings of this mind.

I miss the way I used to write. 

I miss the unhindered way my heart would flood from the tips of my fingers.

So...

I'm dusting off my idealism and waking the dreamer.

It's time to write again.