simplest of sunrises

I hadn't watched the sun rise since I was in Egypt - but I watched it this morning. It was nothing spectacular. No vibrant colors or dramatic reveal arching over profound landscapes. Not aiming to be impressive but it impressed me.

Something in that slow spread of luminescence surrendered my soul to peace. A quiet persistence, unobtrusive and understated, yet persuasively elegant. I am persuaded...that there are still rosy skies without rose colored glasses, that there is beauty to behold even when unsought, that there is truth and order beyond what I could articulate, and that the gentle lapping of peace will always rise like the tide to beckon us out of sleepless nights.


it is well...it is well, with my soul.

streaming

Thoughts. And life. And laughing. And feeling sad. And wishing I knew what to hope for. Being pulled out of my head by a little voice that calls “DiDi!.” Missing faces. Trying and trying, and nothing. Loving deals. Reading. Frozen yogurt – cheesecake style. Appreciating the growth I see in my friends because of their bold and adventurous living. Being silly. Dressing for the sunshine. Being held by my meecho while I cry. Celebrating others’ graduation while feeling next to nothing for my own. Long hair? Short hair? Happy for sisters that stay up late with me all the time. Learning what it is to dream. Letting go of the potential I see or others expect and trying to partner with the potential God sees. Bursts of energy. Waves of listlessness. Cooking. Watching – history, survival, discovery, “reality,” romance, toys, etc. Picking up where things left off. Blogging for Rae…for me.

a set of vowels...

I felt it was time for a blog, however, my thoughts, conversations, and life in general has felt like a set of scrabble letters that are all vowels. These are of course crucial and powerful letters but you can’t make a single word or phrase out of all vowels.
Anyway that brings me to this blog – a kind of point-by-point presentation of "vowels" I’ve been thinking about and writing on scraps of paper…
Maybe you can use some to make words for your story.

These are not in any order:
1. Feelings of guilt, loneliness, and abandonment could be signs that i'm trying to go at it alone…pride, self-reliance/dependency, etc…

2. importance of holistic (non-dividing) worldview that all of creation is good and it lacks distinctions between secular and religious. our purpose is to release the bits of God's spirit within creation - redeeming/restoring...spirit to spirit.

3. we're not here to return to a garden but to take the garden mentality throughout all our lives and situation...

4. the separation of fields and disciplines etc is counterproductive because all exist within God and in the realm of his love and life...we have the opportunity to connect between...why limit between "secular" and "religious" labels - it all exists within God's framework and what he has called good.

5. what is it you live for? no, i mean truly and honestly. i don't know that i'm satisfied by my answer to this.

6. My competitive spirit is a humbling sign that I have yet to fully realize my worth and value in Christ and the unique role he designed me to play. My lines, staging, rehearsal times, costume, perspective, etc will not be the same as anyone else’s…

7. to live in and see a fallen world is torturous to us and calls into question God because it is not as it should be...however this is according to our judging and separating mind that holds false notions of good and bad and has created a false world of perfection to compare the real world to (and find it lacking)...God's concept of good is so much wider since he has the full picture...we need to ask him for a vision of restored creation living...not because this world is bad but because it has potential for so much more...

8. Importance of recognizing sinful family patterns in myself so as not to become victim to them…”inherited patterns of action and reaction”

9. Living in a relationship of “moralism” with God leads to the destructive belief that we can manage things on our own and thus, as we do “good,” God in return will spin things in our favor…a huge sense of self and lack of understanding our sin and need for grace…we self-punish when we fail and look for “God’s” punishment too (whoever/whatever gods we consult and measure ourselves by) because, due to the false world we’ve created (Raub), this is the system we feel most secure in – failure = punishment…success = reward. This thought pattern leads us to great inner turmoil since this is not reality (earthly or heavenly)…

10. I think I operate more from a place of “Lord make me strong” rather than a posture of “I am weak – You be strong”…this saddens me.

11. My self-preoccupation is irritating and oh-so-tiresome. It makes me feel cheap and exposed…as if that’s all I am or all I have (physical/outward perceptions). It’s not enough. Never enough, when all I want is the Smile of my Creator and that I’ve already received - alone in my room, make-upless and pudgy…but delighted in by one who’s opinion actually matters…

12. we have to let go of who we are not and what the world is not and live in truth...

13. being secure enough in yourself to call respect to others...

irresistible leadership...

I am currently reading the book “Leadership Essentials” by Greg Ogden and Daniel Meyer and am really excited about it! I’m not generally a “book study” type person so it’s especially rewarding – perhaps this represents a small submission of my pride :o) to be taught and guided...
In the outflow of my captivation I am writing but it pains me to know that this is not something easily shared in the written word - it is something to be experienced. Rapture in God's presence...


The section I am on is exploring the Character of a leader, specifically Holiness. WHAT a revamp on my gut level understanding of holiness! Reading about the character of Christ and really delving into the concept of Holiness makes me want to know Him so much more! As holiness is, he is utterly irresistible and magnetic. I can’t even articulate the depth of my conviction on this point right now and I know I’m still floating on the surface. It’s like catching the indirect smile of someone you’ve never met but suddenly being reminded of how full a smile can be….sensing depths behind it and being drawn in to know more. I guess I’m realizing anew that those moments of magnetism, charisma, impact, and presence that we’re drawn to in people is nothing but a fleeting reflection of Christ’s character of holiness.

Jesus’ leadership was powerful because, “His influence was the effluence of his essence. His impact was the overflow of his identity. His conduct was the outpouring of his character.” (p22) In all of history is there any single person that has made such a powerful and enduring impact as Jesus? I cannot think of any. His character of holiness is compelling.

There is nothing about true holiness that is containable - it is: integrity of thought and action, the cultivation of the fruit of our spirituality, intentional focus of one’s existence as being dedicated (consecrated) to God, and the humble expression of transcendent power of influence.

C.S. Lewis said, “How little people know who think that holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing…it is irresistible.” (22) The impact of true and unpretentious purity (wholeness – integrity, authenticity, morality), the manifestation of glory (life and light of God – fruits of the spirit), to be consecrated to God’s presence and service, to remember the staggeringly awesome presence and power of the one we serve – this is to be Holy. Jesus’ quality of character was so attractive that people have followed him for centuries – holiness is perhaps the most preeminent of his character qualities.

“Holiness is the compelling beauty and fullness of God’s own nature for which we were made.” (23)

...May my essence reflect his spirit, may my identity be wholly founded in him, and may my character be modeled after his example….

dreaming...

i dreamt of Home. Stability. Love. and Comfort.

It can be such an uncomfortable thing to have your wishes and desires revealed to you in sleep, through the perfection of a dream. When it’s wonderful and perfect yet realistic, plausible with a stretch…and then you wake up to reality, unhappy and searching for the peace and joy of the dream. It’s not fair that when you’re weakest and vulnerable that is when you have to try to resist indulging in even the thought of that which you want. This small feeling now, makes me scared for the future. “…Lord keep me from myself, guard my heart, and may I always turn to you to fill my needs and my inner void of unhappiness.”

live with expectancy...

For: every girl ever wise enough to see Potential - that most blessed and cursed of gifts.

why do i hear the same story repeated over and over by women i respect and admire? solid women operating in confidence and seeking honest relationships guided by their foremost desire for Christ.
Tonight I sat in conversation with a friend whom I hadn't talked to in a while and she ended up telling me of some recent events in her life pertaining to a boy. Before she had hardly begun i felt an ache in my heart and like a unstoppable dream knew exactly where this story would lead for I have not only heard it often but I have told it myself over my own forbidden tears. It was something in her first words…I longed to stop her, to give her a hug and weep with her for the painful and self-doubting questions, for the justifications, explanations, resolutions, for the hope sought lost and painfully sought again.

she has not yet walked that path...and I cannot stop her.

…I wanted to warn her away from the start of hope and the light of potential and possibility but from the same heart and stronger I urged her to hope and to live in expectancy, ready to engage in joy and enthusiasm no matter the decaying breath of reason.
Maybe this was selfish, maybe it was the projection of who i wish I could have been or the health with which I long to have acted out of - perhaps it is just a call to the hope that I so desire to be supported and strengthened within me. Regardless of my brokenness there is truth and that truth says, "at the risk of greater pain, in the quest for greater love - live with expectancy, drink-in hope and promises...breathe truth."

Oh sisters, let us hold out in hope for the promises of life and love in Christ...let us be open to not knowing, to not planning, to not living with soul killing expectation. Rather let us live with life infusing engagement in expectancy....You are loved. You are delightful. You are enough. Expect to be discovered and loved as you live from these truths.

silence and space and vacillation...

This post is actually a journal entry of sorts from this summer that I rediscovered recently...elements of it still ring true, though I am in a different season of life now. I read it to some friends yesterday and one in particular encouraged me to post it "you never know when something you have to say may bless someone else" she said - a thought that has stuck with me. Another question she posed, "what is the purpose of your blog??", has also held on mainly because I don't really know. No self-limits or restrictions will I set. Read or don't but know that when you do you are reading a real piece of me...at least in to moment i wrote it :o)

--
june'09

Silence is an interesting topic of which I’ve been increasingly aware. What’s interesting is the distinction between Silence – beautiful, profound, restful, meditative; and Silence – as the absence of engagement in conversation but still full of noise. The latter can also be transposed as the reverse of this description in that there can be complete outer silence and replete inner chattering. I find myself mostly lost in this second version of the latter form of silence and pining away for the serenity and calm of the first form.

Vacillating between having a firm grasp on my life and plowing through and a sickening feeling of no traction. When my perspective is sickeningly and miserably microscopic and I find that being confronted with macroscopic ideas/questions I am too ungrounded to really give them a look. My peripheral senses are oh so aware of how these unanswered questions churn around me, obscuring clarity…and yet I float, too afraid to touch down.

“People often cry out for the work of the Holy Spirit and yet forget that when the Holy Spirit works, there is always tremendous cost to the people of God, weariness and tears and battles.” - No Little People (a collection of sermons by Francis Schaeffer)…(when I press in the most is when the enemy works the hardest to knock my feet out from under me)
Perhaps this is also why it is harder to fight against the little things that come up – everything is pushed up closer to the surface – every fear, every insecurity, and darkness swirls up dirt so that everything is clouded and harder to perceive. For a “truth-proclaimer” I often feel more than allowably unsure. Maybe that is the blessing and curse of seeing clearly in the lives and matters of others – not being able to perceive my matters and my life in clarity.
It is good to be reminded that all this “chaos” is likely a result of a macroscopic spiritual dynamic I am unaware of rather than because of all the things I am failing at and/or not doing (self-condemnation only feeds the problem). A reminder that in dark times i am only alone inasmuch as I forget that others have come to such a place before me and will after me...even more importantly others are fighting the same battle now just in a different space.


As I write all this I’m acutely aware that the solution to this is to be grounded in the Lord. As cliché as that may sound I have existed in such a state before and thus know it is not only possible but beyond beneficial and so don’t really care how cliché or simplistic I sound in that statement.
However, the question remains - how does a free-floating/disengaged mind tap into anything long enough to become grounded? Grounding, in my experience, takes time, energy and a keen single-minded, desire-fueled motivation to submit the flesh to the spirit, my will to His. Patience and silence are key since they produce energy and thought space. This last statement leads me to an acute awareness of my own burning lack of “thought-space” which explains my noisy silences. How do we empty our thoughts?? Immediately upon asking that question several answers come to mind, one of which stands out - carving out time for concentrated meditation. Hmm, appealing in theory and probably oh-so-beneficial but this brings us back to the problem of a lack of energy driven will-power. Remember I’m the one free-floating, and it’s taking all my energy just to do that and touch down long enough to result in necessary physical actions.

I keep thinking that once I’m out of school things will change – suddenly a well-spring of space will flood into my brain and I’ll be able to engage with life and it’s questions and act upon the desire to re-ground myself. However, if past example carries any weight this seems more than unlikely.

The elements that are most deeply energizing to me are: spiritual revelations, feeling and living healthy, coming to peace with big questions, understanding myself and what I want in life and what I have to offer, being engaged with God’s call, making decisions, proactivity, etc. Unfortunately, all these and more require the space, peace, silence, energy, and groundedness discussed above, thus my impasse.

I don’t really know what I’ve just been writing – I’m merely writing because I’ve been telling myself for a while that I should be writing everyday…maybe it will help me process … Maybe I just feel that I have to stop needing and expecting others to sort out the mess in my thoughts and it’s high time I become proactive about doing just that and once I can get past some of the superficial tangle (above) then I can really start to formulate the questions, concerns, and frustrations behind the big issue questions that haunt me.