Only a Stone's Throw

Sometimes the people who are supposed to be the most loving, forgiving, and understanding people are the ones who hate, judge, and refuse to admit their own shortcomings and failures. In the Bible, these people where the Pharisees, the pious and religious do-gooders who clung too tightly to the rules and laws of the prophets. They never could understand that the rules were set up as guidelines for a righteous life, not a straight-edge for perfection. I clearly see where they went astray and how they because so tight-assed in the first place and I cannot fault them for doing so, because i am extremely guilty of it myself. I have stood straight and condemned the broken and bleeding; telling them how ugly and filthy they appear before God... unaware of the filth and wretchedness painting my own soul. I have felt righteous and good, vainly. I have wrinkled my nose at the sincerity of confession and later mocked the tears and weeping of a truly repentant heart. I am guilty, guilty. i am not deserving, i am not worthy. And yet i am loved, i am forgiven. Amazing Grace.

I think once i found myself on the receiving end of this phariseedical judgment, it became much easier to step outside of myself and realize what I had been doing all along. Instead of helping people by condemning them, which ironically was my held belief and not at all a theme in scripture when it came to Jesus, I needed to love them where they were, keep my mouth shut and extend my hand, or my arms.. whichever the situation called for. Wow, what a concept, really. What a lost art, what an extremely difficult task. It is so much easier to spout off religiosity than to actually love.

Aside from the story of the Cross; the most poignant depiction of love, of Amazing Grace, to me, is found in John 8: 3-11. This section of scripture is well known and quoted often, but i am constantly returning to it knowing that i have walked in the shoes of both characters; the Pharisees, and the woman. And i believe that Jesus' final words to the women where not spoken only to her, but to the Pharisees as well, if they would only listen. The words are a promise "Neither do I condemn you", and a pleading "From now on, sin no more".

I'm stepping down from my soapbox now, and i'll end this entry with a poem inspired by this passage and taken from the woman's point of view.

throw that rock to the ground
for you are no better
your words may be slathered in spirituality
but if you throw that at me-
your heart has not felt the change.
your eyes tell the deeper truth
that you, too, have stood in my shoes.
you are afraid to face me because i represent
what lives within you
i have failed you, but you will fail yourself
if you don't take a closer look.
i hurt as much as you-we are the same
broken-both deserving the same stone
but HE refuses to throw it
HE will not condemn us, only love.
now will you see?


help me to love, even when it is easier to condemn.

Confessions and Questions from a Cynical Romantic

i have been thinking about love, Eros more specifically, and how it is possible. i am constantly having questions about love, but they have come very urgently as of late. mostly, i'm sure, because i have several friends who have recently gotten engaged and married. i always have mixed feelings about this: i am elated that my friends are happy, in love, and anticipating a life spent with their "better half"... then there is this nagging part of me which questions love. i have always had a horrible doubt that this wonderful romantic idea that two people could love each other, adore each other for a lifetime is only a myth. And, i feel very bitter and cynical because i think this.
i guess my cynicism springs from my own experience with love, or pseudo-love; which ever it really was, and i hate that it clouds my vision and possibly my ability to love. i dated someone for almost six years and i never seemed to get the love thing right. there were days i thought i loved him, i pushed myself to love him, i fooled myself into believing i loved him... and so, i loved him. does love have to be forced? i don't think so, but i think sometimes people want so much to be loved, or make love work that they force themselves to love. the more i forced myself to love, the more i started to believe that i actually loved him and the further i stepped away from the truth. this is a scary place to be.. because a lie can so much look like the truth.
but, i also think there is some truth to the idea that sometimes we have to force ourselves to love. right? or have i completely missed the point? doesn't love sometimes require a push? doesn't love go through a funk when the feeling just isn't there anymore, when two people just have to go through the motions in order to make it work? does love really have to be like that?
i want the kind of love that Romeo and Juliet had... the kind of love that is so passionate it ignores the warnings and pushes full force into death.. the kind of love that burns. but, i also want love that aches, that is raw and awful and painfully real. love that is messy and erratic and hopefully desperate. even more, i want love that is soft and patient, love that holds on and laughs, love that cherishes and adores. Can love be all of these things? Should love be all of these things?
love is a mystery to me... and maybe it will always be. and maybe that's the key to it all, that no one will ever know completely how love is supposed to be. so, how will we know when we find it? how will we know it's the real thing?
i want to stop questioning. tell me your story, tell me your heartaches and your experience.. i want to learn you. maybe this is love.

the answer will come

I am, inadvertently, letting my life be sucked from me. Is that possible? Have you ever gone so far and then realized you are not at all where you meant to be? How did I get here? What steps did i take, or fail to take, that led me to this point? I feel as though I have completely lost sight of who I am. The real me and the false me are juxtaposed; mingling breath, dancing, flirting with each other in hopes of birthing a version of myself which is less complicated and more refined. But, i am failing. And, i should be failing.
Lately i have found myself so unreal. i keep staring in the mirror wandering who it is staring back at me. I do not recognize these cloudy eyes, these broken smiles, these vacant glances which are reflected back at me. I am compromised. But how?
do you know who you are?

Oh Rapturous Delight

Spring is bursting out of every corner and my soul is beginning to creep out of the dark, rotting hell in which it has been withering.
i can breathe again, ahhh.
it is amazing how a simple season can bring such hope and expectation. the long winter is passing.. behold the newness of earth, the sweet smell of blossoms, the beauty of clear blue and shimmering gold! AMAZING.
the beauty overwhelms me and i cannot help but stop and stare. i can see the temptation to worship nature.. it is so miraculous; where only yesterday there was a naked tree limb, today produces a cluster of fragrant petals!
i am in love, giddy as a school girl.. and i cannot help but selfishly feel this beauty is somehow created for me!

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
~e.e.cummings

thank you, God... oh thank you for spring!!

may my heart

may my heart always be open to little birds
who are the secret of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are
old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's a Sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are never young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

e.e.cummings

Oh Lovely Day!

Great things are always happening to me! On Sunday i hung out with some people in Warsaw and we played Sand volleyball. I suck at it! And i hurt my wrist. i hit the ball and my wrist started burning, so i looked down and in like half a second my wrist had swelled twice its normal size! i didn't think that was really supposed to happen, but when i showed Matt he didn't seem too concerned about it, so i kept playing.
Today is Tuesday and it's still swollen, is that a problem?! It looks pretty too... lots of green and blue bruises. i'm going to go to the doctor tomorrow, i guess. All of my deepest desires are coming true!!
But, some actual good things did happen today.. I didn't have to pay for Napoleon Dynamite because they had it at the library, yippie!! And, i heard from an old travel companion whom has been absent for several years... you know who you are :)!

losing

i cannot see you;
beyond my tears you are so blurred-
and i cannot be sure to what direction you are turning
and my weeping heart gaps open
bleeding

i cannot hear you;
within my own head screams of betrayal overtake you-
and i cannot be sure who i can really trust
and what failure i will release
if it's you

thoughts on that

it's my birthday tomorrow. i totally hate birthdays! i'm not exactly sure why but i always expect that something great will happen on my birthday.. i'll get some great surprise that i wasn't anticipating at all or my long lost friends will call me up and say they are in town just for my birthday! It never happens though, and it's always disappointing. It shouldn't be, i should just be happy that i've made it to another year and i have a family that loves me and friends who make me happy more often than disappoint me, but yet, there is still that small, but nagging feeling of wanting something more.

i'm going to be twenty-four. that sounds so old to me! i can just picture my seven-year-old self staring up at it's twenty-four-year-old future self asking "who are you? that's what i'm going to be in seventeen years?" (i hope i'm not a disappointment!)
I think i'm doing alright. the past twenty-three years have been a mishmash of trying and learning and living and failing and breaking and re-making. I am becoming so much so quickly, and nothing so slowly. And, i think that i am right where i am supposed to be. Right in the middle of confusion and chaos... yet so much peace and confirmation. I can't wait for what i'll become at twenty-four... i have a feeling it will be grand!