Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guiltie of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

A guest, I answer'd, worthy to be here.
Love said, You shall be he.
I, the unkinde, ungrateful? Ah, my deare,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand and smiling did reply:
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth, Lord; but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love; who bore the blame?
My deare, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat.
So I did sit and eat.

// "Love," George Herbert

Far Country, 2

For all its rooted loveliness, the world has no continuing city here; it is an outlandish place, a foreign home, a session in via to a better version of itself––and it is our glory to see it so and to thirst until Jerusalem comes home at last. We were given appetites, not to consume the world and forget it, but to taste its goodness and hunger to make it great.

// Capon

So Be It

I have been scribbling elsewhere these days.  On 5 hour calls, 26.2-mile texts, Untitled, Gold, Persians, Elves.

Subsisting on Ketchup, Srirancha, Kimcheese, Syrup, Spaghetti. Because bread alone is not enough.

How many people do you meet in a lifetime, who compel your whole self, soul and mind and strength? I think I can count on my hands the ones so far. Whose affections do not dismember you, sever your mind from spirit from body.

How many interactions in a year demand an in-kind response?

We're gonna hang out for a couple elf years.

A king who extends, to a queen who waits.

Dancing in minefields, in gardens.

Crystal keys in roiled waters.

Lack and Abundance.

When Grace dances.

Pressure, Extraction.

Sneaks and Sirens.

Alright, I'll play.

It's goin' down.

Here we are.
Hineni.
Pssst.

Granny Anni

She doesn't fade from view in my mind's eye, not in the same way as when dailiness suddenly becomes nothingness. At least, she hasn't yet. There was nothing thoughtless about our communion; the periodicity, the planfulness, annualness. A time lapse. The month per year, the last eight years, one at a time. Filed away for the eleven months of lack.

It was always this way with their comings and goings, my goings and comings, our waiting and wanting. It was always worth it, even indulgent.

What is it like to be 1-year new, Gram?  Asthma-free and baby skin and all.

Your hand-me-downs made me smile today:

• Your custom tailored dresses that fit like magic. Like I came from you or something. I donned the most outrageous one, the blue and white and crazy all over one, for my new driver's license photo. You never did get to ride in my car.
• Your sassypants, which were a little too small for your sass, you little bonsai Grandma you
• Your love of hats and accessorizing
• You played volleyball and dodgeball
• Your bible's margins, their long memory
• Your worldtrotting and pearl purchasing
• Your Mary Poppins bags, ever-ready
• Your crazy diets, one new thing at a time.
  Oatmeal, ginger lemonade, vinegar, green tea, red wine.
• Your midnight carboloading, always salty and crunchy.
• Your penmanship
• Your extraversion
• Your haggling and barguing skills
• Your love of food and feasting
• Your chicken coop stories, drunk chicks
• Your use of organ meats and offal. Mottainai.
• Your plinkering piano
• Your chaotic kitchen, always a ferment going or stock stewing
• Your nightly massage ritual –– now to find someone as doting as Gramps . . .
• Your knife, the way it meets a whole fish

Here are some replays I'm looking forward to:

• Our epic red wine & Jenga night
• How you would attack my chin with gobbles and kisses
• Squeezing in the back seat with you
• That time you sassed me for underestimating the walk from the MRT to the Floral Expo
• Walking   s l o w l y   with you
• Laying my head in your lap to pray
• Your winggirl thing
• Figure drawing
• Your giggles
• Talking my ear off on the phone
• Your birthday cards
• Singing with you
• "特特!"
• ちびや
• "白目!!"
• 啊帽 - 帽子的帽

26: The Surest Way to Cross this Earth

It was not God's forgetfulness of us, but his true, raw way of digging out of the depths of us free love and naked faith.

It was not chaos, clutching at men and women's throats to make them cry out and curse the day they were born, but the motherly lap that would give them birth, bear them to the Kingdom.

From that moment I had no more doubts: Poverty was the dwelling place of the divine, the highest school of true Love, the mighty pull of mercy, the encounter with God made easy, the surest way to cross this earth.

I espoused my Lady Poverty in desire, and from that moment all fear died within me. Or rather, true freedom began.

// from I, Francis by Carlo Carretto.

That time you fell in love

with Philly.

uh oh.

:)

Far Country

I want you to know from what country I emigrated, and in which country my citizenship permanently and eternally resides. I’m not a native speaker of this country. No real convert is. I will always speak in broken godliness, as new paradigms reread old feelings.

// Rosaria Champagne Butterfield