can't hide beneath my sheets.

ONE.

snowed here over the weekend. a joyous time of ignoring the impending frostbite in our soggy socks and our numb fingers. first snowfall, first snowfights, in costumes and all. mine was yoshi. great ironies. God laughs. the plumber and his princess are all over facebook today. you've blocked me and even ignore me when i ask you why. why, alyosha, do you feel the need to hide from me? to what end? if you are trying to spare me the details of how happy your life is without me, how can you possibly expect that to work when we share all these friends? it's not your happiness that harasses me, it's your exclusion. your silence keeps me ruminating. do you not care or do you just hate me? if you are punishing me, it hurts, it's working, please stop.

TWO.

it was 27 degrees saturday so i had to dig out all my winter gear. a scarf nearly windswept off the roof. raccoon hat and blue weatherproof gloves, fluffy fleece sweater and the black arm warmers i insisted you wear. and jacket pockets, still full of paper snowflakes for you, when you least expect it from a cirque so lame that the super salty buttered popcorn was the happiest part, aside from you of course. pen refills. guilt-stained flannel sheets and tearful down comforters. bright eyes and full hearts. these were the things i put away in march as your affections melted. i havent had to see them since then, but winter decided to crash our happy halloween here. and memories of you, how you visited me at my very worst, they came crashing through too...

THREE.

friend, what happened to you? you were never one to turn your back on someone in need, a blind eye to hurt and responsibility, or to resign to the "irreconcilable." am i to blame, did i injure you beyond recognition? you've pushed me out and brought her in, a replacement in your life. a replacement among our friends. you've made it impossible for me to belong. you who always welcomed me home before now prolong my exile. you can stay, i guess. i will go. you can keep them too.

FOUR.

or maybe, at the end of today, i guess i have stayed, and you have left. life moves on, you move on. everyone moves except the paralyzed.

o Lord, heal. say to me, arise, go, tell.

i'm singin the same lines all over again,

so renew Your song in me.

i keep going back

i search for shelter near the mines we swept
i guess forgiveness hasn't happened yet
there are no words that i can say to you
to turn this careless sky from black to blue

// jars of clay

True Sense

Isaiah is probably my favorite book of the Bible. Many mornings spent steeping in its sunrise glory and praying for that hope in Chapter 60 to rise and dawn in my life. In our lives. For Christ, the hope of glory, to come through.

"... and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind."

Today 65:17 filled me with hope and pause. A side effect of heaven is that the new, the real, the true, will so outshine the shadows... But these words for the first time gave way to deep, deep peace about the flashbacks and vivid rememories I've been so fearful of lately.

For years I've counted on being able to think myself into the right corner. God is bringing his grace to reside somewhere deeper in my being than the intellect and deeper than biochemistry, but that pruning has been so painful. I'm verging on crazy at moments.

But it clicked today, that in the new, healed order, there will be no flashbacks. All I will see is the only thing that has been Real all along. Everything else... just shadows of its substance. A dim reflection. So I wait by faith, live by faith. Not by sight, my earthly perception of real and non-real (however reliable that perceiving may be or however mentally stable)--not even by the mind's eye and its crazy ways of seeing. Seen things are transient.

To put stock in worldly sights as though it were real/permanent. Now that would be truly crazy.

One sunrise closer to that day, when we shall see with unveiled faces.

More Holiday Talk with Ellen Lin

Back for more, after our lovely conversation about Labor Day. We could make this a quarterly thing. And Thanksgiving is the always the fourth Thursday of November, apparently.

Ellen: hey what day is thanksgiving?

 me: thursday

 Ellen: but which one?

 me: 11/24

  the last thurs of november always.

  or is it the thursday of the last full week in november

  i forget

 Ellen: hah i have no idea

  but i think that sounds right!

  haha

10:36 PM me: why do you ask

  do you need me to google things for you again

  http://lmgtfy.com/?q=when+is+thanksgiving%3F

 Ellen: hahaahha i hate you

10:37 PM i love googleeee :D

October is so in between.

try to remember the kind of September
when life was slow and oh-so-mellow.
try to remember the kind of September
when grass was green and grain was yellow.
try to remember the kind of September
when you were a tender and callow fellow.
try to remember, and if you remember,
then follow...

there is a curious paradox that no one can explain
who understands the secrets of the reaping of the grain?
who understands why spring is born out of winter's laboring pain
or why we must all die a bit before we grow again?

deep in December, it's nice to remember
although you know the snow will follow.
deep in December, it's nice to remember
without a hurt the heart is hollow.
deep in December, it's nice to remember
the fire of September that made us mellow.
deep in December, our hearts should remember
...and follow

// The Fantasticks.

Hound of Heaven

They were You
They were You
They were You

When she is cast off.

Sweetest Day. A year ago he didn't know it existed. Now he doesn't care that I exist.


“Fear not, for you will not be ashamed;
be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced;
for you will forget the shame of your youth,
and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.
For your Maker is your husband,
the LORD of hosts is his name;

too good and too true

that You'd take my shame

and wear my weakness

so i could bear Your Name

and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,
the God of the whole earth he is called.

El Roi, my sweetest and best

You saw me standing in the face of my need

a soul that only You can redeem

For the LORD has called you
like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit,
like a wife of youth when she is cast off,
says your God.
For a brief moment I deserted you,
but with great compassion I will gather you.
In overflowing anger for a moment
I hid my face from you,
but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,”
says the LORD, your Redeemer.
(Isaiah 54:4-8 ESV)

Exile is not a forever place. The restoration--including emotional--that God promises (Isaiah 40:1) is real, and very near. Especially in the wilderness, Kun reminded me this week. That place from where you would run after free water. The favor of God is of far more worth than the favor or man. How do we experience the favor of God though? Is it not largely through life in His family, in the community of faith? How do you endure the disfavor with faith and hope, rather than with disaffected resignedness?