smoochums

stairwell accompaniment:Damine Rice-O

not myself at all. i sometimes wonder if the identity i assign myself is nothing like the one i portray. lately i’ve found myself so restless.
unexplainable.
these late days of summer can be so draining. and i want so badly for it to be autumn.

I’ve been dreaming weird wedding dreams lately. Over Indian food tonight I confessed to the girls. The most recent dream-mare woke me this morning. It was a rushed wedding full of excitement and people and traditions. Everyone was talking so fast and hugging me and the preachers words were a spiritual blurr of blessings and then pronouncing us man and wife. And finally the scenes began to slow. And I was sitting beside my new husband realizing I was afraid to look at his face because I wasn’t completely sure who it would be. And when I did, my heart sank. THIS is not the man I wanted to marry! What have I done?? I frantically look down at my ring. This is not my ring, the ring. This is all wrong. And my husband is smiling at me, and the crowd is watching for my response, tense with anticipation. And the scene is paused… as my thoughts travel on. This is not the man I would choose to marry. But now. I. am. his. wife. I must somehow become his wife and pray that God can mold my heart to love him as we are one. This is final.
What a dreadful feeling. I woke up in tears. Four wedding dreams in the past week. The final count: black wedding dresses:1, male bridesmaids: 3, wedding cakes made of meatloaf:1, grooms I didn’t recognize:2, grooms so ugly I threw up a little in my mouth:1, grooms I wouldn’t admit to dreaming about:1, beautiful brides:0.

Horrifying wedding dreams aren’t at all helping this general feeling of unloveliness that covers me these days. (i’m so desperate for autumn) Yet I am convinced that I truly do approach God most nearly when I am least like Him. Unlovely. What can be further from likeness than fullness and need. Sovereignty and humility. Limitless power and my cry for help.
In this search for truth in love. I’m stumbling. God is love. Love is God. So even the highest of attainable loves here and now are broken models of the Divine. We only have analogies. “This is love, not that we loved God but that He loves us.” (1 John 4:10) So I should step back and not begin at all with my creaturely love. First and foremost, God is love. Because in Him there is no need. No hunger. Only desire to give. God was under no necessity to create. My God, who needs nothings, loved into existence the superfluous creatures we are. And in order that He may love and perfect us! God: the ultimate host who deliberately created parasites! Pleading that we might feed off of, take advantage of Him. Here is love!
And my only explanation of my current feeling is this Divine need to feed off Him. I find it amazing that God creates us needy: needing food, water, air, interactions, physical touch. Yet I can receive all of the above and still have this void of Divine need. I’ve heard it explained like this: it’s like a magic wine that while being poured out, simultaneously create the glass that was to hold it. We are created to receive God’s love. My failure: As soon as I begin to believe that God loves me, there is an impulse to believe that He does so because I am somehow lovable. I’m searching for the joy in total dependence.

to do:
return phone calls(s)(s)(s)
be outside more often
read
get away
have dinner with ****
have coffee with ******
talk more
listen better
take more pictures
journal more
be more available
more
more
more
sigh
Be Still and Know

today I love:
bedhead.
early morning girl talks with substance.
blueberries.
the silent funeral I had in the car for the bird I hit. And killed. On my way to work this morning. The “Ode to that dead bird” that will only be remembered by me and my empty passenger seat.
“…but if you were paid NOT TO, would you??” I have no idea what this means. Of course I would.
not really remembering the homeward commutes because of enchanting teleconversations.
Indian food.
homemade cards with wire.
impromptu parties.
my niece.
blue moo cookie dough ice cream.
the way my dog’s fat lip gets caught on her teeth and it looks like she’s doing an Elvis face. So cute I could eat her. I have no idea what that means.
tomorrow is Friday.

stairwell accompaniment:Fiona Apple-When the fawn…

“But I cannot tell that to this old sinner, and I cannot comfort him either; he has made himself unable to hear my voice. If I spoke to him, he would hear only growlings and roarings. Oh Adam’s sons, how cleverly you defend yourselves against all that might do you good.”

Aslan, in The Magician’s Nephew -CS Lewis

the british are coming

stairwell accompaniment:Coldplay-X&Y

south dakota team

sunrise

the girls

big sky country

nebraska canoeing

thoughts to come…

ocho mule

stairwell accompaniment:Ben Folds

Ah, I just want to write! Write and update and allow the words to be my megaphone to this world that seems so hush-hush. So many thoughts to expand, so many questions to face, and oh, so many emotions to channel through these alphabet keys!
What I should be doing is studying, packing, lesson planning, cleaning. My attention span wanes even as I speak. A glittering second and it’s on to something new. It seems to me lately that my compusive to-do-list-making has become like a thick, curly mullet upon my shoulders–weighing heavily. (that one’s for you MH) And it’s now in life that I sink so far into someone who is far from who I hope to be.
Obligation is that heavily armed enemy I face with my chinked armor and crooked sword and lately I’ve found myself frustrated by the commitments and ministries and do-gooding and…and obligations that have so long kept me from the actual, tangible, transparent relationship building my soul longs for! Where is the deep caring, the honest concern, the conversation over coffee, the dinner parties with wine and talk of our less-guarded hearts? Because the feeling that I don’t have the time to invest in people is so disarming. I hate it.
And so my commitments will become less. My “ministries” will become individual. My obligations turn into desires. And finally, finally, finally I will pour it all into what will last.
I am Jack’s early-20’s awakening.

And I will bid a final, lackluster, and less that emotional adieu to the O-H and set sail for the South of Dakota. Rosebud Indian Reservation. And I leave with the hope that the road will change my sights, my companions will advance my transparency, my labor will shift my focus and that my God will break my heart. Brokenness with the expectation that He makes all things new.

red sunset

stairwell accompaniment:Dave Matthews Band #41

and for you, Joy:

“That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.” _CS Lewis