A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. (isaiah 42)

The whole hope right now is that he will not snuff me out. i am a smoldering wick, an ember faintly glowing. i am not ablaze, nor do i feel much passion, nor can i muster up much energy to seek his face. life has been windy and hard and i'm tired and listless.

i imagine my life in metaphors and stories to better understand it. i paint a picture book to give my days meaning and my experiences validation. these days have pictures of ripping off dead grape vines from the main branch. or then i see big boulders being thrown out of the way. and sometimes i see myself getting lost in a very big forest.

and i feel all of these things, i feel both lost and relief and pruned. and, i feel like a smoldering wick.

its nice to remember that he will not snuff me out.

i have lived in california for over a year now.

when my brother was just getting serious about painting, he used the same two colors all the time. hot pink, and cobalt blue. i remember one painting specifically. i remember when he painted it, when it hung on his wall, when it moved to michael's house and when, just last year after the snow storm cancelled my birthday we delivered it to a buyer right before our dinner.

it was cobalt blue, and in a bottom corner there was a pair of his dark-rimmed glasses, and a faint reflection of them behind. somewhere else on the canvas was the caption, scribbled: "what did i think these would do?"

i never understood the painting. what did you think what was going to do? what expectations could he have had for glasses?

six years later i'm living across the country from my family, from the little ones, wondering, "what did i think it was going to do?"

and all god keeps saying is 'i see you i see you i see you, i saw you i saw you i saw you.' and peace, and peace and peace.

and all i keep doing is shaking and bawling and saying more even when i don't want more because i know i don't want anything else but more. (more jesus, more).

its good to finally come to a place in my heart where i can rest. it has been so long without rest. it has been too long without rest.

and maybe that's all a person needs in the midst of transition is peace, and joy, and the overwhelming hope that its going to be better than it was before. and that's enough right now for me not to waver.

he sees me, he sees me, he sees me.

i have a sense that it is important to write about difficult experiences in the midst of them in order to add clarity. and, likewise, it may be important to write about drudgery in the midst of it in order to add significance: my world keeps going, words are assigned to it; this day will not be forgotten.

life has shifted in the last month & i have no more plans. that is a really scary thing for me. and one of my plans involved the rest of my life and an important person and i'm still working out why i gave that up. i think that maybe some decisions take a little bit of time to understand.

like moving to california. i lived the story of why i came out here, i felt confident enough to abandon life and move west and yet i'm still working out why i did that.

i'm slightly embarrassed about life right now. the quietness of my heart, my reluctance, my lack, my anxiety. but, i keep shedding. i keep choosing to shed. plans and decisions and sensible moves are incomprehensible to me. but, in the midst of moulting there is deep peace, my heart bathed in fresh water, my soul refreshed, drawn in.

this is what i have right now, this is what i have to give. my hesitations and my half-heartedness and my questions. i am not who i am not.

this peace is good though, and i want more. and i, in the midst of my lukewarm soul, am someone who can love. this is something.

Along the bank of the river, on this side and that, will grow all kinds of trees used for food; their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. They will bear fruit every month, because their water flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for medicine.

i am, of course, aware of the power of sex, the allure, the comfort of fingers finding each other, the draw of sweet pleasure.

i am equally aware of the fascination of bodies. my body can move like this, and yours like that. i am aware of why we stare, peer in deeper, want.

and rather than dismiss it, i desire beauty in all things. i desire hearts naked in front of one each other. i accept that there is power in it.

i like my skin, and i like yours. i like how our skin fits so snug around our organs, around our deepest insides, around our selves, in however you find a self, there is skin around it.

i build wallpaper boundaries around me to ensure the sense of alone is safe. to ensure that i can live in two places. to hope to have pure desire. to be found clean, present, ready.

phillipians

i feel that i must say that up until last year, i did not enjoy reading the bible. but, i read phillipians today and everything in my heart felt like dust. but, the good kind of dust. the kind that might nourish a flower.

it dawned on me that today is a day in june. and june marks the sixth month of the year, the half-way point of 2011. and in the beginning of 2011, i asked the Lord and the Lord told me that this would be a year of consecration. and for the very first months i tried very hard to isolate myself so that i might be consecrated. and then i tried very hard to be consecrated in the midst of life. neither of these strategies worked. first, because i hate isolation and it kills my soul, and second because just joining life has nothing to do with consecration. and, in my case, it did the very opposite.

and so, here i am in june. in general, i feel lost in the midst of it. not sure of what i'll do next in terms of jobs, careers, location. but even more, unsure of how my relationships will turn out, unsure of where the Lord will take me, unsure of my own capabilities and passion. i am finding that it is hard to be a missionary without passion, and it is hard to have passion. i am also finding that it is hard to love humans, because humans have real blood, real flaws.

and i got lost today in phillipians. remembering again that i am dependent and i am dust. and my consecration, my holiness, is not something that i can put on myself. and i am learning that in order to live, i must die.

this is not something that i think about very often, how to die. but i think that it is something i would like to do often. because, what a beautiful savior who suffered so that he might be the source of eternal salvation. or as peter says, 'since christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin.' or, as paul puts it in phillipians, dying with christ that i might have his righteousness.

reading this and thinking that sometimes it is enough to say shit, finding my way toward heaven is a lot like finding my way toward the cross.