life: acoustic & amplified

what not to say…just bring french chocolates  

“Only he who cries… is permitted to sing…” is what Bonhoeffer said.

Only those authentic enough to lament, are authentic enough to love.
When everything is stripped away and you have nothing left and in all your bare vulnerability, there is communion with God. 

         – Ann Voskamp

I am bare naked

Down to my bones

Even my comfortable skin is gone

I shiver as the cold blows through me

I have cried many tears 

my song has been well watered

it blooms within me

true voice does not come without cost

Yet it comes

I choose

I let go

I choose

I lament

I chose

I grieve

I choose

I love

I choose

I commune

I choose

I learn

I choose 

always choosing 

new choosing in every moment

to continue to make the choices

which will bring the song

that fills the whole world

with hope, light and love

Thanks be 

to the the friends who stay with me

in silence we weep

in joy we laugh

always and always 

we sing 

🎼

AL

love breaks your heart for the sake of your heart…

If you have your health, you have everything

is something that’s said to cheer you up

when you come home early and find your lover

arched over a stranger in a scarlet thong.

Or it could be you lose your job at Happy Nails

because you can’t stop smudging the stars

on those ten teeny American flags.

I don’t begrudge you your extravagant vitality.

May it blossom like a cherry tree. May the petals

of your cardiovascular excellence

and the accordion polka of your lungs

sweeten the mornings of your loneliness.

But for the ill, for you with nerves that fire

like a rusted-out burner on an old barbecue,

with bones brittle as spun sugar,

with a migraine hammering like a blacksmith

in the flaming forge of your skull,

may you be spared from friends who say,

God doesn’t give you more than you can handle

and ask what gifts being sick has brought you.

May they just keep their mouths shut

and give you French chocolates and daffodils

and maybe a small, original Matisse,

say, Open Window, Collioure, so you can look out

at the boats floating on the dappled pink water.

🏝

French Chocolates by Ellen Bass

The Beloved says:

Be at peace;

         I am the strongest thing in you.

Over your dark, formless waters I brood;

         in your void I speak my Word.

You are my river and I am your flowing;

         you are my water and I am your sea.

I am the spark from nerve to nerve;

         the drumming of your heart. 

I am your blood’s dark alchemy

         creating life, this moment, life. 

In the night I am your nest;

         in the storm, your steadfast earth.

In the raging waters I am your breath;

         in your death I am your life.

I am the First thing in you,

         and I will be in you 

         when the rest of you is gone.

When your bones are shadows 

         and your sinews wind

a hundred years from now

         I will still be in your place,

         rejoicing.

Nothing is deeper than my desire for you;

         nor stronger than your belonging in me.

I am your Realm, and your power, and your glory.

         Be at peace.
__________________

Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Unfolding Light

http://www.unfoldinglight.net

4 year anniversary of living faith following the cloud. Allowing God to direct every step I have taken…been an amazing, wonderful, difficult, miracle-strewn time. So grateful for every miracle minute. 

Big changes seem to be coming. Walk with me. Pray for me. 🙏🏻 So grateful for you.