All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you.
– Octavia E. Butler
fierce surrender
relentlessly engaged
In a loud and howling world, it’s in the silence of a broken heart that the chambers of you can hear the sound of God speaking. It’s in the emptiness that happens in the wake of a broken heart, that God fills you with Himself.
Soundlessly, relentlessly praying through your spaces of brokenness makes the heart bigger, until you hold the gift of God alone.
I memorize the white of the moon. Freeze frame the Farmer grinning in the white light of it there on the tractor seat, the peak of his feed cap pulled low over his face. We get to inhale. We get to live every day like it might be our last —- because one of these days, we’re guaranteed to be right.
We get to surrender to the glory, to the weight of it coming through the thinning sky, and there’s nothing in this world that’s normal — there’s only growing blind to the glory. There’s only growing blind to the injustice, to the blood on our own hands, to the love we could make, to the One who says, “Holy Father, keep them in Your name…. —- that they may be one, even as we are one” (John 17:11) to the truth that we all belong to one another. It’s the cynics who wear armour to shield the heart from all this beauty that wounds.
You are perishable here.
Taste the moments accordingly.
Taste the space between every breath like it is bread, the space between the stars where you and he are just for now, the space between you and faces you love and being here no more, the spaces between the pain, between you and streets of grief, between you and injustice and war and mothers cradling their babies in fear, and learn to love before it’s too late. I need to etch that into me.
You are perishable here, Taste the moments accordingly —
You get to decide whether you are going to taste it, all of it and know that God is good and enjoy Him and make your life about others tasting His goodness too.
You get to decide whether you’re going to spend your one life trying to make an impression and look good — or make a difference and do good.
You don’t get long here before you get to be a memory — so make your life about getting thirsty people glasses of water.
💧
– Ann Voskamp
blog: aholyexperience.com
Isaiah 6
There were banks of candles flickering in the distance and clouds of incense thickening the air with holiness and stinging his eyes, and high above him, as if it had always been there but was only now seen for what it was (like a face in the leaves of a tree or a bear among the stars), there was the Mystery Itself, whose gown was the incense and the candles a dusting of gold at the hem. There were winged creatures shouting back and forth the way excited children shout to each other when dusk calls them home, and the whole vast, reeking place started to shake beneath his feet like a wagon going over cobbles, and he cried out, “O God, I am done for! I am foul of mouth and the member of a foul-mouthed race. With my own two eyes I have seen him. I’m a goner and sunk.” Then one of the winged things touched his mouth with fire and said, “There, it will be all right now,” and the Mystery Itself said, “Who will it be?” and with charred lips he said, “Me,” and Mystery said “Go.”
Mystery said, “Go give the deaf hell till you’re blue in the face and go show the blind heaven till you drop in your tracks, because they’d sooner eat ground glass than swallow the bitter pill that puts roses in the cheeks and a gleam in the eye. Go do it.”
Isaiah said, “Do it till when?”
Mystery said, “Till hell freezes over.”
Mystery said, “Do it till the cows come home.”
And that is what a prophet does for a living and, starting from the year that King Uzziah died, when he saw and heard all these things, Isaiah went and did it.
🔥
~ Frederick Buechner originally published in Peculiar Treasures and later in Beyond Words
What is your unrelenting passion?
My Beloved said, “My name is not complete without yours.”
And I thought, How could a human’s worth ever be such?
And God knowing all of our thoughts, and all our thoughts are just innocent steps on the path, then addressed my heart.
God revealed a sublime truth to the world when He sang
“I am made whole by your life. Each soul, each soul completes Me.”
– Hafiz
Empty-handed, no explanation.
After three nights of not sleeping,
Three nights of listening for
His footsteps, His mules sliding
Deftly under my bed, I stand
At the stove, giving him my back,
Wearing the same tight, tacky dress, same slip,
Same seamed stockings I’d put on before He left.
He leans on the kitchen table, waiting
For me to make him His coffee.
I watch the water boil,
Refuse to turn around,
Wonder how to leave Him.
Woman, He slurs, when have I ever done
What you wanted me to do?
❓❓❓❓
Reason by Robin Coste Lewis
Get off my back, God.
Take your claws out of my shoulder.
I’d like to throw you off
like I would brush off some particularly repellent insect!
Sometimes I get the feeling that if I could turn round
quick enough
I would see you
grinning at me,
full of glee, plotting, scheming, devious, challenging
The hell with all this stuff about fire and storm
and still, quiet waters.
I’ve got your number.
I’ve unmasked you.
I’d like to throw you off
like I would brush off some
particularly repellent insect.
You’re a daemon!
Unfortunately, you seem to have this great attachment
to me.
Actually, being honest, I know in my heart
I’d miss you if you weren’t there,
leering at me, reminding me of death and dread and destiny,
winding me up and puncturing
my pretensions.
I know, with a sinking feeling in my gut
that all the best of me
– the fire and storm,
and even, now and then, still waters,
are born out of the death-defying struggle
that we wage,
my dearest daemon.
💪🏻
Wresting With God by Kathy Galloway
I didn’t ask for this,
did I?
in fact, I believe I tried to block it,
avoid it at all costs.
But here I am feeling
outta sorts,
facing my bittersweet days.
Wondering where the hell
this is gonna take me?
What is my purpose here?
here,
where I lived my experiment for 5 years?
here,
what was taken
now returns,
and I am not sure what to do with it…
light it up
or
burn it down?
all I know is this is the place
I have been called to
at this moment
for only God knows what,
and He’s not talking,
hasn’t shown his face in weeks.
I must rely on this silly sliver of a promise,
that it is meant for my good
– somehow,
someway.
Any-hoo,
Trust is a ruthless business,
an extreme proposition to live.
I am not leaning to my own understanding,
or natural desires,
even a bitty-bit,
or I definitely wouldn’t be right here
– right now
or anytime in the future.
Yet here I am,
standing on this holiest of my profane grounds,
way out in the back forty
of thecomfort zone,
knowing beyond knowing,
I’m in the only place
I’m supposed to be
right now.
This is where the magic happens.
🌎
Amy Lloyd (AL)
God wants to encounter you with His love, so you can become a light everywhere you go, your life will shout to the world, ‘I’ve seen Him, I’ve felt Him. I’ve heard His voice. He is alive. He is here with us. In us. For us.’
The best advice ever, beautifully written, by Fred LaMotte:
‘Smart’ people believe in their thoughts, especially the thought of ‘me.’ How can a thought discriminate between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ideas? Only the silence beyond ideas, who watches without thought, can discriminate.
Don’t be so smart. Be a little stupid. Watch thoughts come and go without grasping them. Even the thought of ‘me.’ Rest beyond mind as self-radiant emptiness.
You are not an idea, ceaselessly arguing with other ideas. You are sparkling omnipresent free space, where all ideas arise and dissolve without conflict.
The way to peace is awakening the Witness.
Oh Infinite Intelligence, I ask not for more blessings,
but more wisdom with which to make better use of
the greatest of all blessings with which I was endowed
at birth – the right to embrace and direct to ends of my
own choice the powers of my mind.
———-
Napoleon Hill’s Greatest Speeches. Sound Wisdom. Pennsylvania. 2016. Pgs. 161-162
I always say we learn virtue by practicing not by thinking about it. I have been silently but actively observing the world around me paying attention to the subtle details and nuances of spoken and written words and the behavior and actions or inaction that trail them. Words are as much of a communicator of truths as they are of falsehoods. Time and time again human history has taught us that actions will reveal the essence of our intention. The honest but hard work of virtue lies in action. It acts upon the merits of thoughtfulness, sound judgement based on receptivity, cooperation, observation, broad mindedness and wisdom. It transforms, expands and evolves. Truth does not crown itself king amidst the utterance of words that are used to describe it. It only upholds to its reverence when it is purposefully active as it is so in nature. It differs greatly from the action of falsehood which only acts to benefit itself in a superficial accordance to judgements that are based upon reactionary egotistical self proclaimed righteousness, which is a bizarre tendency of human behavior. It loves to boast its declarations with repetitive renditions of words from a conglomerate array of them barely even scratching the surface of thier true meaning. The depths of truth is far beyond reach for those who proclaim falsehood as Truth. It’s a masquerading of words that don’t align with its corresponding action.
Truth is multilayered, multifaceted and complexed, a sort of breeding ground for simple truths that are free flowing through life right beneath the surface of reality. It is ubiquitous as space. Yet mainstream treads through a dense cloud of a fictional existence constantly trying to figure out the meaning of life and its purpose amid illusions in a perpetual loop.
🔁
– Lisette Hesmadt
Preach it, teach it…wear it like a robe…
Breathe it, sniff it…take it to the road…
Hold it, form it…release, than sigh…
Belt it out…whisper it ….murmur the sound…
No silence, but stillness…
Find the paradoxes, hold the tension…
Walk the corridors until you miss it…and walk it again…
You are not mystic, nor healer…until your fear is all gone…
Baptize it, drown it…rise from the dead…
Then burn and burn…
Beauty,
Donna Knutson
TO BE READ IN THE INTERROGATIVE
Have you seen
Have you truly seen
the snow
the stars
the felt steps of the breeze
Have you touched
really have you touched
the plate
the bread
the face of that woman you love
so much
Have you lived
like a blow to the head
the flash
the gasp
the fall
the flight
Have you known
known in every pore of your skin
how your eyes
your hands
your sex
your soft heart
must be thrown away
must be wept away
must be invented all over again
💞
~Julio Cortazar
There is grace on ground like this
(we can say that every step we take
every day we live)
wherever we are is sacred ground
every bush we see burning holy
every rock singing glory
every bird testament of trust
every tree drips abundance
every flower secure in extravagant love
every waterfall
every rainbow
and moonbow
and drop of the summer rain
shimmers with promise
rocks standing firm in the faith
glittering in sunshine
we are made of stars
held together with a bit of mud
breathing the breath of the creator
made up of the very same matter as the universe
life / death our greatest gifts
the space between
will be shades of heaven
or the darkest shades of hell
we choose our path with every decision
free will is our constant companion
choices…always choices
our most important recognized awareness
wake up
guard them well
pay attention
dance a lot
share the miracles
strewn all along our way
💞
AL
Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more.
life: acoustic & amplified 