I think I am finished with this blog. It has been a favorite outlet and escape for me, but I have a new blog, and to be honest, there is a whole lot I am moving on from in my life. I thought I would keep this blog for my poetry but I can't seem to go back to it. I think this is a positive thing. Further up and further in.
You can find me here: http://thelonderz.wordpress.com
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
"In Him all things hold together....including you."
Through seasons of time and seasons of heart -- long or short -- the questions remain as we quest for what we're really here for. And the tapestry of the universe continues to weave and be woven, its intricacy increasing each time our heart cries out for healing before healing can even appear; each time we understand for even just a moment what a whole space of happiness feels like.
The question of who we are is answered in everything we do. In the music we listen to -- the songs we know we should hear and the ones we choose to listen to because we're too tired to hear anything but what beats to the same rhythm of heartache that we do. It is the books we decided to read or not read, the words we put together or the words we left unsaid. It is the times we chose sunlight over rainy days or the times we didn't know how to love the light at all. It is the evenings when we held hands tight to bless food that we shared all together and the days when the loneliness was too much and we couldn't eat at all.
And yes, I am talking about my past year, mostly, but I'm talking as a writer as well, and as a writer (if I can dare call myself that), I write the story that comes as I go and the life that trails behind me is the story I try to put into words. As a writer, prospering depends upon the thoughts and on the feelings in a moment of just-right collision; but also to study the voices that say what we hear and to hear the absence when silence is noisier than sound and to question it all: why?
But on the outside is built a lifetime of knowing and learning how to live. Whether she is hiding or she's letting you in, it requires enough courage or perhaps lack of courage to open every door and tear down every wall and let loose every defense because what we want most of all is just to be -- and we cannot be if we do not let in all that will and must come. It is an entire lifetime of vulnerability, I think -- all one broken moment and day into the next.
And this time last year, in my grey-blue December, I thought I understood loneliness, and then thought I never knew sadness could be so heavy when my heart took me on paths I never planned on. There are some pains that are too strange to speak of much, but December taught me a lot last year.
Streaming in scarlet-red, January was a month I felt too much, with a happy visit from Jon and Lindz and final theatre rehearsals and people and friends who changed me with their words, with their love, with who they are.
In February I let go -- or tried to -- of a dream I never planned to have but I tasted just a morsel of what love actually has to look like and thought again how things never are as they seem and waiting is hard, and letting go is harder, but it is all worth it in the end. But letting go never happens all at once and March marched in like a quiet dusty-grey lamb -- grey again, yes, -- and I taught myself again to let go...but do we ever really learn? And the great adventure in the land of the Irish was had with five of my favorite friends on an Island where the land meets the sea and the sea is just a wetter version of the sky and I learned a little more about poetry and pain and love and holding on and letting go and mostly God, really.
The adventure ran into April and lasted long enough to bring me home new and changed -- a little wiser and a lot sadder in a hopeful sort of way, perhaps. I tasted trust in April -- a steady, green trust -- that I wish could say is what I taste every month of the year. It is a coming and going sort of trust.
I don't know what color May was this year, a whole rainbow perhaps. I had friends graduate, and a brother graduate from college, and I spent time with cousins, and I turned seventeen and knew I was loved. I got to see Jon and Lindz again and went to a wedding and got ready for summer.
June and July were golden-yellow, with lots of sunshine and ridiculous emotions. My heart cracked apart too many times and I thought I learned how to heal myself. I went to BWSC and spent time with dear, dear friends, and went to Peru again and learned how to give of myself when I least feel like it, and taught 1st and 2nd graders about God at VBS and went to Maine and had a whole week of pure joy with some of my favorite people (my mom's side of the family). Looking back, it was a great two months. Hard, in too many ways, but really wonderful.
And August till now? The months blend together, and it is hard to separate them. I have struggled with heartache and relationships and longing and depression and I have struggled with accepting God's love and accepting other's love and I have struggled with letting myself heal and with not constantly being upset with myself and mostly I have struggled. A lot. It's been an odd semester. But God never gives hard without good as well. Musical theatre this semester has been for the most part phenomenal, and I dreamed the whole time of getting to do it with Zach again, and what do you know, he was offered the lead male role more than halfway through production. It is so much fun to be doing theatre with him again. And I dreamed all semester of being able to see Josiah again at Christmastime and maybe even see Seth and Leah again, and oh it makes me glad to be able to say both those dreams are coming true. I have such a loving Dad.
Funny how a whole year could happen in such a short amount of time and even more to think we could grow and change so much in just 365 days and nights. But days consist of moments and nights exist in our breaths in and out and it is when we realize the greatest success is just obedience in each moment and how we heal is all-complete in each breath: that is how we know we have grown. Our eternal hunger has just one source of Satisfaction, and it is those many nights when we can't find It when we realize It is what we want. And our One Source works in the moment to weave each thread of hope and fear of terror and pain and joy into the tapestry of Love--of Life.
I want to capture some of the light that was scattered too generously in my life this year. I am so thankful for:
It's been a crazy year. I have learned so much about life and about love. I have gotten to know so many people and many people have gotten to know me and I've learned honesty and vulnerability and I've learned how much things hurt and I've learned that joy cometh in the morning, maybe not every morning, but the joy that is coming when night is completely over is more than enough to compensate for that. I have filled a giant journal this year and am filling up the next and some nights it is just my silly heartbreak that I pour into these pages, but I cannot help but always come back to "how He loveth, ever loveth; changeth never, nevermore." It astounds me and as I look back with eyes saturated by His love, I wish I could change the way I reacted so often to the situations I was in. I wish I had conquered depression faster with deeper joy and I wish I had loved people more while I could and I wish I had said the right words at the right times. I wish I could have done better. But He has told me that my greatest joy is yet to come and I am anxious to see how His grace can change my character this coming year, because considering the unexpectedness of the year past, I imagine this coming year will be even more unexpected.
With a predictably heavy dose of senioritis, the nostalgia is settling in far too early for my liking. And the changes that are coming are a little too vast and difficult for me to wrap my head around entirely, and "if I could make these moments endless, if I could stop the winds of change," perhaps I would. Perhaps I would. But I can't. And it makes these fleeting moments here and now all the more sweet. And oh it is sweet consolation to know that truly the best is yet to come. I said it last year, and I am saying it again, because it is what I tell myself almost every day, but mostly, because it is true.
Ann Voskamp says, "The joy is in the journey because the moments build the destination. Joy isn't ever in a season but in the way we see. Grace and mercy saturate everything." And that is what I want to find this coming year. I want to learn to love life and really live. I have done too much mere existing this year past.
But what I am really clinging to are the words of another writer also near and dear to my heart and he says, "With no taint of what we should now call self-approval she will most innocently rejoice in the thing that God has made her to be, and the moment which heals her old inferiority complex forever will also drown her pride deeper than Prospero's book." And this holds me together and oh I can't wait to talk and talk with my dear C.S. Lewis in heaven. :)
In Him all things hold together, and that means me too. It's been a year of Him holding me together, and I am blown away and still kind of stunned about it and oh so grateful. I'm glad to know it can be done, holding me together, that is, and I am excited about another year of that. He who calls is faithful; He will surely do it.
The question of who we are is answered in everything we do. In the music we listen to -- the songs we know we should hear and the ones we choose to listen to because we're too tired to hear anything but what beats to the same rhythm of heartache that we do. It is the books we decided to read or not read, the words we put together or the words we left unsaid. It is the times we chose sunlight over rainy days or the times we didn't know how to love the light at all. It is the evenings when we held hands tight to bless food that we shared all together and the days when the loneliness was too much and we couldn't eat at all.
And yes, I am talking about my past year, mostly, but I'm talking as a writer as well, and as a writer (if I can dare call myself that), I write the story that comes as I go and the life that trails behind me is the story I try to put into words. As a writer, prospering depends upon the thoughts and on the feelings in a moment of just-right collision; but also to study the voices that say what we hear and to hear the absence when silence is noisier than sound and to question it all: why?
But on the outside is built a lifetime of knowing and learning how to live. Whether she is hiding or she's letting you in, it requires enough courage or perhaps lack of courage to open every door and tear down every wall and let loose every defense because what we want most of all is just to be -- and we cannot be if we do not let in all that will and must come. It is an entire lifetime of vulnerability, I think -- all one broken moment and day into the next.
And this time last year, in my grey-blue December, I thought I understood loneliness, and then thought I never knew sadness could be so heavy when my heart took me on paths I never planned on. There are some pains that are too strange to speak of much, but December taught me a lot last year.
Streaming in scarlet-red, January was a month I felt too much, with a happy visit from Jon and Lindz and final theatre rehearsals and people and friends who changed me with their words, with their love, with who they are.
In February I let go -- or tried to -- of a dream I never planned to have but I tasted just a morsel of what love actually has to look like and thought again how things never are as they seem and waiting is hard, and letting go is harder, but it is all worth it in the end. But letting go never happens all at once and March marched in like a quiet dusty-grey lamb -- grey again, yes, -- and I taught myself again to let go...but do we ever really learn? And the great adventure in the land of the Irish was had with five of my favorite friends on an Island where the land meets the sea and the sea is just a wetter version of the sky and I learned a little more about poetry and pain and love and holding on and letting go and mostly God, really.
The adventure ran into April and lasted long enough to bring me home new and changed -- a little wiser and a lot sadder in a hopeful sort of way, perhaps. I tasted trust in April -- a steady, green trust -- that I wish could say is what I taste every month of the year. It is a coming and going sort of trust.
I don't know what color May was this year, a whole rainbow perhaps. I had friends graduate, and a brother graduate from college, and I spent time with cousins, and I turned seventeen and knew I was loved. I got to see Jon and Lindz again and went to a wedding and got ready for summer.
June and July were golden-yellow, with lots of sunshine and ridiculous emotions. My heart cracked apart too many times and I thought I learned how to heal myself. I went to BWSC and spent time with dear, dear friends, and went to Peru again and learned how to give of myself when I least feel like it, and taught 1st and 2nd graders about God at VBS and went to Maine and had a whole week of pure joy with some of my favorite people (my mom's side of the family). Looking back, it was a great two months. Hard, in too many ways, but really wonderful.
And August till now? The months blend together, and it is hard to separate them. I have struggled with heartache and relationships and longing and depression and I have struggled with accepting God's love and accepting other's love and I have struggled with letting myself heal and with not constantly being upset with myself and mostly I have struggled. A lot. It's been an odd semester. But God never gives hard without good as well. Musical theatre this semester has been for the most part phenomenal, and I dreamed the whole time of getting to do it with Zach again, and what do you know, he was offered the lead male role more than halfway through production. It is so much fun to be doing theatre with him again. And I dreamed all semester of being able to see Josiah again at Christmastime and maybe even see Seth and Leah again, and oh it makes me glad to be able to say both those dreams are coming true. I have such a loving Dad.
Funny how a whole year could happen in such a short amount of time and even more to think we could grow and change so much in just 365 days and nights. But days consist of moments and nights exist in our breaths in and out and it is when we realize the greatest success is just obedience in each moment and how we heal is all-complete in each breath: that is how we know we have grown. Our eternal hunger has just one source of Satisfaction, and it is those many nights when we can't find It when we realize It is what we want. And our One Source works in the moment to weave each thread of hope and fear of terror and pain and joy into the tapestry of Love--of Life.
I want to capture some of the light that was scattered too generously in my life this year. I am so thankful for:
 |
| Last year's youth group Christmas party--I love these people and I love the laughter we've shared. |
 |
| My family, last Christmas. This year we are complete and whole for Christmas. :) So thankful to have Josiah home now. |
 |
| Bringing in the new year with two of my favorite people in the world. Sarah and Lydia are the best. |
 |
| An amazing visit from Jon and Lindz in January. I love them so much. |
 |
| Theatre makes friendships that are different than any others. I loved getting to know James and Clayton and Zach so much better through theatre. |
 |
| Seeing my beautiful Bekah at my theatre performance in February. She is one of the most beautiful girls I have ever met and is an amazing inspiration and encouragement to me. |
 | ||
Our amazing trip to Ireland.
|
 |
| Boat rides in Ireland--it doesn't get much better than that. |
 |
| Grace and I have known each other for so long and we enjoyed special times this year together. |
 | ||||
This girl. She has been my bright spot in choir for the past three years, but she's become so much more than that. She is a source of constant encouragement, always there for girl talk when I need it, and is an amazing singer and actress and is so fun to be in choir and theatre with. I love Anna Kathryn.
|
 | ||||
Getting to act alongside Dar Draper, my favorite director. :)
|
 |
| BWSC with amazing friends. Zach and Clayton and Lydderz and I hung out the whole week long and I truly wouldn't trade that week for anything in the world. |
 |
| Getting to fly on this plane to one of my favorite places--Trujillo, Peru |
 |
| Having the amazing Cat by my side this whole year--she is one of the best friends I have ever had, has been there whenever I need her, and keeps me stable when I'm not. She is such a huge blessing. |
 |
| Getting to know this spectacular girl--Allison is beautiful inside and out and is a faithful friend. I have learned so much from her and am so grateful for her passion for life. |
 |
| Getting reunited with this beautiful Katie in Peru. I met her last year on my mission trip and fell in love with her laugh and with her joy, and my heart broke with happiness when I unexpectedly saw her during my second trip to Peru. |
 |
| Getting to spend time with this amazing brother pal. We have been through a lot together and we're not through with each other yet. :) |
 | ||
This girl--beautiful Ellie Davenport. I am so proud of her amazing skills in adapting to life in Peru and inspired by her sweet spirit and joy and zest for life.
|
 |
| Getting to see Beauty and the Beast at the Blumenthal--a dream come true :) |
 |
| Getting to see this guy--Seth is one of the biggest encouragements in my life ever. He is an amazing writer and challenges me to be better, and he writes the best snail mail letters. I am so so grateful for him, and so grateful that I get to see him two times in one year this year. :) |
 |
| Getting to know this beautiful cousin, Kayla. She is a strong and ardent daughter of Christ and inspires me with her faith and hope and love. |
 |
| These beautiful girls--one sister and two cousins who might as well be sisters. I love them so. :) |
 |
| Getting to be a bridesmaid (first time!) in my childhood friend Dorothy's wedding. It was a joyous occasion, and I especially loved bonding with my twin bridesmaid, Fern. |
 | ||||
This girl. She is the best thing that's happened to me besides Jesus. Lydia's a keeper.
|
 |
| This kid. He is funny, devoted, thoughtful, with an enormously big heart. He is a favorite. |
 |
| This girl lights up my life--I love Lynnea so so much. She is such an example and encouragement to me and brings me so much joy. |
With a predictably heavy dose of senioritis, the nostalgia is settling in far too early for my liking. And the changes that are coming are a little too vast and difficult for me to wrap my head around entirely, and "if I could make these moments endless, if I could stop the winds of change," perhaps I would. Perhaps I would. But I can't. And it makes these fleeting moments here and now all the more sweet. And oh it is sweet consolation to know that truly the best is yet to come. I said it last year, and I am saying it again, because it is what I tell myself almost every day, but mostly, because it is true.
Ann Voskamp says, "The joy is in the journey because the moments build the destination. Joy isn't ever in a season but in the way we see. Grace and mercy saturate everything." And that is what I want to find this coming year. I want to learn to love life and really live. I have done too much mere existing this year past.
But what I am really clinging to are the words of another writer also near and dear to my heart and he says, "With no taint of what we should now call self-approval she will most innocently rejoice in the thing that God has made her to be, and the moment which heals her old inferiority complex forever will also drown her pride deeper than Prospero's book." And this holds me together and oh I can't wait to talk and talk with my dear C.S. Lewis in heaven. :)
In Him all things hold together, and that means me too. It's been a year of Him holding me together, and I am blown away and still kind of stunned about it and oh so grateful. I'm glad to know it can be done, holding me together, that is, and I am excited about another year of that. He who calls is faithful; He will surely do it.
Friday, December 21, 2012
in celebration of a beautiful girl
today marks the day a most beautiful girl entered the world.
her name is Magdalena,
she is of German birth,
lived in England for much of her life,
and currently lives in Wales.
(in other words, terribly exotic)
she loves cats and music
has good taste in films
has a fabulous knack for writing sweet notes
and is good at being honest, encouraging, and affirming.
she loves theatre (kindred spirit)
and though i've never seen her perform,
i am sure she is spectacular.
this girl came into my life unexpectedly, through a series of events which
are too complicated and long to explain here.
i met her online, first, and skyped with her a few times before
she spent the entire summer here in the too-hot weather of our dear North Carolina.
i have had an abundance of wonderful people enter into my life
but Magdalena holds a place in my heart different from any other.
i don't know the next time i will see her again,
and i do not email her nearly enough,
but she never leaves my heart.
she is the older sister i never had and
i am so privileged to know her.
i thank God for bringing this beautiful girl into my life,
for giving her a loving heart and a multitude of gifts and talents,
for the plans that He has for her,
and for what He has and will bring to pass in her life.
i love you so dearly, Magdalena Mohr. happy birthday.
her name is Magdalena,
she is of German birth,
lived in England for much of her life,
and currently lives in Wales.
(in other words, terribly exotic)
she loves cats and music
has good taste in films
has a fabulous knack for writing sweet notes
and is good at being honest, encouraging, and affirming.
she loves theatre (kindred spirit)
and though i've never seen her perform,
i am sure she is spectacular.
this girl came into my life unexpectedly, through a series of events which
are too complicated and long to explain here.
i met her online, first, and skyped with her a few times before
she spent the entire summer here in the too-hot weather of our dear North Carolina.
i have had an abundance of wonderful people enter into my life
but Magdalena holds a place in my heart different from any other.
i don't know the next time i will see her again,
and i do not email her nearly enough,
but she never leaves my heart.
she is the older sister i never had and
i am so privileged to know her.
i thank God for bringing this beautiful girl into my life,
for giving her a loving heart and a multitude of gifts and talents,
for the plans that He has for her,
and for what He has and will bring to pass in her life.
i love you so dearly, Magdalena Mohr. happy birthday.
Monday, December 3, 2012
in theatre,
we call it emotional recall.
it is a method of acting which requires actors
to call on the memory of details
from a similar situation to those of their characters.
you have to remember what you felt
in those situations in order to know how
to feel it again.
sometimes the roots of all we cannot control
seem too deep to be pulled out.
and i can too easily whisper in the dark
after them:
"if only it was an enemy bigger
than my apathy,
i might have won."
and the roots of my apathy
are deep, deep, deep.
they are cruel, heartless, strangle holds
that feel so much stronger than me.
and feeling happiness or joy or anything at all
seems a silly, insignificant idea.
but the feel that engulfs you now,
and the seem that is so hard to undo,
are never as real as the joy that you are waiting for.
they are never so strong as the calm of peace
that you desire even underneath
all your heavy weight of apathy.
and that's when the emotional recall
of all your days of feeling too much
becomes a necessity.
you are created with a heart
that has capacities for feeling so much deeper
than you've even experienced yet.
and i promise, it will not be held empty
forever.
it is a method of acting which requires actors
to call on the memory of details
from a similar situation to those of their characters.
you have to remember what you felt
in those situations in order to know how
to feel it again.
sometimes the roots of all we cannot control
seem too deep to be pulled out.
and i can too easily whisper in the dark
after them:
"if only it was an enemy bigger
than my apathy,
i might have won."
and the roots of my apathy
are deep, deep, deep.
they are cruel, heartless, strangle holds
that feel so much stronger than me.
and feeling happiness or joy or anything at all
seems a silly, insignificant idea.
but the feel that engulfs you now,
and the seem that is so hard to undo,
are never as real as the joy that you are waiting for.
they are never so strong as the calm of peace
that you desire even underneath
all your heavy weight of apathy.
and that's when the emotional recall
of all your days of feeling too much
becomes a necessity.
you are created with a heart
that has capacities for feeling so much deeper
than you've even experienced yet.
and i promise, it will not be held empty
forever.
Friday, November 30, 2012
our voices
our voices are too fleeting,
too finite,
just breaking into crevices
we never want to fill.
but eternally infinite
takes no note of our
finiteness
troubling not with
how feeble
our
attempts
are.
sound bites
become louder
than
a whisper.
he speaks
deep and trusting,
his voice wavering
as much as mine,
and we all take hands
and lose our
stupid
self-control
until our faces
wet with salty pain
to heal the
ache.
bleeding red,
bleeding red,
bleeding red.
and we speak
to fill the chasm
of emptiness
between
us.
i want to take the next flight
on the fastest jet plane
to somehow heal these wounds bleeding open
too long.
but i am still finite.
so i cannot stay silent.
and with hands wide open
though it breaks my beating heart
i catch the teardrops
of pain
to heal this old ache.
He will make everything beautiful in its time.
and our voices somehow mingle in the rhyme
of finite breaking being lost in the middle
of an infinite love.
too finite,
just breaking into crevices
we never want to fill.
but eternally infinite
takes no note of our
finiteness
troubling not with
how feeble
our
attempts
are.
sound bites
become louder
than
a whisper.
he speaks
deep and trusting,
his voice wavering
as much as mine,
and we all take hands
and lose our
stupid
self-control
until our faces
wet with salty pain
to heal the
ache.
bleeding red,
bleeding red,
bleeding red.
and we speak
to fill the chasm
of emptiness
between
us.
i want to take the next flight
on the fastest jet plane
to somehow heal these wounds bleeding open
too long.
but i am still finite.
so i cannot stay silent.
and with hands wide open
though it breaks my beating heart
i catch the teardrops
of pain
to heal this old ache.
He will make everything beautiful in its time.
and our voices somehow mingle in the rhyme
of finite breaking being lost in the middle
of an infinite love.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
crushes of heaven
you
were waiting at
the edge of
a cliff.
the air you breathe
is like crashing
waves of
anxiety.
but all it feels like
is
emptiness.
and if you can't taste that saltiness
in your mouth
when she mentions the open
wounds that bleed
when no one's around
to see them
then you just wouldn't know.
but i can taste it,
oh beloved,
oh storm-tossed,
oh afflicted,
oh so uncomforted
and i am bleeding as much in pain
as i am bleeding to fix you.
i want to whisper
you're not alone
but too often i have felt it
and it too often feels like
i am alone.
but this is not the end and you are not alone in this.
and this chilly fog will lift and we will find our
clear hindsighted vision showing us how much
we have yet to learn in these fleeting days.
[Isaiah 54:11]
were waiting at
the edge of
a cliff.
the air you breathe
is like crashing
waves of
anxiety.
but all it feels like
is
emptiness.
and if you can't taste that saltiness
in your mouth
when she mentions the open
wounds that bleed
when no one's around
to see them
then you just wouldn't know.
but i can taste it,
oh beloved,
oh storm-tossed,
oh afflicted,
oh so uncomforted
and i am bleeding as much in pain
as i am bleeding to fix you.
i want to whisper
you're not alone
but too often i have felt it
and it too often feels like
i am alone.
but this is not the end and you are not alone in this.
and this chilly fog will lift and we will find our
clear hindsighted vision showing us how much
we have yet to learn in these fleeting days.
[Isaiah 54:11]
Sunday, November 25, 2012
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