Dreamtime

Have you ever had a dream so vivid that it felt like reality?  You wake to "reality" and wonder how what you just experienced while sleeping could possibly be a dream.  This is New Zealand to me now.  I am awake in my reality wondering how the years we spent in New Zealand is just a dream now, a very vivid dream. Sometimes I think God allowed me that time in the land of the long white cloud just to bring home to my soul what my current day to day is vs. heaven.  Even though my time in NZ feels like a vivid dream to me now I know for certain that I stood on that dirt, breathed that air, saw that green, tasted those blueberries.  You couldn't convince me otherwise.  I know it in my soul.  The reality of the eternal is like that.  I know it in my soul.  I have tasted bits of eternity throughout my life, joy that exceeds containing, friendship sweeter than anything, hope in the blackest of nights.  You couldn't convince me otherwise.

In my experience God specializes in hands on training and living word pictures.  He goes to great lengths to reveal truth to me and His patience while doing so knows no limitations.  It could easily be that the years spent in that lovely land were to this end only.  Regardless I'm pretty sure I won't know this side of eternity, so for now I will just be thankful for the dream.

Unseen

I've been contemplating the state of being unseen lately. Western culture is full of elbows and jostle as everyone pushes against the crowds wanting to be seen, to be heard and acknowledged. I completely understand this. It's at the core of all of us, the desire to be seen. Honestly, I'm pretty sure it's a God thing at it's root, a hunger he installed meant to be fulfilled by himself, but without God it gets ugly and loud.  Can I be content to be only seen by One?  If I return to dust having never been seen, applauded, acknowledged can I do so satisfied that it was meant to be so?  

I think of generations gone by and how many complex stories, beautiful thoughts, magnificent talents,  and rich lives settled into the dust with only a handful of people ever knowing the wealth of those souls.  They lived in small communities where their names were known but beyond the town limits no one had ever heard of them.  Did they live content in this smallness?  Is it small?  Surely it's no small thing to only touch the lives of a handful of people.  Beauty is beauty whether the human eye beholds it or not.  Character forged in the fires of this life shines for eternity regardless of applause this side of heaven.  And yet it remains a struggle to be faithful in the small stuff when no one sees.  Living before an audience of One, it takes surrender, humility and resolve.

To be continued.

Desk note #1

 A cup of mediocre tea, creamer from a plastic container, 1/2 a square of chocolate.

Where to file all these thoughts.  

Grief is a sneaky beast.  Stalking the soul in silence, lurking.  Routine interrupted by it's pounce.  It only takes one talon to draw blood, rip the whole scab off.  Triage all over again.

There is no way to guard the heart from grief.  It permeates.  Finds a way in.  

They say keep moving.  But I haven't.  I'm frozen in my tracks, eyes locked and I can't look away, can't put my head down and walk past quietly, unobtrusively.  It's already seen me, found me out with my tepid tea and chocolate crumbs.

Catharsis

 Catharsis: "The purification and purgation of emotions through art or any extreme change in emotion that results in renewal and restoration." As in: "that was cathartic.

{Somehow, this is cathartic.  Purging out some of the excess words in my head/heart.  I think it's reassuring that it's going out to no one in particular, but there's also the tantalising idea that it could reach someone.}

This morning I've been chewing on how life is made and shaped by so many tiny decisions.  Of course there are big ones... but the devil is in the detail of the minute decisions.  I don't know about you, but I personally can get very stuck in running through the little decisions I've made one by one and examining them from all angles.  Even though what's done is done, I struggle to leave it there.  It's done.  There is absolutely nothing I can do to change it.  The ONLY thing I can change is this little decision that is here right now.  I do not know why this is so very challenging for me.  Why do I go back and touch all those little past decisions?  I'm pretty sure that if changing the past were possible I would have gone back and messed with everything!  Walking the paths of life is an extreme exercise in trust.  I either trust God is writing the story and all those little decisions are things he sees, knows and uses to the outcome of good for me ultimately, or I don't.  On any given day you will find me a solid mix of belief and unbelief.  Hence the cry, "Lord, I believe!  Help my unbelief."

Who knew?

4 years.  Yep.  That's the # between my last blog post here and this one.  2018 might as well have been a lifetime ago and that's the truth.  That's true in my own life and exponentially true for the world at large.  Who knew?  But then again when do we ever know we're on a collision course with trauma?  

Very randomly (no irony to see here), I have felt inspired to blog again.  I know, I know...you're skeptical and well you should be.  But really.  I think I might try.  Cause what's at the end of trying?  Only stupidity, success or failure.  What is there really to lose?  So yeah.  I guess I'm gonna start throwing words out into the ether, cause maybe it's worth something and maybe it's not, but either way I want to try to say a few things.  And if no one is listening and this is just another one of 16 billion blogs and a mind staggering number of words that float around out there, so be it.  

quantitative approval

Today I am grasping for quantitative approval.  I want numbers.
You think I'm artistic?  How artistic?  On a scale of one to ten, say...  
You like my work?  How much?  Would you pay money for it?  How much, say...
If it's a number I like, that makes me feel valued, then I am happy.
If it's a number that is low, it seems too little, my spirits drop.

Never have we lived in an age where we can look to the right or to the left and gauge worth so quickly.  How many friends do you have?  How many likes did your post get?  How many followers have you reached?
Really?  Wow.  You must be pretty amazing!!
Oh, hmmm, well... that's ok, my social media reflection isn't that hot either.

Down through the centuries our worth has not changed.  Only One can truly define, give value and He does!  He defines us as His, which is more than enough.  So why doesn't it always feel enough?  Perhaps my search for quantitative approval is at the heart... stop searching and know.  Rest.  He is enough.  You are enough in Him.  Be still.

words

they were there, the words on my tongue,

anxiously awaiting release. Just a crack, a sliver,

a hint of an opening and off they would fly... warriors

defending the right, evil minions bent on destruction,

sweet simple truth armed to the teeth... out for blood.

but I swallowed them back, all of them. Choked them down

with their acid burn. 

How noble.