Untitled

the black night

terror, fright
aloneness, sadness
coldness, rudeness
tears, sorrow

the heart heavy with feeling
all the sadness in the world
no one has or ever will
understand
nothing could break the
hurt

15

a burden
a cry left unheard
i look in the mirror and see her

i often wish i was not
this 15 year old girl
tryin' to find her place in this lonely world
never knowin' what to do with all the words left unsaid

tryin' to find who i am deep inside
hopin' that one day i can leave 
this 15 year old's hurt and sorrow behind

it's hard to feel the way that i am 
because it seems like no one understands who i am 
and for that it hurts the most 
being this 15 year old girl 
that noone seems to understand

discovery

what do you do?

hm...what do i do? i write. i draw.i go to the gym.  i watch sentimental movies so that when the tears fall i'm not questioned.

when games are played, do you play them?

nope (although that isn't true exactly, is it?)

why do you do these things? is it to release the emotion?

(nod)

and what happens if you can't do these things?

(shrug) the feelings get to strong.

you're 13?

(head shake)

ok, why don't you tell me so i don't have to rifle through papers?

15.

(mumbles to himself) why haven't you grown past 15? do you remember being 13? 

(nod) i remember forever ago.

6?

(nod)

4?

(nod) look, i remember all the way back to 13 months old?

(he smiles slightly) when you saw kathleen, how were you and marissa there?

how? hm... (shrug)

you don't know?

nope, we just were there.

was marissa gone when you were seeing kathleen?

kathleen was already gone then.

so you were without a therapist?

(head shake)

who were you seeing?

(finger pointing - pow, right between the eyes) you don't remember me coming in here, sitting in this chair only the old chair, inconsolable?

i remember now. when was that?

(shrug) during our first year.

that's what i thought.

i was pretty mad at you, you didn't know the significance of what happened and i thought you should've 'cuz kathleen gave all that whole bag of stuff to nancy who gave it all to you. i thought you didn't even care enough to have read it.

do you remember what was in that bag?


(head shake)

it didn't have a lot in it, a few notes from recent sessions and some things related to that. there was not much at all.

and of course, i'm crying.
as marissa would say if she were here - "you are such a cry baby!"

we have to end for today.

(nod)

we'll have to explore why you stopped growing at 15.

(whispering) i know why?

you do?

(nod) the family left the church

ah. now i understand why.

"Rest Easy"

The Journey is an Adventure; I am an Alien: The Touch Test

As you know, I am a blog seeker. When I stumbled upon this blog I had to share the insights of the author with you - especially since Touch is on the UMW Reading Program list this year.

There are some really good ideas here!

The Journey is an Adventure; I am an Alien: The Touch Test: "Are you familiar with 'The Touch Test'? If you are familiar with Rudy or Juanita Rasmus, then the answer is most likely 'yes'. If not, the..."

Child Still?

The grass is always greener
on the other side.
Unfortunately,
green has never been my color,
and crossing that river
feels less worth it with every day. 

I am searching for hills
of purple and gold
under a crystalline sky
of glowing jeweled hues.

I am searching for lands
of eternal diamond suns,
where smiles lack teeth
and eyes never lie.

I am searching for a place
where our turbid waters settle
and smoothly wind their way
to flow among the breathless stars.

Morning Cures Nothing

There is something unimaginably cold
about waking up, swathed only in hard-edged
blue shadows, in the middle of a very long night.
It feels like the destruction of worlds,
the genocide of thought and reason,
and all that remains is to tremble and hope
for the swift arrival of bright-lit morning
(which, inevitably, comes late and grey.)

It is a shiveringly desolate sensation
that seeps into the lungs and stays
for eons and eternities, until you become
so weighed down with dark atmospheres
that it becomes impossible to get up
when morning finally decides to come.

I have stayed in bed for so long now,
I begin to believe I will never rise.

Episcopalian Years

I remember, long years ago, when my mother
would drag me tired-eyed from a warm bed
and ungently stuff me into Sunday’s sundry frills.
We walked the four dull blocks to the church,
her modest heels tip-tapping across the concrete.

We knelt on the hard floor, arching our hands
in mimicry of the vaulted beam-crossed ceiling.
I would sneak glances, squirming'neath iconic eyes,
to see the stiff edges of Mother’s face softened
by the shifting colors from the stained glass,
soothed by the pale pink of Mary's brow
and the white of wing-wrapped hosts.

I was always a little afraid, at those times,
that the smiling crystalline Jesus above us
would smite me down in a rain of holy fire
because I loved her more, kneeling in church,
than at any other place in the entire world--

She no longer looked like herself.

Resiliance

I am burrowing past the bits of spine
and lungflesh to bore a hole
into the core of my limping heart,
where I will huddle around muted limbs
and say,

Hello, heart. Haven’t seen you
since you were tiny and hadn’t learned yet
to beat on your own.

…I guess not much has changed, has it?

Five Stanzas of Trinity

1.
Like every four-year-old
Catholic-Lutheran-Methodist-Baptist-Protestant,
I drank my grapejuice
before the blessing;
Communion.

2.
I can remember
really being baptized.
There are silvered dreams
of the man placing me in,
holding me under,
passing me through,forgetting his words.

3.
My mother searched
for the right church
instead of religion.
It was a race with crosses
as batons, and I
dropped mine entirely.

4.
One pastor was
a bigot, one priest
uninspired,
the reverend an
embezzler. One church
an ugly paint job, two worn 
down and old.

5.
Father was a pagan
who found god his own
unspiritual way. I took all
my best qualities from him;
all my worst, too.

Boxed

And still dusk digs in
its fingernails.

I am so many beads
on taut strings, but no one
knows how to use
an abacus anymore.

No matter where you turn,
there is always a ceiling
when you're in a box.
Some people find that
comforting.

Things I Keep

Things I keep in me:

1.
Look at me from all angles,
I am a person composed entirely
of a turned-away back.

What shape is a heart? It is
the roundness of shoulders,
the scapula's heavy curve.

2.
I do not want. Full stop. Things
happen to me, are done
to me. Passively, I am defined. Passively,
I am worn. Passively, I am soothed.

I don't remember what desire means. I do not have
the desire to remember.

3.
Long hours replace long hours. Nothing
gets done. Long hours find me thinking
of long hours, ad infinitum. I have come to know
such a circling world. I have come to know
the damning pressure.

4.
So it is that repetition suits me.

5.
I spend a great deal of time sleeping.
Just that. Motionless, breathing
only lightly. I clench my teeth
till my jaw stiffens.

6.
And I wake up, again and again. I am
always asleep. I am always
waking up in order
to sleep.

Ministry With The Poor

With*

Learn how the General Board of Global Ministries,
 The United Methodist Church and other United Methodist agencies, conferences, and local churches 
are engaging in ministry with the poor 
and how you can be a signpost 
for the kingdom.

iHeart It.

God by and other name ...

... is still God.

26 Words That Can Change Your Life

Words matter. They can even have the power to change a life. Following are 26 words that, when implemented, can change your life… From A to Z.

Accept help. The world preaches a self-sufficient message, but Jesus is returning for a body of believers interdependent on one another. “You’ve got to develop a network of [people who] are rooting for your success, not your failure,” says Kirbyjon Caldwell, pastor of Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas.

Bless others. “The word ‘bless’ really means to add weight or value to someone,” says John Trent, founder of StrongFamilies.com and author of HeartShift. “When you bless someone, you add to their life. And when you curse someone, you subtract from their life. In every dealing you have with someone, you’re either subtracting or blessing. You can tip the scales one way or the other.”

Call your spouse in the middle of the day and tell him you’re still crazy about him — yes, after all these years.

Devote half a day each month to a time of prayer and worship. If you can’t remember the last time you had 30 minutes without being interrupted by the kids or the phone, start with an hour and work your way up. Ask your spouse to help out one Saturday by taking care of the kids.

Endure. Hebrews 12:1 says to “run with endurance the race that lies before us.” That race involves trials, big and small. “The way to enjoy something is to work on endurance,” Trent says. “When you persevere through a problem or issue, you enjoy what you’ve come through. Part of why people don’t get enjoyment out of things is because there’s no effort attached.”

Focus. Best-selling author and speaker Laurie Beth Jones says, “One of the most powerful questions for focusing is asking yourself: ‘What would I be doing with my time if I knew I had only six healthy months to live?’ It can immediately cause you to reorganize your priorities.”

Give. Do it outlandishly. Extravagantly. Ridiculously. It’s how God likes it. “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). Then, watch His blessings roll in as He changes your heart.

Hope. Cultivate hope in your life. “There’s clear hope in the world — big hope,” says Jim Otremba, Christian counselor and life coach. “In the midst of our toxic world, the hope of resurrection is still a reality. Our identity is found in Christ’s resurrection. That brings great hope … because there’s not a death we go through that doesn’t lead to resurrection.”

Identify issues. Whether it’s in your family or at work, unresolved issues breed bitterness and discontentment. The key is to deal with them the right way. Trent offers three levels related to issues: “Level 1 is when you’re dealing with just the issue. If you don’t solve the issue, you move up to Level 2, where you resort to attacking the other person. Level 3 is where you begin to question the entire relationship. The challenge is to keep issues at Level 1.”

Joy. Carry it with you wherever you go. Choose to become joyful. “We are invited to rejoice in every moment of life because every moment of life is a gift,” says John Ortberg, author of The Life You’ve Always Wanted. “If we don’t rejoice today, we will not rejoice at all. If we wait until conditions are perfect, we will still be waiting when we die.”

Know your purpose. “You have to know what your ultimate life purpose is and what your driving force is in order to be completely fulfilled,” Jones explains.

Learn. “Commit yourself to a life of continual learning,” Trent says. “Keep reading. Keep attending classes or workshops regularly. Keep learning and being teachable.”

Meditate on a short Bible passage. “Read it slowly,” Ortberg encourages. “Read it the way you would read a love letter at the height of romance. Certain words may stand out to you; allow them to sink into your heart.”

Notice the little things. Watch a storm cloud roll in. Feel the sense of being alive as you breathe in the crisp winter air. Take time to notice what makes your spouse laugh. After all, life is really made up of a series of little things more than big events.

Offer. Romans 12:1 urges us to “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship” (NIV). Take care of the temple God has given you and worship Him by eating well, exercising, challenging your mind, and lowering your stress level.

Play. “Play is an expression of God’s presence in the world,” wrote Mike Yaconelli, author of Dangerous Wonder: The Adventure of a Childlike Faith. “[It’s] not an escape; it is the way to release the life-smothering grip of busyness, stress, and anxiety.”

Quit whining. God has things under control. He hasn’t forgotten you.

Recognize your strengths. “No matter how positive or difficult a background you came from, start by focusing on your strengths and recounting times of success,” Trent says. Once you’ve identified your strengths, you can more easily look at those times when you’ve exercised them. It’s the exercising of your strengths that leads to your success.”

Savor. To savor something is to immerse yourself in the enjoyment of it. Savor your time with your husband, your family, your friends. Most of all, savor your time with God.

Truth. It will transform your life. One of Otremba’s primary messages to people he counsels is that “the truth transforms the tapes.” “Tapes are negative messages we receive in our formative years,” he says. “They’re those messages we believe about ourselves — such as ‘I’m not good enough’ or ‘I’ll never amount to much.’ But Jesus Christ is the truth — the transforming truth. He promises that transformation in John 10:10. Nobody is the exception to that promise.”

Unplug your television. Try it for a week and see how much time you gain for God, others, and yourself. “The worst thing about TV is not what it puts into our minds so much as what it prevents us from doing,” Ortberg says. “Watching television kills intimacy and conversation and disrupts sustained thought. Use the freed-up time to do things you’ve needed or have been planning to do.”

Voice. God still speaks today, just as much as ever before. Sometimes it’s a “soft whisper” (1 Kings 19:12); other times it’s loud and booming (Deuteronomy 5:22). The key is to hone in and listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying specifically to you.

Worship. You were created to worship God. You can worship Him in wonder, over the mind-boggling intricacies of this earth. You can worship Him through service, by being the best parent you can be to your kids. You can worship Him through dancing or drawing or building or simply thinking.

eXpect the unexpected. It may sound like a cliché, but with God, it’s the truth. Ask Him to do amazing things and watch Him do them.

Yesterday. Leave it — and all of its regrets — behind. Ask forgiveness from people you’ve hurt in the past and make efforts to amend fractured relationships, but once you’ve repented, the rest is out of your hands.

Zeal. Passion. Fervor. It’s how life should be lived, mistakes and all. God will take a heart zealous for Him over a blasé one any day.