Title of the Post

This, friends, is why I can't stand pop music.

Sunday Morning

Heh. Heh heh. Hehhehhehhehheh. Hmph. Hm.

The Message

I've been hearing this message lately, everywhere. From friends. From teachers. From incidental people I encounter as I live. From God.

Follow your heart. The answer is already in you. You are doing everything right. Lean into yourself. Be.

Tonight, I want to stop fighting it, because everything I see is beautiful and pure, holy and free and so, so right. But I don't know what it means to stop fighting it. I don't know how to trust myself.

I want a tree. A thick, reaching, towering, ancient tree. A kind, soft, fragrant, whispering tree. A tree that will nurse me, shelter me, let me nest in her arms. I want to build a house in her, and hang a swing from her, and play with her like I've never been able to play before. I want her roots to be my roots. I want a tree that will never go anywhere as long as I live, never stop holding me as long as I live, never stop being my home as long as I live.

And it's okay. I'm okay. I'm really really really really really okay. It may be unusual, and it may not be what everyone wants. But it's okay. Even if I want a tree more than anyone else has ever wanted a tree or does or ever will again, even if a tree means more to me than it means to a single other person on earth. Even if I devote all my life and everything I have to the tree. It's holy and good and okay. I know it is.

Maybe she's out there somewhere, my tree. If I never find her, grace of the Lord be with me, I will never stop looking for her.

Untitled

I want to ask for your prayers and positive energy today. My heart is gravid.

This morning I joined about 20 other people at the county "justice" building, to sit with a dear friend of ours, a gentle, humble, open, loving, compassionate, gracious, optimistic, strong, intelligent, talented, insightful, curious, diligent, always-improving, always-healing, always-growing, always-seeking woman, as she was sentenced to six years in state prison (for doing something that is unwise and technically illegal, but not wrong at all and that she did as an act of compassion). A well-spoken elder woman from our church took the stand, vouched for our friend's beautiful character, and begged for mercy; the judge looked annoyed and didn't even glance up from his desk. All he said was (my paraphrase) "Look how long your list of prior offenses is! I don't care how good a person you really are. I think the law is fair. Next!"

The officer who took her away at least let everyone hold her for a time, let her say goodbye to her mother, and didn't put handcuffs on her. With her overnight bag, a shoebox, and her Bible, she turned and walked to the front of the room, behind a wall where the officer was waiting, and that was it.

We came home to an email from our pastor. His dear, sweet wife has cancer, and the doctors don't know where it's coming from, so they can't treat it.

So please pray with me. But not for me; I am hurting now, but this suffering is not mine. Pray that grace and love flood these circumstances, that I can somehow be a conduit.

Thanks for listening.

Would you like a peek at my sketchbook?

Here's a doodle I did yesterday, part of a larger project I'm brewing.



It's prettier in person, but you get the idea. If the whole project turns out to my liking, I'll show you that too.

Congratulations, Little Boy

Two weeks ago, my brilliant and uncannily cool friend Dave judged the 2010 Cherry Blossom Festival haiku competition in Fort Wayne. Though the competition was open to all ages, Dave chose as the winning entry a haiku written by a four-year-old boy. Here it is.

Steve is my monkey.
Space Man is in my pocket.
I love mac 'n' cheese.

We discussed the poem over dinner last night. Isn't it beautiful? It captures a quintessential moment in the life of this little boy: his favorite, comfy stuffed animal; the toy that holds his current attention; and what he wants for lunch.

Isn't Dave a genius? Yes. Yes, he is.

Her Room

Last weekend, Kevin and I spent Saturday afternoon at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. It was unassuming as art museums go, but it boasted a lovely traveling exhibition of the works of N. C., Andrew, and James Wyeth. I am particularly captivated by Andrew's work; it has a haunted quality, a silent desolation and anguished delicacy that one might expect from a person whose childhood and coming-of-age took place in the first half of the 20th century. The painting below, Her Room, was featured prominently in the gallery's entrance hall. I stared at it for a long time, racked with chills.

My struggle is to preserve that abstract flash—like something you caught out of the corner of your eye, but in the picture, you can look at it directly.

I search for the realness, the real feeling of a subject, all the texture around it. ... I always want to see the third dimension of something. ... I want to come alive with the object.

—Andrew Wyeth