"Be sure that the ins and outs of your individuality are no mystery to Him; and one day they will no longer be a mystery to you. The mould in which a key is made would be a strange thing, if you had never seen a key: and the key itself a strange thing if you had never seen a lock. Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the divine substance..." C.S. Lewis

I have recently finished The Problem of Pain and can't keep the last chapter out of my head. So beautiful. I love how Lewis explains the mystery of our longings. I highly recommend this book, though lets be honest, I would highly recommend anything by C.S. as would a ton of other people.

Confession

Doubt and longing are my recent repeating anthems. Recent being years old.

Normally I shoulder my insecurities with laughter, but have recently found myself too weary for mockery.

I find this flow of my brain rather melodramatic, and yet, though I wish to be someone who can shrug off the judgement of others, who can laugh at oneself and at the inelegant plight of being human I sometimes find going from one activity to the next all I can do.

In the silence I must admit that I am not always sure. Of myself. Of others. Of God.

I cannot fathom how to hold my posture in all this chaotic shuffling, in these griefs present, past and waiting. I long to be be strength and stability or to at least feign these foreign figures. Truth of late, however, seems to seep from my eyebrows raisings, from my jests, from the way my body slumps. Truth and confusion, or the truth that I am confused.

In these moments I am thankful for the landscape of the earth and the huge, unreal looking clouds - the yearning of them, because they help me to step out of my own insistent dreads and doubts and make me feel more certain that there is more, that there is hope.

"The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit." Ps. 34:18

"The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup, you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places: indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance." Ps. 16:6

An Appeal

You, my friends, wherever you are,

Whether you are grieving just now, or full of joy,

To you I lift this cup of pungent wine

As they often do in the land of France.

From a landscape of cranes and canals,

Of tangled railway tracks and winter fog,

In the smoke of black tobacco, I make my way

Toward you and I ask you a question.

Tell me, for once at least laying

Caution aside, and fear and guarded speech,

Tell me, as you would in the middle of the night

When we face only night, the ticking of a watch,

The whistle of an express train, tell me

Whether you really think that this world

Is your home? That your internal planet

That revolves, red-hot, propelled by the current

Of your warm blood, is really in harmony

With what surrounds you? Probably you know very well

The bitter protest, every day, every hour,

The scream that wells up, stifled by a smile,

The feeling of a prisoner who touches a wall

And knows that beyond it valleys spread,

Oaks stand in summer splendor, a jay flies

And a kingfisher changes a river to a marvel.

In you, as in me, there is a hidden certainty

That soon you will rise, in undiminished light,

And be real, strong, free from what restrained you.

That above the mold of broken flagstones,

Above memory and your transfomration

Which is like the lifhgt of birds when ice

Crumbles in the traces of hooves – above everythin,

It will be given to you to run as celestial fire,

To set sails ablaze with your flame at dawn

When ships trail smoke and archipelagoes

Wake up, shaking copper from their hair.

No, I address you here, from the ashes of winter,

In the simplest words, not to induce doubt

Or to call melancholy, for instance, the sister of fate.

On and on. The heart is still beating.

Nothing is lost. If one day our words

Come so close to the bark of tress in the forest,

And to orange blossoms, that they become one with them,

It will mean that we have always defended a great hope.

How should I defend it? By naming things.

That isn’t easy. I say the word “dawn”

And the tongue by itself affixes “rosy-fingered”

As in the childhood of Greece. The sun and the moon

Have the faces of gods. I am not certain

That Poseidon won’t emerge suddenly

From the sea bottom (he wears an earring)

Ploughing the waves with his motor, towing a retinue of nymphs,

And when I wander in alpine forests and meadows

Every cleft in the rock seems to me a gate

Through which one enters the underworld. I wait for a guide.

And space, what is it like? Is it mechanical,

Newtonian? A frozen prison?

Or the lofty space of Einstein, the relation

Between movement and movement? No reason to pretend

I know. I don’t know, and if I did,

Still my imagination is a thousand years old.

Jump into the water with your clothes on.

Such heaviness (deadweight, as sometimes in our dreams).

It’s the same with us. We wear the brocade

Of past centuries or dress in false purple.

Covering our faces with velvet masks,

Classical, playing again what has been played before.

And yet, I affirm, this is the earth of wonder.

It gives us the gift of eternal youth.

To you I lift this cup, here, on the stage.

I, one voice, no more, in the vast theater.

Against closed eyes, bitter lips.

Against silence, which is slavery.

- Czeslaw Milosz

I have been thinking far too much about future plans recently. Possibly this is to keep my mind occupied. I don't think I want to process the last couple of weeks, of sadness, of what means to be back in the States, but around 2000 miles from where I might possible call home, (I'm really not sure where to call home), what it will mean to be back here again in just a few months surrounded again by family, but also by the unfamiliar and by the impermanence (I'm not currently planning on staying in Montana forever). I don't think I can process it all, so instead I dream about grad school, about going back to Belgium, about the millions of possibilities (normally highly unpractical) so that I don't feel like giving up already at coping.

It has been so good being surrounded by family, around people who get my sense of humour, who I can be completely random and annoying around without fear of rejection, yet at the same time it has been highly difficult. Highly difficult to acknowledge a goodbye to someone I really love, to see my Grandmommy on repeat and missing my Granddaddy (telling the same stories over and over), to say goodbye to the one place on earth that has remained truly like home to me and to my dad and to my siblings (my Grandparent's house) to see my little sisters (particularly one little sister) sad with all the huge things she has to deal with of late (moving, death and dealing in general with the ups and downs of life) and to feel myself incapable, incapable of healing any of these wounds and sadnesses, incapable because I too am sad, incapable because I have no advice to give, because I feel a tad lost in all these things as well.

This whole past year has been full of humbling and these past few weeks have been particularly so. I can't say that I understand what God is doing in these things, but I am attempting to trust. At times I feel as though I have peace, that despite my incomprehension I am capable of acknowledging at least that God has these things in control and that ultimately all will work out. I still fear though, for this life, for these things. I don't always trust. I waver, doubt and worry. I am thankful that grace is not dependent on me.

Mainly, I am currently just overwhelmed will all these things. I have read 5 books in these past 2 weeks just attempting to keep my head above water and also to keep some perspective as well (thanks God for stories!). I both do not want to process and desperately want to be able to wrap my brain around things so that I can function more fully.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Reminder.

"When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

"Where, O death, is your sting?”

“Where, O death, is your victory?

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." -1 Corinthians 15:54-56

Trying to feel this passage and not to just know it. Sometimes it is hard to feel as though we have the victory over death in Christ. Though it's good to remember that Jesus still cried over the death of Lazarus even when he knew that he not only had the power to raise him, but was going to do that right away. I have to remind myself that sadness is still okay (though it is no fun) and at the same time that it is not the end either.

My hands ache to be making something of value.

Sweet arias sound just beyond comprehension,

vivid colors blink in and out of focus,

you, even, at times untouchable, me too hesitant to try to reach

past doubt, past insecurity.

Still, I will remain here, rooted yet waiting

to be dug from the confines of dirt, sand

and earthworm's slimy trace against my toes.

Dear world.

Dear world, wind burnt and glum,

I am half chocked from the desire to speak without words.

Even in the rose, aqua and deep purple of perfect evening sunsets

I struggle to find the eloquence in this spinning world.

I'm sorry for this absence in myself, this awkward gait,

these wants, these airs of melancholy that hum around me,

for the way my heels stick to this crooked surface

and slide away from the loveliness of living,

the knowledge of grace, the gorgeous sight of hope.

I promise to remember when I can,

to find peace with the who, what and where of being this specific person.

to find delight in the breeze, the dusty moon, the brilliant sun

to find less of myself and more of others and other things.

I promise to at least try.

Still, at this moment, I can but breathe, wait, and etch these tired thoughts

upon a blank bit of night.