Joy Even Here

 Where is the spark?

Where is the joy?

Where is the wonder that once was?

-

Here.

It can be here.

It is allowed to be right here.

I am allowed to let it be right here.

It is here.

-

Too often, I take long, wistful strolls down my golden-hued memory lane, lingering longingly over memories of past events, accomplishments, and emotions.

And sometimes I get kinda sad. 

"I miss..." I'll say, or, "I wish..." or, "if only..." or, "it's too bad..."

But it isn't.

It isn't too bad.

It is alright. Just alright.

Yes, I may still "miss". I may still "wish". And that's okay-- I am allowed to grieve what used to be but what is no more; I am allowed to remember, with sad fondness, what happiness I have had before.

But I am not allowed to stay staring into the past.

I am not allowed to make a lifestyle of living in the murky, tearstained shadow of my longings, my regrets.

I am allowed to grieve.

I am allowed to miss.

But then I need to move on.

And I am furthermore allowed to find joy even in the present as well. I am allowed to rediscover the beauty of the everyday-- the same beauty that colors my fond memories of the past.

-

All we have is now.

Yesterday is gone; tomorrow is never certain.

And our now, our present moments-- they, eventually, become our past. Our future eventually becomes our past.

So we need to take in the here and now.

We need to be invested in the present.

We need to let go of our rearview mirror longings (beautiful though the past may have been), and we need to remember to keep looking ahead and keep looking around, keep looking up.

For it is only then that we will discover the wonder, the glory, the joy that we continually seek.

And we will realize that even here,

Even now,

Life

Can still be 

Beautiful. 🌿

- on happiness -

Sometimes, I

Am a little afraid

To allow myself

To be happy.

Sometimes

I pass up moments

Of joy

Because I am afraid

They will not last.

Because I am afraid

The joy's not real.

Because I am afraid

I will emerge

From that golden moment

Only to find myself

Plunged into darkness

Again.

But sometimes

I realize

That I must savor my joy.

I must seize the moment

And let the happiness

Surround me

And encase me

And fill me up

However much it may.

For I know

Happiness

Will not stick around 

Permanently--

But a drop here

And a drop there--

Even for a moment,

Even in the middle of 

The gloom--

Even a single drop

Of happiness

Is potent

And beautiful.

So I will take in each ounce

Each fragment

Each shard.

And I will savor

And smile

And press on 

Through the next patch of darkness

Until I reach

The light of joy

Again. 🌲💚

Love.

"Whom do you love?"
It's an important question--one that begs a much-needed answer from all of us.
-
Here's mine: "I love my family, my friends, God, and everybody (that includes President Trump, Speaker Pelosi, the NRA, the Planned Parenthood folks, Catholics, Muslims, Jews, criminals... e v e r y b o d y)."
-
Love, after all, cannot be selective. Affection, sure. Preference, certainly. But not love. For if we are selective in who we choose to love, we will start to make a spectrum on which we place people according to our feelings toward them--and this can be dangerous. We do not have to like everyone, but we must love them--we are called to love them--or else we will crumble apart.
-
To love people is the Golden Rule, the epicenter of life and harmony as we know it. Without love we are nothing. We become disconnected and unfeeling. We put up fences and "keep out" signs where desired, then turn around and greet our "loved ones" with a wide smile and an open door.
-
"Come, put up your feet, make yourself at home," we offer. But we leave everyone else on the other side of that tall barbed fence, wondering and stewing and harboring hate.
-
And just as one cannot fight fire with fire, so one cannot fight hatred with more hatred. (This only produces hatred squared, hatred on top of hatred, which rises and grows until we lose ourselves to the blackness of bitterness.)
-
But, for all my mortal speculations on the subject of love, nothing puts it better than the Bible, which boldly declares, "(1) If I speak in tongues of men or angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. (2) If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. (3) If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing" (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
-
Incredible. You can be an acclaimed musical artist, a top model, a lauded professor, a bestselling author, a famous pastor, a talented speaker--you can be anything, and you can be amazing, but if you do not have love--if you do not love--then you are nothing. You have nothing.
-
Love, thus, is e v e r y t h i n g.
-
Love brings water to the wasteland and sunshine to the storm. Love bridges the divide and settles the dispute, and it does not back down. It does not hesitate, hedge, hover, waver, or wait. Love gets right out in the thick of it, in the trickiness, and it gets right to work--tearing down walls, laying out welcome mats. Love says hello with a smile, holds the door, tips the hat, makes room for the lonely and embraces the outcast.
-
So.
None of us deserve love.
All of us have been given love.
Love is important.
Love is necessary.
Love is everything.
-
Now here's the make-or-break question you must answer for yourself:
-
Whom do *you* love? 💚🍃

Human.

A human's a human.
A human's a human.
A human's a human.
And humans are important.
-
No matter the clothing
No matter the car
No matter the appearance
No matter the annual income
No matter the job
No matter the reputation
No matter the gender
No matter the skin color
No matter the nationality
No matter the ethnicity
No matter the religion
No matter the background
No matter the political party
No matter the age
No matter the personality
No matter the anything.
-
A human's a human.
(In the womb, in the hursing home, and everything in between.)
-
Granted, humans don't always make the right choices.
But that does not diminish their importance.
Their value.
Their worth.
(And if we make it to,
We're making a mistake.)
-
Every human's a human.
And every human was made by God.
And every human is infinitessimally important.
And we must do the best we can
To love every human
And to help every human
And to show every human just how valuable they are.
-
For, after all,
We
Are human too.

- beauty in the uncertainty -

u n c e r t a i n t y .

--not very thrilling.

we despise uncertainty.

we despise the waiting, the wondering, the wandering...

--waiting for the test results. waiting for the big break. waiting for the text, the letter, the sign, the gift, the paycheck, the phone call, the visit, the breakthrough.

--wondering what will happen. wondering if the offer will come through, if the money will appear, if the problem will be solved, if things will work out okay, if she'll say yes, if he'll stay, if anything will ever go back to normal.

--wandering through the valley. wandering through the pit of desapir, wandering down the highway, wandering from city to city, wandering hospital halls, wandering the lonely Internet.

it is in times of uncertainty when everything is suddenly up in the air.

we are lost.

we are clueless.

we are in utter despair.

and i am no different.
i loathe uncertainty.
i cannot stand it.
i, rather, prefer to hold the reigns, prefer to be in a bit of control.
i like to direct the sails.
i like to chart the course.

but... maybe there is a little bit of beauty in the uncertainty...

a little bit of wonder.
of hope.
of glory.

maybe there is something entirely freeing of surrendering control...
something magical, almost, of freefalling...

...right into the arms of a merciful Savior.

and, in the middle of uncertainty, that is often what we are forced--or blessed?--to do.

-

so when next you find yourself in the dumps, the valley, the questioning, the waiting room, the pain, the funeral home, the waiting, wondering, or wandering--

take a moment to look
for the beauty
in the midst
of the uncertainty.
-
you'll find a glorious Savior
to meet you there. 🍀💚

Song lyrics to remember

Your heartbeat
Is drumming in your ears
Which way's it gonna fall?
You're hopeless
Your peace has disappeared
With your back against the wall...
And I can't promise you that
I know all the answers
But I know the One Who does...
You are not alone
Keep your chin up, soldier
You're almost home!
(Potential song lyrics. Posting to remember. Will delete later.)

purpose.

Well, here I am, Jesus.
Again.
Here I am.
I've had a tough go of it, and I'm weary--even though You encouraged me not to be--and I'm tired, real tired, but here I am again.
I'm here.
And You are too, aren't You?--no, that's silly.
You're here too.
Thank You.
-
Jesus, sometimes it really just doesn't make any sense down here.
Sometimes it feels unpleasant.
Sometimes it feels purposeless.
But it's not purposeless--I know it's not--because if there were no purpose for me to be here--no point--I wouldn't be, would I?
No... You have a purpose for me, don't You?
Even still.
Even here.
Even now.
I've always had a purpose here, haven't I? Always have, still do, and always will--right?
I've done some purposeful things, haven't I?
And I'm still furthering that purpose, right?
And there are more purposeful things that I will do in the future, aren't there?
I'm trusting so, Jesus.
I believe.
-
You didn't put me here for no reason. I know that, Lord, ignorant as I am.
You've got something for me to do, to carry out, to fulfill... and by Your grace I have done it, am doing it, and will continue to do it.
This is not the end.
This is not it.
There is more here... and You'll help me complete it.
And now granted, I'd like Heaven.
I'm looking forward to it.
I'm looking ahead.
But now is not the time... right?
There is still more here.
More people to help.
More purpose to fulfill.
More to learn.
More to be.
More to do.
-
Well, Father, alright then.
May I resign myself--no, attach myself--to Your will.
May my will be Yours.
May I realize, Abba, that even in this darkness,
This storminess,
This pain--
Even here there is a purpose.
Even here You have a plan.
Father, please help me to trust You through it all.
Help to realize that I don't need to know the path
Or the plan
Or Your will.
I just need to put one foot in front of the other
And keep walking
And trust You to guide the next step.
-
So Abba, I'm here.
You're here.
There's a purpose here, too.
-
Help me
Lord
To walk on
And trust You. 🍃

a cracker, a dance, some thoughts and a chance . . .

And so here I am a quarter after 10 on a Saturday night, staring at a cracker, debating whether or not I should eat it. My friends are at the Midwinter Formal, dancing the night away in their glamorous, expensive dresses; my sister is coughing endlessly because of an unusual asthma flare-up, possible pneumonia and who knows what else; my dog hasn't eaten a thing all day and the radio in the kitchen is set on a non-stop stream of Christian talk shows... Everything is so beautiful I can't stand it, and yet everything is rather muffled. Rather blurred.
-
Rather incomprehensibly complex.
Though it feels like it shouldn't be.
-
And then here is this cracker. Just a little one, a little rectangle of wheat with an Italian-herb flavor dusting, this little tiny unimportant cracker.
-
Except it is everything but unimportant.
-
For right now this little cracker simulates and symbolizes so many things--my lack of self-control, my wistfulness, the day's lost potential... it is my late-night friend. A tiny quadrilateral of comfort, a polygon of hope--?
-
-
-
Now it is a quarter to midnight. My friends have all stopped dancing; they have reluctantly shed their elegant gowns and are tiredly but happily finding their way to bed. My sister is asleep or almost; the dog is snoring; the radio is quiet.
-
I have long since eaten the cracker.
-
I have long since eaten the rest of the bag of crackers, actually... but what was most important was simply the first one. That first insignificant cracker was what mattered. It was what resonated. Maybe only because it was the single cracker I randomly selected... but still.
-
-
-
Now, finally, it is half-past 12. I should have been in dreamland some three hours ago, but instead I am still here, here with traces of cracker dust on my fingertips and an empty plastic cracker bag beside me on the tablecloth. All that is left is a small collection of crumbs.
-
The group pictures from the dance have already been posted to social media--I have seen some of them. They are all smiling, all of them, all of the bright and beautiful teenagers in their bright and beautiful clothing. They have danced the night away, danced it in oblivion, in excitement, in glee. And they have every right to have done so.
-
It's just that I have been here, here in my head, here in my pajamas at the dining room table, here spilling my mind and my heart and my soul right onto the screen. I have folded laundry, I have stoked the fire, I have done the dishes, I have listened to the radio, I have lost myself on the endless flow of the treacherous Internet, I have seen a million different facets of a million different lives. I am changed and not necessarily better for it--for all this everything nothing has only fed my brain, has only instigated my mind to grow in all the ways that enhance and yet entrap it.
-
Entrap me.
-
Now my mind is bigger. But that leads only to the ceaseless development of useless ideas, of nonsensical nothings that I must spin into some sort of vital gold.
-
-
-
It is now, now, finally a quarter to 2.
-
Where did the time go?
I know.
And yet I grieve.
-
I grieve for everything. For the infinity of social media that keeps me from seizing my days. For the sadness of happy memories dredged up from the depths of my heart. For the times lost, the time passing, and the time that I have never spent. For all those pixelated people out there that I have never met and never known and never will--for those people who still exist even in our never meeting each other--for all those people who will never ever know I even saw their face--all those people I must care about and cannot simply not--for all those people that mean everything everything but nothing 300% personal--all those people, those computer-screen people, whom I have met but never will.
-
Also I grieve for the cracker.
It is back within those faded hours... it is me now.
The cracker is gone.
-
-
It is ten minutes to 2.
I am tired.
I am blue-?
I didn't desire to go to a Midwinter dance
and I didn't go anyway.
I didn't desire to spend
this precious time online
but I did anyway.
And now the hard part, the part of facing me in the mirror and the part of ascending the stairs. And then a devotion and a lukewarm prayer. A tired one. A limp one. And then a flop to the pillow and a sigh for all lost.
-
And then a blink and a dream and tomorrow again.
-
-
-
It is 6 minutes past 2 on a Sunday morning.
I am going to bed.
-
And "tomorrow"
will be waiting. 💚🌙

Out of This World

   Money cannot buy happiness.

   It can buy all sorts of material goods or experiences, and such things can certainly bring some pleasure--maybe even some happiness--but the things wear out or get boring, the experiences end, and soon we're left with less money, old/uninteresting clutter, and only wistful memories. 

   Money can buy things that make one rather happy, sure, but neither the things nor the happiness last. Happiness itself doesn't last (though this is a bit of a different subject). We get happy when we win an award, accomplish something, receive a gift, do/go to something/someplace we've always wanted to, eat a good meal (or sugar), get engaged... but the food gets all eaten, the award gets dusty, the applause dies off, the accomplishments become part of the past and don't merit quite as much, the gifts get lost or boring or returned, people die... 

   Happiness is a dangerous thing to believe in, and money is a dangerous thing to count on for it. We will only be happy when we receive joy, and we will receive joy when we put our hope in something that lasts--like Jesus, like Heaven. 

   We must stock up and anchor our joy, our hope, in something that will never rot or rust or get broken or disappear. 

   We must root our happiness in something that is not in this world. 

   We must make Heaven our hope. 🌠

New Year Musing: Part 2

The first few seconds of a new year break quietly, though accompanied by the hullabaloo and cacophony of people cheering, glasses clinking, TVs blaring, music playing.

They slip silently by, even while celebrators are caught up in commemorating them with party hats and confetti, sparkling lights and shouts of joy.

But for all their acclaim, these first precious seconds go unnoticed. Amid streamers and champagne, they are trampled underfoot, blissfully ignored and blatantly dismissed. These first few new chances, these first new opportunities of another year--they are, often, entirely wasted.

It is only a select few who truly experience the gentle magic of the new year's beginning, only a handful of people who experience the restorative dawning of a second chance, a new chance, a blank book with 365 pages to fill, a 12-month capsule of concentrated potential.

It is those who slip outside the hustle and bustle a few seconds before midnight, those who remove their party hat, tuck away their confetti, and stand under the moon as the year transfers over. It is those who lower their heads, close their eyes, and whisper a prayer, a simple one, a silent one, a heartfelt prayer to the One Who makes the years.

The true magic, the true meaning of the new year--it is not found in alcohol or parties. It is not found in the descent of a glittery silver ball. It is found in prayer, in peace, in sweet time spent with God and soft songs sung to the gentle moon.

The New Year has no need for despair. It has no place among the dark and the garbage of the year before it. It belongs in a category all its own, always its own, on a pedestal of hope and of new beginnings.

So make a toast.
Rouse a cheer.
Watch the ball drop.

Welcome the New Year with good, open arms; celebrate it, cherish it, in any way you wish.

But take the time to step outside--to hold the moon--to whisper "thanks".

Then let the Newness wash upon you.
Begin again.
Don't look back.

Here's to another potential-drenched (second) chance. ✨

New Year Musing: Part 1

Time is slipping by--slipping by, slipping by--and this is my safe haven, my capsule, my treasure box of memories, so I will list a few before they slip by--slip by, slip by--again.

Sparkly purple plastic hairbrushes--I can never quite figure out how to arrange the adjectives--"Understand" by Jeremy Camp ( I always thought it was "so why don't I get back up agin-again")--crawling under the black plastic on the living room floor during Christmas tree setup--Christian music listening on an early Sunday morning--a pile of dress-up clothes and a plastic wand--mud puddle playing--summer night pajamas and the red picnic table outside--shiny black snow boots--playing in the nursery--Christmas light magic--teeter-tottering in the yard--VHS tape marathons while on the red-and-black basement carpet--naps with the red blanket covering the window--bath-time on Sesame Street and of course the snuffleupagus' meatballs--sorting beads and Wild Kratts watching--homemade play-dough and springtime movies--hide-n-seek and catch with Dad--bedtime--moving the mattresses--stuffed animal kingdoms--baby doll pretend--apple trees and wooded wanderings and radio familiarities and history and friendship and interaction and love and magic and reading and creativity and memories and dusty, dusty snippets of past and everything, everything, church and Sunday school and sermon smilings and niggly rememberings and dreams and movies and projects and food experiments and childhood everything and all of it a time capsule, a present, all tied up and packed away, away in an old white apple box, tied with a bow, with a thousand bows, shoved back on a tall shelf, dusted and forgotten, misplaced, unused, going, going, gone.

Gone. Is it gone? Can not the shelf be reached and the bows untied? Can not the clock be rewound? Can not the batteries be replaced? Can not at least a shred of the past, at least a replica, at least a facade be produced? Can not at least a bit, a sparkle, a glimmer of it all be rediscovered? Or is it all gone?

Maybe the box belongs to the years it was built in. Maybe it must stay with them, never to be opened and never to return. Maybe it is lost and gone, maybe all the present time spent searching for it is in vain, only plundering more time for the future. Maybe all is a waste, all is fruitless, all is with no point.

Time creeps up anyway, besides, creeps up and steals and destroys and trashes the path for the future. All old is unsalvageable, all present is in vain, all future is uncertain.

No amount of champagne, no quantity of sparkling drink can drown this hopelessness. Time wasted, time dead. Another 365 uncertainties to worry about. To try to make better than all the ones before. But history repeats itself, and most is unsavory. Thus the next steps become shaky. blurry. doomed.

Another try-again haunted by all the other failed attempts.

But maybe this new time will be better and different.

As of yet it is unmarred. The hope of its potential is that it can remain that way... ♱✟✝