Movin’ Out!

it was high time for a new blog! Still wanna follow me (grandparents)?

http://moredifferent.blogspot.com

should get you there.

Love to all!

Procrastination Poem

I should be studying for finals. Or preparing  to study for finals. But this little fella is a pretty good reaction to what I am thinking and feeling as I study. Or even as I write about the way things are now. Oh, plus it’s a palindrome (fun word!). Enjoy. 

 

Getting something done

doing nothing at all.

Wanting things to change 

After I write them down.

After I write them down,

wanting things to change,

doing nothing at all,

getting something done.

For my Boys!

what does giving thanks look like today

as the Sun rises on an unfamiliar continent

a place pilgrims don’t belong, a place you cannot stay

where for no obvious reason you were sent.

 

do you  turn down pure living water

In a country far removed from pumpkin pie and steaks

and today do your tired eyes and feet cause you to wonder

what kind of God commands you to give thanks?

 

Rejoice and serve your foreign brothers

Grace gives you the love you lack

Forbid the love of wife, sister, child or mother

begin to hold you back. 

 

Oh can’t you see your life is counted blessed

 not because of comfort cross the sea

but because God on your mind and hearts impressed

Himself, and he is more than all you need.  

 

I love you guys and I am so proud of you!

Anxiety

ok so I’m strongly considering really pursuing this whole writer/poet career. If you’re reading this and you’re related to me please don’t freak out. I know there’s no money in writing. I know I can teach in any state anywhere if I scrap the writer thing and get my degree in education. But for right now, let me hang onto this pipe dream. I don’t know if I’m actually talented enough/dedicated enough/smart enough/fresh enough to do this. The way I see it, being a poet is the closest I can get to being a rockstar, and it might be just as scary. I really do not know if what I write touches anyone.

But at least for right now, this is what I have. These black splotches on white blankness are some kind of weird way I can sing without music. Anyway, I’m getting far too deep and philosophical for my age. But, I bet everyone is just as freaked out as I admit to being myself. Anyway, I wrote a little poem about it. And other stuff, there’s always other stuff going on, ya know, the REALLY scary stuff you can’t say without a rhyme to hide it.

Like the mustard seed the learned scholars found

a hundred years waiting inside the ground

I cannot raise my head and arise

To one who might see through nature’s disguise

 

that mustard seed,

certain if it peeks above the earth

will be burned by the handsome sun’s mirth

Sunshine scorches tender blossoms toil

And yet for him they rise out of the soil

 

having no clue, 

if they are roses,weeds, or a shrew.  

What kind of courage must it take

to bloom, when the best is as uncertain

as rain in August.

Is it wiser to wait a hundred years

never risk a blossom for sake of dirt and fears?

over here

“over here.”

God says that to me a lot. It seems that no matter how good I think I am at hearing his voice, it always comes at me from a direction I don’t expect. 

“over here. Come where I am.”

Why is that such a hard command to follow? It depends on the where.The “over here” is often a place that I really don’t want to go, a place that I’ve been hurt in. Sometimes God leads me “in green pastures/besides still waters” but He may decide to to “walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death”. The former sounds like an early Monet, the latter like the where those “scream” faces might hang out. 

Why would God ever take me where  I didn’t want to go? Into the epicenter of all my fears and brokenness and anxiety?

“over here. Come where I am.”

No! I cannot move! When he calls me, I am never more aware of how incapable I am of following him. I am never more aware of the fact that only his power within me can melt my concrete heart, and move me. Only with my eyes locked on my savior can I move forward. Forgetting my past wounds, my present fear and doubt, and how stone-cold I am, I ask him to help me move. And then, I walk-even into the Valley of the Shadow of Death–to the One who brings me life.

Upon the Eve of the End of Freshman Year

Well folks, its been quite a year for me. First semester was probably one of the hardest times of my life, and second semeter has been one of the best times of my life. Wierd huh? So, to reflect upon the good and the bad I wrote a sonnet. Ok, and I’m also procrastinating. Some say a text stands for itself, that authorial intent has nothing to do with the readers response…
…trust me, there’s a story here.

and for anyone who feels like they’ve ever been soul-stabbed, well don’t give up yet.

some say the soul can only bear one tear
a year. And yet I was soul-stabbed four times.
a cut when I left home, destined to dare
My fate ‘mongst beer and greeks and pickup lines.

a slash when I left love or something close
in motion fleeing dodging Cupid’s dart
In flight the question twisting me the most
Is it a sin to crush a minister’s heart?

and next a thrilling puncture when I left
the god who makes the sky blush red and gold
Who claims to rule o’er grades and boys and death
who I forsook for pennies mud and mold

and when I sealed my soul up like a tomb
somehow the killing pain could not consume

though i could only see my concrete dreams
no place for God or love or anything
A final cut was made across the beams
of this young wretched soul, with searing ring

It hummed with music rushing cross my face
twas not the sound of death that i perceived
I recognized the deep old voice of grace
with open arms the final cut received

it did not come intending to destroy
Although my soul was seared with angel hands
The pain it wrought would later bring fresh joy
Time heals all wounds, ‘cept those which love demands

for with every scar, for with every hole
God carves his sunset love into my soul

Random

A I’ve been going through this whole “what am I going to do this summer??” mess, I’ve thought quite a bit about communication between God and me. I’ve been looking at this summer and waiting for “confirmation”. It’s a word I’ve thrown around quite a bit in the past. Essentially, it’s me looking for some kind of divine stamp of approval I can put on whatever I’m doing. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, I just didn’t realize how often I want that security in my decision-making process.

Secondly, I’ve been very concerned with the prospect of wasting or not wasting my time.Until I started thinking about this summer, I didn’t know I was so set on my three months of meaning. Whatever “meaning” means. Honestly, I think telling people I was going to do something “meaningful with my summer” was code for doing something that would make people think I was really cool nd spiritual.

I haven’t always been so interested in “meaning”. As I think back, I have probably had months or even years of meaninglessness, when I didn’t really think about whether or not God was doing things in my life.

Then again, it seems that one thing can happen, and you can look back at your life and see all these instances and events that somehow have led up to the place where you are right now. All of a sudden, detached circumstances become a chain, something useful, purposeful, occasionally beautiful, occasionally enslaving. So does your life have meaning when you finally put the last link on the chain, or did it have meaning when you were right in the middle of the chain links, seeing only randomness?

I choose to believe that life has meaning all along. Psa 65:11 says “You (God) have crowned the year with a bountiful harvest; even the hard pathways overflow with abundance.” Even in the midst of life’s randomness God always gives meaning, joy, and abundance. No, he doesn’t just give; he gives in overflowing abundance. I can look back at the events of my life, even this year, and see God at work. He doesn’t simply appear as a chain of events, but more like a melody, something that links little notes together into music.

So look for God in the randomness of life, and you will find him, the Rythym in the Noise

God of the ipod shuffle

I’ve heard all my life that God speaks in a still, small voice to the especially pious, the people who are spiritual enough to hear Him. I’ve also heard that God speaks the clearest between the pages of the Bible. The Scriptures are a love letter from God.

But honestly, sometimes 2 Chronicles doesn’t quite do it for me like Wroth’s Sonnet 22. I mean, would you rather read about the Israelites and the Crazy-Name-ickites or read a poem about a woman so heartsick over a man that she’s willing to stand in the sun until her skin burns off just to get him to return her love?

Ok, maybe you’re thinking “neither”. But the point is I started really getting concerned about this. I mean, what do I do when I enjoy reading Astrophil and Stella more than the Bible? Or, the even more disconcerting question, why do I feel like God speaks to me in Percey Shelley’s “Defense of Poetry” more than he does when I’m listening to a church sermon?

Is it possible that God uses more channels of communication than the conventional “church channels” (the Bible, sermons, prayer)? Does God speak through long-dead poets, sci-fi movies, sunsets, and mid 80’s love ballads?

Honestly, that’s how God and I have been talking lately. And I’ve decided that I don’t care if it’s considered wierd or sacreligious. I serve a big God and I’m grateful and delighted by whatever means He uses to communicate with me. Actually, when God sneaks into the places that I don’t expect him to be, like my ipod, or my English anthology, it really makes life more interesting. One minute, I can be running and listening to Heart, and feeling kind of down on life, and the next minute God is crooning through my headphones “How do I get you aloooonee?”. A cheesy 80s song transformed into God pursuing me, God standing in the sun, hoping that I will return his love.