Homeward Bound

I don’t know
Which way is
True North
Call to me
I will follow
ONE voice

Let Go

Drink up baby down
Are you in or are you out?
Leave your things behind
'Cause it's all going off without you
Excuse me too busy you're writing your tragedy
These mishaps
You bubble-wrap
When you've no idea what you're like

[Chorus:]
So, let go,let go
Jump in
Oh well, what you waiting for?
It's all right
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
So, let go, l-let go
Just get in
Oh, it's so amazing here
It's all right
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

It gains the more it gives
And then it rises with the fall
So hand me that remote
Can't you see that all that stuff's a sideshow?
Such boundless pleasure
We've no time for later
Now you can't await
your own arrival
you've twenty seconds to comply

[Chorus:]
So, let go, so let go
Jump in
Oh well, what you waiting for?
It's alright
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
So, let go, yeah let go
Just get in
Oh, it's so amazing here
It's all right
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown



[Chorus:]
So, let go, so let go
Jump in
Oh well, what you waiting for?
It's alright
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
So, let go, yeah let go
Just get in
Oh, it's so amazing here
It's all right
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

In the breakdown
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
The breakdown

So amazing here
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

(froufrou)

We Are Because He Is

He who has formed you is the One who
completes you.

He who takes your breath away is the One who is
the air you breathe.

He who loves you for always is the One who
lives in you.

He who lives in you is the One who
formed, created you.

He who created you is the One who
refines you.

He who refines you is the One who
restores you.

He who calls you by name is the One who
puts his praise in your heart.

He who gives you ability to repent is the One who
redeems you.

He who redeems you is the One who
keeps you from sin.

He who keeps and preserves you is the One who
gives you the words to pray.

He who dwells in your heart,
He is God.

He is the Beginning and
He is the End.

He is your beginning and your end.

Because He is all, you lack nothing,
you will be satisfied in Him.

Because He who is glorious, whose kingdom is forever,
reigns in you,

Because He who is the I AM is within you,
shout, cry aloud for joy!

He is God and
there is no other.
Praise Him forever
and forever and forever.

You've been given eternity to
give back what He has given.

The Lord is beautiful.

The Lord reigns in majesty.

The Lord is King and reigns victoriously.

He who is King delights in the love song you sing.

We Sang a Gospel Song

Thou, whose almighty Word
Chaos and darkness heard,
And took their flight;
Hear us, we humbly pray,
And, where the Gospel’s day
Sheds not its glorious ray,
Let there be light!

Thou, who didst come to bring
On Thy redeeming wing
Healing and sight,
Health to the sick in mind,
Sight to the inly blind,
O now, to all mankind,
Let there be light!

Spirit of truth and love,
Life giving, holy Dove,
Speed forth Thy flight;
Move on the water’s face
Bearing the lamp of grace,
And, in earth’s darkest place,
Let there be light!

Blessèd and holy Three,
Glorious Trinity,
Wisdom, love, might!
Boundless as ocean’s tide,
Rolling in fullest pride,
Through the world far and wide,
Let there be light!

-John Marriott

Colossians 3:5-15

All these things you see
That come from down here--
Kill them.
Anything that pulls our attention away
From what (I mean WHO) is above
Needs to be thrown away.

These rags you've been wearing,
They stink.
You reek like a dead man with them on.
Take it off-
After all you're not dead anymore,
But alive.

All your trash,
The sex, dirty thoughts, uncontrollable desires,
Obsessively wanting what your next door neighbor's got--
Stop it!

Don't you know that it's those clothes that get burned up?
Don't get burned up with it by the One above.

You used to wear those things when
You lived across the tracks.
But you're in a new house now,
Living somewhere else-act like it.

Stop being angry and irritable.
Don't say mean things or even think them.

Momma used to say,
"Don't talk like that
Or I'll wash your mouth out with soap"
Talk different,
Talk like the soap tastes-
Clean.

And be honest.
Don't make up stories to be dramatic
Or get yourself out of hot water.
Be different than all the rest.
Be a new person
Who's becoming like the One
Who rescued and brought you to this place.

He's the One who brought us together.
He's the garbage man, too,
He's throwing all the old clothes out
And making all of us better.

So stand in front of that mirror
And see that He loves you,
Even in your nakedness.

Open the closet doors
And see the clothes
He made for you.

We got silk
And fine linen
In all this kindness and caring for each other.
And forgiving, too,and being patient--
It's like the loosest, breathiest cotton
On a hot summer day.
And it's easier to forgive
When you remember how He brought us here.

But the best piece
All of us got

Is love.

It's a purple robe
Like royal kings wear.

It's the main thing
That keeps us together
Along with peace,
That also comes from Him.

Wear your new clothes
And thank Him.

poem

A single tear
A lonely soul
Falling—
Catch the diamonds.
There is rugged
Crystal shine
In these
Sharp things.

In Tent Cities

Intense,
This living
In tents.
Always motion
The making and
Breaking of camp

Until Spirit finds
spirit
Until Lover meets
Beloved
No more temporary
Dwelling spaces

ONE fire
Consumes
Physical traces.

Rest.

Ocean

My heart is
An ocean
Deep and you
Only see the tide
From your shore
Take a swim
In a mystic sea
Cool water will
Kiss your skin
Life and color
Flashing before your
Sun wearied eyes
Dive into the deep
Until you hit
The ocean floor
Pass the beauty
Pass the murky
And find
What lies
In my water’s store

Night

Starshine

Dusty, broken bits of glass

Falling from heaven earthward

Reflected in crystal muddy rain puddles

music

mystic lines
that fill the skies
aren't enough
all the waters
in these eyes
aren't enough

(to praise you
to praise you)

all the beauty
in the seas
aren't enough
all the lofty
mountain peaks
aren't enough

Want to be a Lover

My thoughts are scattered, like the leaves in the yard that get raked up into piles, but blow away in the wind before they make it into the trash bags. They become brown and cracked, left on the dead grass. Even when spring comes, they are left behind.

How absurd.

Eventually, they wither away and become earth. Like our bodies. Dust to dust.

I was watching the girls jump on the trampoline today and couldn’t help but notice how they vie for the attention of the nearby adult. “Watch me, watch me! What I can do is better than what she can do!” Maybe they don’t always say it exactly like that, but it’s the gist.

I get like that. Donald Miller calls it the lifeboat theory. Our value is in our competition. I need to be worthy of not being the one thrown off the lifeboat.

Damn.

The thing is, I’m so selfish. I’ve got no reason to even be on that lifeboat, but I want in so bad. I want things my way, I want to prove that it’s the best way. It makes me argumentative and irritable.

I told a friend today that I was getting annoyed with another friend for no reason. He told me that it’s my own fault. Okay, I knew that. I did. And it made me more upset. I was letting my friend get under my skin. She didn’t even know it.

I don’t even know what my way is. It’s hilarious. I think I know what I want, but as soon as I get it, I’m left unsatisfied. My way isn’t really so great.

Watch me, watch me! Whatever I do is a waste.

I’ve been reading Galatians, and to be honest, it’s pissing me off. I never would have admitted that I get angry when I read Scripture, but sometimes I do. I get really hacked off at things like, “Why didn’t Jesus heal everybody? Why didn’t he just make everything right when he could have?”

Well, that’s my way again, and I’m not so sure I would be so satisfied if Jesus did do it that way. It sounds great and all, but I think maybe then I’d feel like “For pity’s sakes, why couldn’t you let us fumble around some more? Now I don’t love you for your mercy. I love you because I freaking have to!”

We’re not robots or puppets or whatever. We’re people. Messed up, hurting people. We live in a messed up, hurting world. Christ didn’t come to snap and fix it all in one fell swoop. He isn’t Mary Poppins. No, he allows us to sin and to suffer. He didn’t make us love him…he’s not what one apologist refers to as a “divine rapist.”

Apparently the Galatians thought that performance could save them. But they’d already been saved. Paul got pretty hacked off when he heard about it. “Circumcision can’t save you, people! Only faith in and through Christ can! Why can’t you get it through your thick skulls? God loves you so much, so much that he died, for crying out loud! And we died with him…no more of this law!!! GRACE!”

Truthfully, if I was a Galatian, it would have taken me awhile to listen to Paul again. What makes him so smart anyway? Where does he get off telling me that all the rules I have are so bad?

Okay, so here’s the deal…so much in our formulas is good. Like feeding the poor. It’s great work. But it’s nothing apart from love. If we do it without love, then it’s pointless. It’s just another performance done by a loveless fool.

The real lover will do good things as an expression of the love. And only someone not caught in “my way” knows love. Faith in Christ, and not the law, frees us to accept his amazing grace. The freer we are, the more we receive our value in him and love him. The more we love him, the more we love our neighbor. The more we love those people the more we see injustice and go about working for righteousness. It’s the out-flowing of love.

In the first book of Corinthians (which happens to be another book that vexes me a lot) Paul tells us that doing great things without love is meaningless. He then describes love.

Truth be told, I’m a whole lot more comfortable reading that beautiful passage about what love is than reading about how without love every good thing I do is a waste.

Why?

I think because I fall back into law. Loveless law. And reading that stuff convicts me…leaves me with the knowledge that once again, I’ve let my heart be deceived into thinking if I do enough good things, I’m saved. God will love me.

My ideas are backward. God loves me. I embrace that. Then I do the good things he tells me to do in him and through him and for him. And others know that he is God.

The thing about love—about being loved and loving—is that it hurts.

I mean, it hurt Christ till he died:

Real love is going to cost something. Life. But without real love, your life is gone anyway. Jesus was a real lover, a great lover. It cost him everything. But it bought redemption. Love like that is worth tossing the laws, the formulas, the lifeboats, the dead leaves, my way, all of it. Love like that is worth striving for.

I’m still thinking this through. Still figuring it all out. But I don’t want to figure it so much that it becomes another messed up formula, some distorted version of truth for the sake of “my way.” I want to be broken to love. I want to not think so much about the cost, about the risks. I want to blossom in grace. I want to be a lover.

Missing

The craggy rocks

The perfect hiding place

From there to rest

Wearied and bruised soul

But from these mountain shadows

Hear vultures call

See flowers bloom on hillside

Watch the goats, wildly dancing

Smell the heat

Of zero atmosphere

Glory unrefined

Longing

from an old journal entry:

Sam is messing around on the guitar.

I love how the strings vibrating makes sweet melodies…how they quietly mutter sounds even when fingers have stopped touching them…their voices linger, soft notes in the air, vibrating into my ears…walking past into my brain so that even when the temporal sound is gone, even the memory of the music remains vibrating in my mind’s ear.

I love how music reflects the vibrations of the heartstrings…how my insides, the real invisible one who is me is always reaching out to God cries like the notes from the guitar…how often I wonder if God hears…but just as the strings’ motions are deep within me, I must believe that God hears my soul’s movements…that he is listening intently to the harmony of the notes created by the vibrations of all his children, of all his creation…that even when we lie silent, the motion travels up to heaven’s throne…and he remembers us…and responds with his own notes…if only we were silent long enough to hear him…the intimacy we are seeking is in the love cries that float, vibrating from heaven’s heart to ours and back again…

If we dare to breathe in spite of the sharp pains we will find God and all his grace and beauty. Awaken, soul, and breathe, sing out. Light shines on you.

And All the Wee Angels in Heaven

When do we stop delighting at looking at our faces in a mirror?

When do we stop pretending and making up new games?

When do we stop coloring fuzzy images of loved ones? Coloring outside the lines?

When do we stop thinking that the world is so many shades of gray that there isn’t anything to rejoice in?

The children bring me outside of me. Even when we are smiling at our own reflections, the delight is in the way light and glass make backwards pictures of ourselves. The delight is in God’s creativity.

The children are forever creating new games. They are tiny geniuses. “Why is it made like this?” I give a black and white answer and they reply with a way around it that I never in a million years saw coming. They reply in color.

I stopped drawing because I can’t make a straight line to save my life. They don’t care about straight, crooked or anything of that. They care about coloring out what they know and see and feel and perceive their world as. They are not afraid to expose themselves through their art.

They dance freely and laugh and always find something new to celebrate. Or something old to be excited about. I get bored. They are not afraid to say silly things and look foolish. They delight in foolishness.

I want the heart of a little girl. I want the freedom, the celebration of life. They see God in things I merely glance at. I want to be like the children. This is how we enter the kingdom.

*post title taken from a quote from one of the kiddos.

Truth

Jealousy is a waste. The envy that I feel inside is bitter, destructive. Like anger, it has nowhere to go in all its futility.

All these negative emotions are like blackened clouds. They will grow and grow and then rain down their wrath and the drops of bleeding water and frozen angry chunks of hail will return to the vast ocean and the sun will return.

I’m pissed off, in spite of all the goodness around me and so, of course, I want to run, as though that would somehow change things.

But Truth remains stored away, locked in the deep places.

I don’t just take my own crazy, mixed-up self everywhere I go, but Truth also.

It is hard, this Truth. It demands to be reckoned with. Even when I just want to pound my fists at it, punching its chest over and over and over again.

It looks at my tenderly, even when I tell it to f off. It’s not pretty. Truth has been there for me, with me in the darkest nights, it’s what broke off my chains. But it got bruised and banged in the process.

Truth isn’t sexy and neither am I. We make quite a pair as we go together. But for all my anger, rage, and jealousy, I’m not giving up Truth.

It is costly, it is dear. And it remains. All else fades away.

Truth meets me when everyone else has gone home to sleep in light of morning.

Truth says, “Hey, baby, let’s go take a walk and watch the sunrise.”

Hand in hand we go...

Starmaker

Can't sleep.

I'm delighted by what I see in the heavens.



Last night we looked up and saw beauty.

A golden silvery snake in the sky and then...
the darkness crept past like a black ship and then...
there was the moon in all its splendor.

And a friend sent this:

stars

which again just reminded me how wondrous YHWH is.

The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language Where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, And their words to the end of the world
-Psalm 19:1-4

To whom then will you liken Me, Or to whom shall I be equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, And see who has created these things, Who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name, By the greatness of His might And the strength of His power; Not one is missing.
-Isaiah 40:25-6

In Your Heart

Late Sunday afternoon, my roommate and I decided to go to the local Baptist church’s block party. We ran into neighbors and friends there, ate and chit chatted with people.

A few little girls we know decided that they wanted to go on the inflatable moon bounce things, whatever they’re called. So, my roommate having left to go be responsible, I stayed in line with these girls, waiting for their turn.

While we were waiting in line to take off shoes and bounce, I heard some boys in front of us yelling.

“Disgrace in your heart! Disgrace in your heart!”

They yelled this as they punched each other repeatedly in the chest. Waiting for parental units to intervene, I thought, “Where did they hear such a thing?”

The little girls I was with were oblivious to the boys. But my head was spinning and my heart felt sad.

What are little boys yelling about disgrace for?

Disgrace.

Shame.

We all carry it.

And, yeah, it’s in our hearts.

And we get slammed in the chest with it.

“DISGRACE IN YOUR HEART!”

But I’m a child of the King. Do I yet live in all my disgrace, shame, dishonor and the resulting condemnation?

So often my enemy comes with ready fist to give me another humiliating punch. And I feel wave after wave of ensuing disappointment, sadness and disgrace.

But, “…whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God.” (I John 3:20-21, emphasis mine)

Grace, grace, GRACE IN YOUR HEART!!!

This is the refrain of the King. This is what he sings over us, when the enemy comes to give us another bloody blow.

Every time I’m knocked back into my corner, I hear the song, “Grace, grace, grace in your heart, pouring from my hands and feet and side, pouring over you, grace, grace, grace in your heart.”

These boys are participating in the lie that we so oft believe. I do it, too. Let myself be bruised again, or kick a brother or sister and say, “Shame on you,” instead of correcting in love.

When will these boys and I learn the new song, “Grace, grace, grace in your heart”?

Freedom

To wake up and not crave a drink

To be outside the iron bars

Freedom to the addict

Freedom to the prisoner

Ask anyone what it means to be free

And he’ll tell you from his perspective

Blind would see

Lame would walk

Mute would talk

I would sing

Without shame

Leftover Light

Look at the sky
It’s not stars
Just the light they left behind centuries ago
Only one that isn’t leftover
Unfaded
The original light
The Eternal

Fireworks?...

Leaves

See the wind

As it dances

With the trees

The leaves

Gently sway

As the branches bend

The wind shakes

Leading the trees

With its song

We are blessed

To watch the dance as

The leaves remind us

Of God

Why do they remind us?

Because He made them

Genesis 2:7

Dust—

It covers

Like a soft white sheet

That smothers and chokes,

But it dances

In the air

Floating

Light catches

And here in the eye

It becomes

Beauty.

This is love on us

Just Keep Swimming...

The sky is overcast and the scent of coming rain is in the air. The lake smells like an old friend. When I was a kid and we'd vacation at the beaches in Delaware we stayed at a trailer park that sat on a lake or a bay, I don't remember which anymore. But there is a distinct smell I attach with that place and I smell it down here at this lake.
Yesterday I saw a snake swimming here. It was beautiful. I love how creation keeps moving in spite of chaos, war and injustice. All creation groans, but it doesn't stop. It moves forward with expectancy. I tend to be bogged down, sinking in my groaning. I get stuck in it.
And then I see this snake slithering through the grass and splashing into the water and swimming away and I'm captivated by his movement, the detail of his skin, his elegance under the water.
I think that's how we're supposed to be. Longing for the fullness of the kingdom and swimming...dancing in the knowledge that His kingdom is here and that His kingdom is coming.
Even the ducks are gliding along to His glory. May we, to, worship as our hearts cry out, "Marantha! Come, Lord Jesus!"

O God,
Whenever I listen to the voice of anything You have made--
The rustling of the trees
The trickling of water
The cries of birds
The flickering of shadow
The roar of the wind
The song of the thunder
I hear it saying:
God is One!
Nothing can be compared with God!
~Rabi'a


Say among the nations, "The LORD reigns!
Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved;
he will judge the peoples with equity."

Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
let the field exult, and everything in it!
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
before the LORD, for he comes,
for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness,
and the peoples in his faithfulness.

~Psalm 96:10-13

(Tired) Thoughts on Justice...

Today I got really upset.
Wanting justice.
Wanting to see the Lord move in all his righteousness.
I guess sometimes I forget that his justice is more than my
black and white, childlike fairness (if brother gets 2, I get 2).
God's righteousness is holy.

She sits smiling with
Secrets in her eyeball
No one's watching
But she sees light
No one's listening
But she hears love
No one's noticing
But there are angels in the TV

Thank you

The reality of the cross is brutal, but it is freeing. I have grieved far too long that Jesus had to die without gratefully accepting that he did—and that it is truly enough. Enough to really cover all my sin, to redeem me, to free me. It’s like all the truth I’ve heard and known for so long is suddenly not just sinking in, but taking root and sprouting up and it’s wonderful. I’m stunned at the gift of love and forgiveness. I’m at the foot of the cross in awe that Jesus has given all and I just need to reach out and take it—with humility and hope and joy. It makes death and eternity a whole lot less scary—well, actually it makes me long for heaven more…it makes me more eager to see my Savior’s face—to throw my arms around his neck and sob out, “Thank you,” to shout with all the angels and sing with all the people and know the King without all the barriers of flesh and sin, to love and be loved more completely.

Oh, God, don’t let me leave here the same. Continue stripping down my sin, my strongholds, all the walls and defenses. Continue letting your grace and mercy have their effect in my heart and my mind. Continue helping me to renew my heart and mind. Continue helping me accept the gift—you and all you are and all you’ve done and still do. And thank you—thank you, thank you, thank you.

Stretching

Today I learned that a guitar is best in tune

If its strings are stretched in the process of putting them on.

“Is there a connection between stretching and being in tune?”

“Yes.”

But is there? Do you we long for connections unnecessarily?

Sometimes I feel like my heart is being wrenched from my chest.

Stretching.

Growing pains. When you are little and then all of a sudden you’re growing so tall and your bones and your skin are fighting to make room for all of you and it hurts.

Stretching.

The musician pulling the new strings on his guitar.

Stretching.

The heart needs more brokenness so it is made bigger to love.

The bones need to fuse and grow and pull in the body to make us taller.

The strings need to be pulled and played for lasting quality sound.

Stretching.

I see God stretching us to play us in tune for eternity.

I don’t want to get to heaven and lose my tune.

I want to be part of his harmonies forever. Lasting beautiful sounds. Like pieces of color on glass. From the sunlight. Stretching.

Light stretching from heaven to earth for the people.

LIGHT stretching on skin to bring the world to GOD. To bring the world back in tune.

“Is there a connection between stretching and being in tune?”

Oh, yes.

Bismillah…

Senses

...Sorrows are the rags of old clothes
and jackets that serve to cover,
and then are taken off.
That undressing,
and the beautiful
naked body underneath
is the sweetness
that comes
after grief.

--Jalal al-Din

Discontent—
a mostly permanent state as long as my heart
is encased by bones and covered by skin.

That you would come and open me wide
that it would beat freely outside its cage,
this bodily prison.

There is too much—
too much and yet never enough
and so I am chained, bound,
by everything and nothing.

Blind me that I might see
Cause me to be deaf that I might better hear.
Deaden my senses
that all left is You—

only You both consume my taste, touch, sight, smell and sounds
and yet expand beyond these.
Limitless—
let me know Your infinity and eternity.

Carving

“It’s like carving. Just cut away what you don’t need.”

The 6 string guitar has 2 strings missing. It’s been retuned and is a mandolin guitar and the ten year old boy who’s playing with it is determined to play it his way.

He presses his finger on one string but strums the others, so that you can’t hear the difference of that one string. They tell him not to play like that. He doesn’t listen. His dad compares the music to carving.

Immediately, I see an old man sitting on his front porch in the summer, with a knife in one hand and his carving in the other. He is sure. He is comfortable. He’s been doing this for years. He feels the grain of the wood and when he cuts it, he is gentle, but firm. And when he is done, he knows the feeling of exactness. Of knowing that he cut out only what was not needed. What is left he knows is the beauty.

The musician is the same way, I guess. He cuts out the extra stuff he doesn’t need. A real artist knows what elements are absolutely necessary. And he knows what can go. He knows the rules so well that he can break them.

And we are left with is the heart. The beauty. The song. The carving.

I wonder if I’m like this boy with the mandolin guitar.

God is the old man on the front porch with the knife. He’s the musician who knows where to press his finger and where to strum, to get just the right sounds. But it’s no fun. I’m the guitar that doesn’t have enough strings. I’m the wood that’s getting sliced up. I know the rules, but I’m not sure I like having them bended. I don’t understand that.

I tell him to refine me, to make me more like him. But it means a lot of who I think I am, gets carved out. Gets left unplayed.

I’m so determined to hold onto the unnecessary parts.

Slowly, I think, I hope, I’m learning to not yell at God about the rules I’ve created in my own mind. I know that he’s sure. He is comfortable. He’s been doing this for years. He feels the grain of my soul and he is gentle, but firm. And when he is done, I’ll know exactness. Of knowing that he cut out only what was not needed. We’ll see beauty.

He’s cutting out the extra stuff I don’t need. He’s the artist and I’m the element. He knows what can go and knows the rules so well that he can break them.

And I’ll be left with a heart. Beauty. I’ll have a new song. I’m a new creation.

“Lord, cut out the parts of me that aren’t necessary. Just cut away what I don’t need.”

Saturday Thoughts

Piercing is
My healing
Wounds touch wounds
Hand to heart
Side to soul
Blood and bone
Life and breath.

Messy

...freedom is messy. I always thought that bondage was messy and freedom was neat, but I think it’s really the opposite. Bondage keeps you tight. Shackles, chains, bars, ropes, all these things are restrictive. They put tight, defined lines around you. There’s a clear boundary. Freedom, on the other hand, has no restrictions. Once all that stuff is broken off, all your mess goes flying. And over time, it gets cleaned up, but it’s not a nice, neat little life. It’s messy. It’s crazy. It changes you. And a world without boundaries is big and messy. A world with boundaries hurts, but the restrictions keep you in line. Keep you ‘safe.’ Freedom means you give up that safety. You put yourself out there to maybe get trampled on. You start flying and then something happens and you land. In bondage you can’t see light often. You see shadows made by light and you want it, but you aren’t sure. In freedom, there’s darkness that tries to follow you, but you can choose to keep lights on. In bondage, you’re so chained up that you can’t really move. In freedom, you move so much that sometimes you fall. In bondage, you don’t know about mountain top experiences with God, because all you know is your cage. In freedom, you climb mountains, but you are well acquainted with valleys and plains and all kinds of topography and terrain. Freedom is just that. You’re free to cry, laugh, dance, sing, walk, run, fly, fall flat on your face and get up again, to struggle, to forgive, to yell and to praise. Freedom is glorious, but it’s messy. You’re never the same again. You suffer and you delight. You pound your fists and you soar with wings like an eagle. It’s a crazy, crazy life and, yes, it’s uncomfortable at times. A lot of times. It’s not a promise of security. You want security, you stay in your shackles. They’re about as secure as you can get, believe me, you try to take those off yourself, they’ll get tighter, and you won’t be going anywhere. That’s pretty damn secure. Freedom isn’t safety. It’s messy. It’s big and wild and something that can’t even be put down in words. Sometimes you’ll feel like everything in freedom is a big muddled ball of chaos. That’s okay. Because the Light is all around you. And he knows. He put you in freedom to begin with. So he’s going to be there in the mess. The Light is in the mess, in the freedom. Be free.