Carry Us Over....

Jesus turn this wine back into water
So it can quench our poor and thirsty souls
The desert is dry as hell and getting hotter
The truth is only your love makes us whole

So carry us over the finish line
we can see the end but our feet are so tired
It's obvious we're useless on our own

So carry us over the finish line
we can see the end but our feet are so tired
Don't know how to be sober

Jesus carry us over

We wanna go home........

-Kelli Shaefer

Irresistable Revolution

"We can be moral but not alive; a lot of conservatives and liberals have taught me that....There are many people who are morally 'pure' but devoid of any life, joy, or celebration. For some, this 'purity' means that we do not touch anything that is 'secular', and for others, it means that we don't eat anything that is not 'organic'. But if it is not born of relationships, if it is not liberating for the oppressed and the oppressors, if it is not marked by raw, passionate love, then it is the same old self-righteousness that does little more than flaunt our own purity by making the rest of the world see how dirty they are....No one is beyond redemption."

-Shane Claiborne

Studio Dialogue III

“This room is kinda chilly, Master, and I don’t really recognize any of the other paintings hanging in here.” The little painting didn’t often hesitate to speak her thoughts, and this time was no exception.

“Well, naturally you don’t recognize or even understand many of these paintings around you, because I just moved you to this room. But you’re beginning to get to know them, aren’t you? You’ll understand them better in time as they will understand you, but don’t forget that part of the reason I put you in this very room is for precisely such a thing. I’ve told you before that there are always so many more facets to what I’m doing than you could ever grasp, but I will tell you that part of things for the moment.” The Master Painter patiently blinked, working away and softly breathing through a nearly imperceptible smile.

“So, do you think You could also tell me why You moved me to this room? I mean, I knew I was supposed to change Gallery chambers at some point, but I thought that I was going to that other room and then I ended up here...And I’m not saying that I’m not happy where I am, because I really am--but I’m just saying that it doesn’t make sense to me. I really haven’t figured this all out yet. And this climate does something strange to my colors too, Master.” Surprisingly, she uttered all of this with a mystified but contented demeanor. Honestly she felt more bewildered with many of her circumstances than she did displeased.

“Well, one small part of the color thing you mention also has to do with the temperature of the room that you mentioned. The cooler temperature helps preserve: it’s good for you. You’ll acclimate--don’t let it bother you. As for this alteration of chambers, this is one of those things that You won’t understand until later. Plainly put, honey, it’s not for you to know. Yet. There will come a day when you’ll understand better.”

“Okay, Master. If there’s one thing I’ve been learning it’s that it’s one thing to ‘know’ that You know Best--like we talked about before--but it’s another thing for me just wait and ‘let’ you work out all of these things into this picture you’re making of me. I can’t see it the way You do, but sometimes, Master, I feel like it would be easier on both of us if I could!”

The Painter nodded in acknowledgement as He listened to her heartfelt burst of emotion. She often regretted articulating herself immediately after doing so, but when she was communicating with the Painter she took more and more refuge in the fact that he never discouraged her bluntness. She knew that her honesty gave a certain quality to the colors that He gave her, because He was good enough to remind her so. But she was frustrated with how these said colors were “changing” at the moment.

“And Master, what’s going on with my colors right now?! I’ve never experienced these techniques and I’m so not used to it that it doesn’t even feel like painting. It’s been a while since I’ve even seen a familiar brush, but I still see you working away so diligently.”

“Do you remember how I told you about layering and the like?”

“Yes...”

“Well, there is some of that going on, and you’re quick to perceive new techniques and changes in your colors. Once again, there’s more to it than any sole dimension, but I don’t think you ever fully perceived how the colors in and of the paintings in your previous room reflected off and changed your own to varying degrees. And you did the same for them. This was certainly no negative thing in most ways. However, it came to the point that I had prepared for you. You were ready to leave.”

He paused, knowing she would need a moment to adequately process His words, then resumed,

“As you grow into the room you’re now in, the colors and images around you will grow into your picture and you will change. Can I just say that as Master Painter, being the Artist of all of this said process is one of my favorite things about what I do?”

He smiled faintly, closed his eyes for a moment and drew in a deep contented breath. Opening them, He began to exude a happy glow and she saw for a fleeting instant a brief flicker of an extraordinary color spectrum dance quickly across his visage. Simultaneously in awe and overwhelmed, she wondered at it but didn’t ask.

“I know you’re at once enamored and frustrated with all of these colors I choose for you, my love. But lest you forget how precious they are, let me remind you of the uniqueness every hue you possess. You have strokes and hints of colors becoming images which are becoming the larger picture of you designed to fit into not only the immediate environment around You but ultimately my entire Collection. And these tones that you have are perfectly exclusive to you, just as the telling and becoming of your Canvas.”

“I always need to be reminded of everything,” she murmured. “It seems like as soon as You get done telling me something I’ve already forgotten the first sentence....”

The Master Painter chuckled and shook his head as she trailed off.

“Oh sweetheart, that’s what I’m here for. And also, I wanted to tell you that one thing I’m working into your Canvas right now is that I’m maturing some of these unique hues and tones I was talking about. There will come a point in your process where you will better understand how the pigments I’ve chosen for you can be used unto their full potential. I’m beginning that journey in you right now. This is part of why the techniques you’re experiencing right now feel like such new territory. You’re ready for it, and I’m so proud of you for that. There’s so much about you that is still so raw and emergent. This in itself is beautiful in its transient nature. However, the moment your impatience impedes my ability to mature and grow the Art of your Canvas, you cease to let Me be the one to paint you and you let other processes in your story.”

“Never do I want that!” She virtually shouted. “I mean, we’ve talked about this before and I will hang on for Best, Master. I know it will be worth it. I know. I guess it’s just another one of those things that’s easier to ‘know’ than to ‘let’.”

“The more difficult something is for you to ‘let’, my dear--and not just ‘know’--the more beautiful it looks on your Canvas when followed through unto completion. And the more honored am I in being Your Artist.”

“Wow. Another one of those things I forget.”

She was reeling with all of the information and reminders packed into the much needed conversation, but still had one thing left on her mind.

“Master, am I going to stay in this room for a while?”

The Painter did not immediately verbally respond. However when He did, He had become as equally reproachful as forbearant.

“My dear Canvas--for that is what you are, please listen to these words of mine. One of the most incalculably strategic and thematic elements in all of the Art of my entire Collection is a sense of timing. As the Canvas that you are you will never fully fathom my ways, but you must always hold that I have no plans but to prosper you. This, my love, is not the time for you to know this thing you ask me. I will unveil to you such a thing, when it is time. Understood, my dear?”

“Yes, Painter. Yes.”

She watched Him vigorously mix some dyes and pigments on His palette while it took her a moment to muster the courage to supplicate conclusively:

“But Master, please...please help me let this one happen in every way and not just know it! Please, please help.”

“I promise you that, child. I promise.”

The Love of God

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell.
It goes beyond the highest star
And reaches to the lowest hell.

The guilty pair bowed down with care.
God gave His son to win
Hiss erring child He reconciled
And pardoned from his sin.

Oh, love of God, how rich and pure.
How measureless and strong
It shall forever more endure
The saints and angel's song...

Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the sky of parchment made
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade
To write the love of God above
Would drain the oceans dry
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky


Oh, love of God, how rich and pure.
How measureless and strong
It shall forever more endure
The saints and angel's song...
-Frederick M. Lehman

A Decade in Journal Form

It has been, shall I say, quite a 10 years since I began seriously journaling. And since, for some sub to whatever type of conscious degree, the number 2010 is inspiring in me more than just the ordinary year-end reflection and review, I’ve determined to read through the past 10 years in my journals; as painful as it may be to literarily review my immaturity of the last decade.

I’ve only yet scratched the surface of this said undertaking, and though I haven’t reread much of a percentage at the moment, one thing has already struck me. There are some certain questions and issues and/or struggles that keep coming back into my life perennially. And by “perennial” I do mean, every year. It would seem that in some things, I never learn my lesson. Though, I’m not sure I’m supposed to look at it that way.

It’s a blessing and a struggle to hash through these again in my journaling, but I do have to say that although the principle of any of these mentioned (and purposefully vague) “issues” remains resolutely the same each time, there always seems to be a new twist on any and all of these perennial “weeds” in my life--equally and simultaneously stalwart and itinerant. It’s always the same “lesson”, but always different too, and often in a different area of my life.

This being said, it’s also surprise to me that the similar “epiphanies” on things keep coming to me as well; each a little different--if not slightly ameliorated--each time.

All of this comes to mind in considering where I was personally last year at this time. I wrote a little about my journey last year, and thanked some who had also been victims or beneficiaries of my little process in life. Mostly patient and forbearing victims. I also wrote about something that I’d learned about “knowledge”. I’ll try and summarize it:

Ultimately, I think that a healthy “knowledge” of something often blossoms into compassion, but there’s a process to getting there. It’s kind of like a butterfly.

There's a difference, I think, between knowing an idea in your head and "knowing" and understanding something in your heart in such a manner that it works itself out kinesthetically into your life and actions. Most of the time, this gap between knowledge and understanding is most effectively and genuinely bridged by experience with/in the matter. The best words that we have for this transformation of knowledge is perhaps "understanding". And then action upon this turns eventually into "compassion".

Metaphorically put, this whole principle is kind of like a caterpillar. It starts out as knowledge of a fact, a bug; it turns into an understanding of the idea via experience with it, a chrysalis; and it can then metamorph into something amazing and uniquely beautiful if nurtured and encouraged, eventually compassion when this new mature knowledge is able to be externalized. Compassion comes out into your life looking like myriad virtues, foremost probably being kindness. This is the ultimate goal.

Basically, we all can "know" or even believe something, but it doesn't mean that every one of our living moments and actions look like it. It's a experiential process to synergize these two "categories of knowledge" together--and it takes a lifetime.

This realization/could-be-better-articulated theory comes back to me again this year when, once again I’m aware of some things that I would love--this year and decade--to undergo metamorphosis. I’m excited to have re-realized all of this and even to recognize a rhythm of growth in my life. Even if something feels the same as before, I can see that if it’s growth, it’s always forward moving. And that’s encouraging.

I guess I’m going to have to get used to the phenomenon of resurrecting past epiphanies on a regular basis, the same way I’m going to have to get used to learning the same lessons in my life over and over--each time with a new facet or “shade” to it. And as boring as that sounds when put into words, it’s definitely nothing sisyphean. There’s not anything monotonous about it, and I’m profoundly grateful for that. I’m hoping to begin to settle into this newly identified rhythm and appreciate the personal growing “seasons” found therein.

That said, here goes 2010 and the next decade of journaling. Cheers!

One time...this dream about you....

One time I had this dream about you. Or you were in it at least.

We were spending time together, I remember, which was as wonderful as it is rare. We were laughing as we always do, whenever chance happens that we’re in similar geography at the same time. Even as I write this I can hear your laugh. It’s a deeper, more mature version of the laugh I knew you to have when we were kids. The way you scrunch up your nose a bit and slap your leg and lean forward....I love it.

For some reason, I believe it was a Sunday and I was headed to church that evening. At least I believe it was in the evening because as I recall we had spent that day together and it was dark outside--that moment when it’s just enough past dusk for the street lights to illuminate.

I remember you--being the “people person” that you are and always setting aside whatever else for them--of course said you’d go with me to church. I really don’t even remember asking but maybe I did.

You and I were raised very much the same. And for years, very much together as well. Something happened, it hurt so bad. I think I’ll probably never know as long as we’re here exactly what occurred, but it certainly rendered our paths increasingly diverged. It wasn’t until much later, both trying to accomplish a similar goal that those paths, albeit briefly, wove back together again momentarily. I knew the fabric from which you were cut and fashioned; the fabric of your family. I knew it well, I knew as I do still so well what it was like in the home where you grew up. I was close to another member of the family and I always looked at you as another brother. I wish now that you and I had spent more time together in those days just the two of us.

So, I knew what church-going once meant for both of us, coming from such a melded and congruous background. And I wondered then, once again about your present lifestyle and what circumstances and choices had brought you to where you were at. A place where you weren’t truly happy anymore. The joy I remember exploding from your talented self when we were kids wasn’t there anymore. The laugh, as I mentioned, was. But it was different. If anybody knew how you’d changed, I did. I was such a fixture in your family in a way--whether it was healthy or not. I knew you weren’t happy anymore and it made me ache ineffably. I wondered too, how you were able to mesh your current place in life with your past to which in many ways you still ideologically adhered. And I wondered what going to church with you would be like. It wasn’t a “wonder” in any way except “curious”; and knowing myself, I was probably even in my dream thinking ahead to conversations that I could foresee based on the experience.

We walked. The church met in a school. I think we were in Portland. I don’t know what church it was either. I’m not even sure I had ever been to the church before. I don’t remember. I remember, though, arriving there on foot. Laughing, we were enjoying each other’s company and as we were approaching the building you stopped for a moment. We were still a bit of a ways from the edifice itself, but we were strolling through the courtyard. I’m not sure if this building in my mind’s eye even exists except in this dream of mine, but the courtyard was a bit of a modern sculpture (used in the loosest of terms) garden. When I finally noticed your halt, I was mid-chuckle and I turned around to see what could have detained your usually lanky (and lengthy) stride....I also remember hearing faint singing coming from inside the school building. It was chilly, and I wanted to get inside.

I’ll never forget this in my dream, the expression of fear on your face. I was kind of shocked, I remember. I didn’t see this coming. You were staring at the entrance to the church, stricken. And shaking your head. I think I was still recovering from laughing when I asked whatever could the matter be, coaxing you to come on in the same sentence. You began to utter “no” to me while still assuming a posture of terror. I didn’t understand. I did but I didn’t. My lingering mirth quickly melted, naturally. I felt as if I were getting a glimpse into....

I don’t remember the end of the dream. I don’t remember if I left you and went to "church" or if I stayed with you and we both “played hooky” or what. I’m sure if we had, there would have been coffee involved. Or something. I don’t remember how it ended. I do remember eventually waking up, with that same ineffable ache that reminds me that I love you very much, that you’re not truly happy, and that I do want, so very very much something inexorably better for you in your life. I woke up feeling this. And wondering....

Prologue & Maybe

Maybe....Yeah. Maybe. I talked to my sister today about some drama in which I somehow unwillingly ended up recently. The saga seemed to drone on and then it was said: “Maybe it’s for such a time as this.”
Hm. Maybe. It’s true, it really is. It could very well be that this situation in which I find myself is one of the reasons that I was supposed to be in Alaska this winter. It probably is. If anything, I need to be learning from it what I can and that of course is a “reason” to be up here--if not a repercussion of my current geography. Who knows at the moment. Choose growth, right?
I guess I’m at the place where I want to try living my life in such situations with the attitude that, really, who knows at any given moment why I go through what I’m go through--good or not. He knows. And that’s cool. My dad once said that if he’s learned anything in life, it’s that just about everything in life is a “prologue” for something else. In my short 25 years, I’ve already seen a bit of that.
Even in these last two weeks, I’ve realized more definitely how a few experiences I’ve had were prologues for where I’m at now, or where I hope to be.
I’ve been surprised at how my last two years’ experiences being a consist manager have informed my substitute teaching and classroom “skills” or whatever you want to call it. Really surprised. Surprised in a good way, but I can now see why I wasn’t supposed to be up here subbing last year when I wanted to be: I wasn’t ready. My maturity level wasn’t there. I hadn’t any idea at that point. But He knew better. Thankfully.
Also, maybe (there’s that word again) my experience here as a substitute teacher is a prologue for teaching in France. Maybe, though, only maybe. If not that, it’s surely a prologue for something else. And I’m OK with that, because I’m learning that this whole “prologue” idea can be exciting because it gives me a perspective that says that everything that I do is worthwhile if I’m listening and paying attention to Whom I should be.
Everyone needs to feel significant. We’re wired that way. I guess this prologue hypothesis is beginning to fit into and become a piece of this puzzle I pass my existence trying to fit together called my significance. Maybe....I’ll probably be chewing on it for a while. Maybe.