dragons and gravel roads.

Resolutions are like promises you know you'll never keep.  I don't make resolutions.  I don't make promises much anymore either.

Instead, this is my prayer for this year.  Sanctification.  Roll that word around your tongue for a minute.

I feel like it always comes for me anyway.  This sanctification.  This tear off of who I think I should be and who I am in Him.  Constantly beckoning with the murmur similar to the kind the snow makes when it's falling.  One that sings of pummeling thousands of miles to the ground, but somehow finds it's place gently among the glittering unity.

This time, I'm boldly approaching His throne, asking Him to tell me what He thinks of me.  Asking for Him to define me.  To be what defines me.   Begging Him to violently tear away all the ugly of me that so fully reflects my love for this world.  To love me despite me.  He already does that.

I pray you will ask Him to do the same for you.  Maybe we'll meet up along this gravel road and share our scars.  Because we will certainly fall.  We will most certainly do more than scrape our knees.  Surely, we'll bloody our noses.  Maybe even the noses of our brothers.  But I hope to meet you along that beautiful gravel road where we will breathe in stories and breath out the hope that stems from the aroma of grace and mercy and justice that will surely surround us.

Happy New Year, friends.  His mercies are new each morning - not just tomorrow.

“The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. but the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don’t know if he said any words out loud or not.

I was just going to say that I couldn’t undress because I hadn’t any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that’s what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and , instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.

But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that’s all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I’ll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.

Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

Then the lion said – but I don’t know if it spoke – ‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know – if you’ve ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.

Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I was smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on – and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again.”

-C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Those prophets may have been onto something.

I want to see redemption win.

Sometimes we catch tiny glimpses of it in this life.  But that's not enough.  I want to see redemption claim ownership over this place.  It's difficult to imagine this is even possible in the wake of such deep depravity surfacing and stealing innocent blood.

Amidst the mess that is yesterday, know this beyond a shadow of a doubt:

Jesus loves the little children.

Their treasures are in heaven.  Their parents' treasures are most certainly in heaven.  We need to bear this burden together in prayer.  I'm not even sure what you should pray for, but it's what the prophets did in the wake of mass murder and wiping out of entire nations.  Perhaps we should start there, too.

Somehow, we have to find confidence that God is still on His throne.  My sweet friend Ryne put it so well in saying, "I don't think we should try to make sense of this because there isn't any."  And he's right.  There is no way to rationalize or reconcile evil within God's holiness.  Things get confusing.  But God doesn't ask you to have blind faith.  You can ask Him about these things.  Remember the prophets.  Remember their doubt and questions and confidence and faithfulness.  Make a home there.  You'll be in good company.

Photo credit:  Rachel Vaudrieul

"I am still confident of this:  I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." Psalm 27:13

How did I lose a forest?

I hate graduate school for all that it's not and am trying to love it for what it barely is.

I want to rip a piece of academia off this program each day like a piece of pita bread with my teeth but I'm struggling to accept this will never happen.  My field liaison told me this week he thinks a really bright high school student could get through the program at this school.  I took a deep breath after he said that.  A really deep one.  The kind where you suck the air deep into your lungs and breathe it out through your teeth. 

I'm frustrated now.

"Like I said, I'm not getting anything out of this, Dr. Ferrante.  I don't know how half the students got into this program."

He told me if I want academic challenge I should have done something else.

Well, jeez.  That was honest.

"Like seminary?"

"You already argued with people for four years over God," he says to me.  "And what did you come up with Lindsay?  It took you four years to figure out that God is good?"

Touche, old man.

"If you're saying I'm never going to be academically challenged in this program, then what do you suggest?"

He smiled his crooked 70-something year old man smile.  I know he's been to seminary.  I know he's studied theology.  You can always tell by the way people talk about simple things.  Like they know some sort of secret.

"You have to decide whether or not this is going to do anything for you.  Once you make a decision, you're life will be easier.  This internship you don't like will get easier.  Going through classes will get easier.  It will all get easier for you."

He certainly didn't mean easier academically.  He already said a high school student could do this work, which is slightly embarrassing.  Is he suggesting there is more to a Masters degree than academic challenge?  Like this program be ultimately helpful in other ways?

Wait, are we even still talking about school?

Apparently there's some bigger picture I'm missing here.  There's always a bigger picture.  How did I lose the forest?  I was told this could happen.  I just see the trees all around me.  It seems so meaningless.  Somewhere along the way, I missed something.  I ended up in the midst of it all and it's just greenery.  Nothing makes sense.  I forgot something on my way.

Surely, but I'm not sure what.

I question a lot of things.  Most things, in fact. Am I doing what I should be?  Am I wasting time?  I wonder how much time I even have.  Am I making good use of it?  Am I doing anything redeeming? Are You still redeeming me?

Slow down, Quenton.

Shake the Dust

SHAKE THE DUST - Anis Mojgani

this is for the fat girls
this is for the little brothers
this is for the schoolyard wimps 
and for the childhood bullies that tormented them
for the former prom queen and for the milk crate ballplayers
for the nighttime cereal eaters
and for the retired elderly Wal-Mart store front door greeters
shake the dust

this is for the benches and the people sitting upon them
for the bus drivers driving a million broken hymns
for the men who have to hold down three jobs simply to hold up their children
for the night schoolers and for the midnight bike riders trying to fly
shake the dust

for the two year olds who cannot be understood
because they speak half English and half God
shake the dust
for the boys with the beautiful sisters
shake the dust
for the girls with the brothers who are going crazy
for those gym class wallflowers
for the 12 year olds afraid of taking public showers
for the kid who’s always late to class 
because he forgets the combination to his locker
for the girl who loves somebody else
shake the dust

this is for the hard men who want love but know that it won’t come

for the ones who are forgotten
the ones the amendments do not stand up for
for the ones who are told speak only when you are spoken to 
and then are never spoken to
speak every time you stand
so you do not forget yourself
do not let a moment go by that doesn’t remind you 
that your heart beats thousands of times a day
and that there are enough gallons of blood to make every one of us an ocean
do not settle for letting these waves settle and for the dust to collect in your veins

this is for the celibate pedophile who keeps on struggling
for the poetry teachers and for the people who go on vacations alone

for the sweat that drips off of Mick Jagger’s singing lips
for the shaking skirt on Tina Turner’s shaking hips
for the heavens and for the hells through which Tina has lived

this is for the tired and for the dreamers
for the families that will never be like the Cleavers
with perfectly made dinners
and sons like Wally and the Beaver
this is for the bigots
for the sexists
for the killers
for the big house pen-sentenced cats becoming redeemers
and for the springtime
that always seems to show up right after the winters

this is for you

make sure that by the time the fisherman returns
you are gone again
because just like the days I burn at both ends
and every time I write every time I open my eyes
I am cutting out parts of myself just to give them to you
so shake the dust
and take me with you when you do
for none of this has ever been for me
all that pushes and pulls
it pushes for you
so grab this world by its clothespins
and shake it out again and again
and hop on top
and take it for a spin
and when you hop off
shake it again
for this is yours

make my words worth it

make this not just another poem that I write

not just another poem 
like just another night that sits heavy above us all
walk into it
breath it in
let it crawl though the halls of your arms
like the millions of years of millions of poets
coursing like blood
pumping and pushing
making you live
shaking the dust
so when the world knocks at your door
clutch the knob tightly
and open on up
running forward into its widespread greeting arms
with your hands before you
fingertips trembling 
though they may be

Our Savior has come.

Sometimes in church, the tears just well up out of nowhere.  I don't mean for it to happen.  They bubble like they've been waiting for the right opportunity to escape in a place where someone might understand.  They gain victory over my tired eyelids and then I can't sing anymore.  Today was one of those days.

The band was singing "Our Savior has come!  Hallelujah!  Our Savior has come!"  And I was overwhelmed.

Usually when I find myself choked up with the presence of the Lord, I feel like I need to say something.  It's like when you're around someone whose presence is so great and you just feel like before they run out the door, because you aren't sure when they'll be back, you should have something to say.  Something honorable to ask for or repentance to seek.  I surely have a lot of that.  I started blubbering questions and statements in my head.  Ones of peace and trust and forgiveness.  I meant all of them, but I would have preferred to just stand there and be in the moment, let His goodness and mercy wash over me and allow Him to take all the reasons why and just captivate me with Himself.

"Be still.  I see you."

And that was that.

I stopped the forced words I felt like I had to say and just stood there echoing in my heart what my tears wouldn't let me say with my mouth.

Our Savior has come.

I made a list. Two, actually.

I've just been thinking about how different my life if I didn't care what you thought of me.  Don't feel too special though, it's not just you.  But my church, my family, potential employers, future professionals and colleagues in my field.  Am I being who I really am?  Who I really want to be?  How much of what I portray is because I think that's what you expect?  Will you think I'm a total cheese ball for writing a blog about being who you are?

Like I've said before, I spend a lot of time in the car.  Far too much time to contemplate life.  You can only listen to Taylor Swift so many times before your mind drifts from whether this is another song about Joe Jonas or whether or not you'd really hate wearing long sleeves to work the rest of your life if you got a tattoo on your arm.

I made a list.  Two, actually.  Stop laughing.

I just wonder sometimes if I'm doing what I really want to do, you know?  I wonder if I'm living up to who you want me to be, or if I'm just being me?  Trying to live both places is impossible.  I keep trying, and I keep getting my anxiety medication switched.  So something in this relationship isn't working.

These are my lists.  Unedited.  I made them while sitting on the bathroom floor.  I had a playlist playing and Audrey Assad started singing, "Your God will not forsake you, oh my soul."  And I thought of you.

I hope you know that God will not forsake you either.  If you pursue what you feel so deeply in your insides you were created for.  Please.  Go.  GO.  Do that thing.  Forget whatever it is you feel so pressured to do or be.  Just be what you are.  Do what God gave you beautiful talents and desires for.  Pursue those things.  Pursue true joy.  It only comes from the Lord.  He created you for His glory and your joy.  Try and believe that for a second.  I know it's hard.  I struggle with it every single day.  You are not alone.

If it didn’t affect getting a job or the way people perceived me, I would….

Wear t-shirts every day

Get a tattoo on my arm

Dye my hair red and blonde

Wear glasses more often

Admit I like the snow

Talk about my passion and desire to see the world be a better place in my cover letter rather than previous internships or work experience

Spend more time feeding the hungry

Donate more clothes

Own less clothes

Sew more of my own clothes

Wear slippers all the time.  Like every day.

Teach Sunday school for kids with disabilities and try to integrate them into regular Sunday school classes

Push the envelope

Be myself more and stop feeling like every church I go to is a job interview

What do I really want to do with my time?  Not just spare time, but on the earth.  While I'm alive.  If anything were really possible, I would…

Feed hungry people.

Hang out with the homeless.  Hear their stories.

Legally advocate for the slave.

Love the victim.

Trust the victim.

Help the slave.

Be a voice for the trafficked.

Care about where my coffee comes from.

Spend my money like there are other people on the planet.

Fight for gay rights.

Kiss the forehead of the child with a disability, just because they are beautiful.

Push for better education in SC.

Stop checking out so quickly.

Believe I am capable.

Give it all away.

Believe god cares about my burdens.  Even my self-inflicted ones.