safety in silence.

i am a buyer of this lie that often crosses my mind:

"there is safety in silence"

it soars to the rafters of my head and wriggles its way down to my heart. this lie that says if i don't speak, write, or express, i will remain unharmed.

so far, this year has been a year of struggling to break the silence. i want so much to write, speak, or express how i felt when i found out my mom was in an emergency room six hours away from me. or how much my heart has been broken over my little sister. or how much i long to hear the still, small Voice. or how all i've been hearing instead are the loud, obnoxious, powerless voices that originate from my heart's deepest fears. this silence has grown like kudzu and wrapped itself around my mind until the words are trapped and lost in the vines.

i feel so ready for those words to "roar" out of me.
to crash onto the page, the paper, the surface, the atmosphere.

there is no safety in silence.
instead, silence is only the over-indulgence of my heart's deceptions and fears.
i know that to be true now.
the real challenge is to know what comes next.
i am so hurt and the prospect of further hurt-the possible coincidence of speaking,writing, expressing what's on my heart-is almost too much for my vulnerable self.

it is a tricky thing to believe silence is best. i feel like i am relearning how to speak.

snow

i have not written in so long. maybe someday soon i'll be able to tell the story of why.

for now, i just want to talk about snow.
i am sitting in my little den and my fellow foxes are in the kitchen making cookies. there are paper snowflakes hanging from the ceiling. there is an incredible whiteness all around the trees and bushes outside. there is a candle burning and music playing. school was cancelled and all is well.

snow is such a friendly word. it is the equivalent to comfort and peace in my mind. i want my heart to really be white as snow. it is pure and unfettered in the way it falls. snowflakes don't know where they are going and no one cares. i think that's what i love best about snow. it is unassuming and simple and well-liked (unless you're driving...but that's not my point). i find i can relate to a snowflake right now. i can count on one hand the things i am sure of in this life: the people i love, the God who loves me, and the beautiful hope that gives me.

how i see my present and my future is much like how a snowflake falls. i am unsure one day to the next where i will be, how i will feel, how rested my eyes will look, if i will be sad, or if i'll remember to lock the door when i leave. it's terribly silly on that scale, and no one really minds. but this morning, while listening to a man with a funny voice lecture about abstract expressionism, i realized it is already almost february. i realized i will be twenty one in a few short weeks. i don't know where i'll be (for sure) this summer. i will be graduating within the year.

and i just don't know what i'm doing with all of those things. i am a little snowflake just drifting and it's kind of comforting.

christmas eve-eve

christmas eve-eve is my favorite day. i think i might even like it more than christmas day.
it's exciting and relaxing and full of anticipation and chaos and something about it is always perfect.

that aside, this christmas break has been a weird one. i have felt like more like a spectator than a participant. it's weird to be absent from my own home for a long enough time that it makes it strange to come back for more than a handful of days. i guess that is a part of growing up and such. but it's still weird. the weirdest thing about this christmas has been the lack of focus on Christ as a baby. as i have read and prayed and listened to prepare myself for the season, i have been drawn to the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ more than His birth. He became a human child to bring hope to all mankind.
and to die for all mankind.

so i rarely have complete thoughts. today it is worse than usual.
so to distract you from the disjointedness of this post, here is a list of things that i've been taught this christmas season:

my life is not my own
i am loved loved loved
family units are difficult but worth it
love takes work
love is a joy
friends are absolutely priceless
sometimes rest is more important than anything
i have a gentle Father tenderly telling me each day to wait for His Son's return
i am prone to wander
breathing is important
focusing on the root of the problem often soothes tension
we are broken broken broken people
christmas lights are beautiful
christmas music is tacky and perfect
good coffee made by my dad everyday is something i've missed
time is precious
"now" is precious
never ever be afraid to tell someone how much they're worth to you
never ever be afraid to tell someone how much they're worth to Jesus


that's about all.

happy christmas eve-eve.

protected

she just looked at the wall while she sat in the hallway. nothing mattered. nothing was happening. the walls were white just like the floor except the floor was not really white anymore because it had been walked on by lots of heavy boots all caked with mud and leaves and snow and dust and problems from the outside world. she still sat and looked. wanting nothing. caring for nothing. time ran by her with little feet and didn’t ever stop, not even to say hello or to slap her face and say “snap out of it!” or to change her hair to gray. he had told her yesterday that a golden age was coming. he whispered it deep into her ear so it could enter there and make its way all the way to her heart. he hoped she would believe it. he hoped it would make her blink, speak, move. 
she had heard it. 
she had felt him kiss her lips as she sat, eyes wide open, in the hallway. 
she had, for the first time, felt alive. just for an instant she felt this way. she felt awake and felt her heart beat and her brain tick. but then someone opened the door and a cold wind blew into the hall where she sat and she felt the numbness of winter creep over her.
 if only he knew that life cannot hurt you when you are this way.he would join herhe would come and sit and face the blank wall, not thinking, breathing, feeling. not really living. but still being alive.

all at once i knew, i was not magnificent

i hate feeling weak.
whether it is a physical or a mental or a spiritual or an emotional shortcoming, it doesn't matter. i still hate it. Thanksgiving was a lovely time with my family and friends and rest, but my weakness became more and more apparent. my inability to rightly deal with disappointments and my own sin mounted until the night before i left to come back to Johnson City.
when i could no longer handle it i laid in my dark, warm bedroom and i cried. that frustrated me further and made me feel even weaker. so (of course) i fought the tears valiantly. but even then i lost. instead of sobbing for a few minutes and being done with it, i laid for four hours with my throat tight, my eyes burning, and a small pool of tears accumulating on my pillow.
on the drive back to school, the sun rose. the moon hung silvery and crescent-shaped. there were stars in the dark blue sky along with the rose-colored signs of dawn.
it was breathtaking.
then all at once i knew, i was not magnificent. i am weak.. i am foolish and irrational and it is so good/painful to be reminded of that. but that is how it is supposed to be. if i was strong and wise and perfect i wouldn't be in desperate need of saving.
so i guess what i am saying is this post-thanksgiving season has gotten me thinking about what i am thankful for. presently, i am so grateful for this:


      But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise;God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
- 1st Corintians 1:26-31


God chooses the weak. the foolish. even the despised.
and gifts them with strength. with wisdom. with redemption.

and turns them into something glorious.

that's totally worthy of gratitude.

hocus pocus focus locus

the amount of focused i have been this semester is a little magical to me. i have not just "skipped class", i have not procrastinated (half as much), i have gotten sleep (most of the time), have kept a (somewhat steady) workout routine, and have spent time with Jesus everyday.

if you know me, this is not at all congruous with my typical disheveled self. if i didn't know any better, i would say that a dramatic personality shift has taken place.

but this, in fact, is not at all true.

the biggest contributing factor (to my whole life but also) to this semester's success is the letting go of my (feeble) belief in the idea that my locus of control is internal. a whole-hearted surrendering to Jesus Christ every day has relieved the pressure and left only passion for (most of) the subjects i've been given to study (this statement excludes statistics. i have no passion for it. whatsoever. ew). 

within two weeks i have: cast bronze, written and presented an abstract for a research paper, began my last sculpture of the semester, thrown up outside of michael's, heard a poetry reading, worked with a world class artist, fell more in love with east tennessee, grown more fond of david, signed up for spring classes, and found out a definite graduation date.

that has left me a bit (emotionally and, at certain times, physically) dizzy. but there is still a peaceful gratitude that pervades my relationships, my speech, and even the way i plan. i am fully confident that "today" comes and goes like a wind. that thought just doesn't distress me as it used to. the time for me to know "where i'm going" is approaching so quickly, but i have never been so at peace with not knowing as i am now.

i don't believe in an external locus of control that leaves my life up to chance. that would be a miserable existence. instead, i rest boldly in the knowledge that i have a loving, guiding, ever-present Father. He is there. with me. 

alwaysalwaysalways. 

so as i am thinking on graduation and finals and a new year and growing older, i am unconcerned with the possibility that my fragile plans will fall through or that i will get hurt or even that i may fail at something crucial in my life. 

i know that He is with me. and that is enough.


post-script: this post is really scattered and unfocused. and it initially was supposed to be about how focus has become a part of my life. the irony abounds.

because i do not want to do statistics homework on this friday morning

my focus is split:

(my mind is sizzling sizzling simmering simmering
two halves of grey matter always straining separate ways.)

i am here at this table
typing on my expensive equipment and
drinking average coffee from a non-descript mug.
i am in a ravine filled with gravel and railroad ties,
trying to be still enough
to make sense of what is to come.

the trees blowing in the wind clatter and shatter
the silence i long for
as they beat the tall dirt walls that encompass me.
the voices in the coffeeshop,
the dishes chinking, clinking
the little girl jumping into the squares of linoleum,
all remind me of the chaos of solitude.

my textbooks (sitting in front of me) tried to teach me
everything i needed to know
about this
about being caught and tangled in
the swift current of time and space and psychoanalysis and friendships and lovers and religion and clay caught between my fingers and cuts and abstracts and music and laughter and life and death.

but they didn't know.

they didn't know that within one person is two minds.
they didn't know that i would die to live longer and live to die later.
they didn't know that my heart was dark from the beginning and only made light by what they called "spirituality"

they didn't know.
and yet and yet and yet
i trusted them with my dark heart and my fractured mind.
i waited for them to tell me how to write and what to think
and paid them tremendously for it.
i have sacrificed my rest and my peace to them,
o those gods of academia,
and now knowing when this intellectual purgatory will end

i am lost.