some thoughts behind my SIP


As I get closer to endings, space becomes more and more full for me. There is a certain significance to the angles of this desk’s corners, the tilt of the picture, the colors of the few dark reds. Sometimes I stare at it, imprinting it on my brain because I am sentimental and it is still very much imprinted on my heart. And this sentimental girl can only take so much. So much crumbling and breaking, daily decay of my created order.  The constant slide into chaos, the constant ending of good things. I wash dishes every day and then I eat again. I arrange and center, lighting candles, ‘creating the atmosphere’ I secretly whisper to myself, knowing this joy too childish to share in seriousness. And the people fill the room, the smells fill the room, the candles flicker and beckon, but only to go out, be silenced, be absorbed by the old musty walls of the cold house. It ends and again I wash dishes, throw away spent candles, sweep the floor, and I am alone. The silence of a weary house reflects the weariness of my heart. And it is weary from this decaying of my space, a place has decayed into only a chaotic mess. And this is where I live, a place of mess and of fall, of loneliness and of faithlessness. I wake up every morning and fight myself, the clothes, the physical body, to put clothes on depresses me for they only reflect the mess of my soul. I throw books and dirty clothes on a filthy floor, I toss dirty dishes in the sink. I leave my house and spill coffee over my pants, the car seat, the walls of the office, the cement stairs. And I know that I am a messy person. I will never be put together because my inward reality always reflects in my external space. I am not put together and I say its funny, telling the stories of the car paint scraped off by mailboxes, the coffee splattering across the office walls, the three-day-worn, mismatched socks, the assignments handed in with huge stains from lunch. Chaos runs my life. And my space reflects my soul. And I remember I will never be put together, but there is always a chance of being held together. Of grace entering into chaos. I believe order is overrated. But order is beautiful and meaningful and space doesn’t exist separate from eternal truth. Space doesn’t exist separate from my self. My identity is wound tightly into the space around me. I crave a place. Belonging. A space to be safe. I crave a home. Because home is where my space is full of eternal truth, of belonging, of safety. Home shows me who I am. The space reflects something interior, deep in me, deep in my family. My home is my place, my home is an ordered space of grace, deep heart-rending, centering truth. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

writing at JCup

I'm at Joshua Cup, the hipster-est place in Macon GA, a little coffee shop downtown with ceilings painted black and scratched wood floors. I'm drinking coffee black with cinnamon and I'm starting in on writing my SIP, a personal essay. But I don't really fit in. Two ladies in professional dress eat their organic lunches with big black sunglasses on their heads while three men use their laptops. The first is wearing a long grey robe of sorts with black dress shoes. Jewish maybe? I don't know, he's typing away on a word document. The other two look slightly disheveled. One with long, frizzy red hair and a black painter's cap has huge black headphones engulfing his ears; he's bent over his work on an ipad, shoulders kinked in. The other is wearing the gym clothes of a couch potato, baggy tshirt, baggy grey cotton shorts, and flipflops. They both sport facial hair. I sit somewhat apart with all the glory of a pink laptop, floral notebooks, two bags, and se
Read more

transitions

My life since the last post has transitioned into a new season. No more camp or summer shorts, beat-up t-shirts, and head scarfs; no more beautiful seven years olds singing pop songs or coloring for hours. School has begun and I've had to move into a period of organization, arranging my stuff, my time, my attitude. I've set up my dorm room, creating places for clothes, books, posters, movies, old stained couches, and ripped chairs. I've had to place my days into slots, dividing it into my classes, meetings, meals, and homework. My thoughts are just beginning to transition back into this focused, detail-oriented perspective, where I have thousands of little things that I have to make happen, but need to intensely devote myself to one task at a time. When this school mode kicks in, it is easy to forget the world, forget time isn't naturally divided by classes, homework, and friends, forget that people breathe and rest, forget that there is more to life than finishing ever
Read more

Everything into Enough

Failure sucks; here is a little hope that I'm struggling to hold on to, a bit of grace for a very weary sinner. It's from Today's Letters : "Here's to gratitude and how it turns everything into enough." Sometimes you need to stop thinking and just see good.  I am thankful  for sunshine after days of rain,  for rice and beans and corn, cheap and tasty with enough cheese and hot sauce,  for daily bread that breeds forgiveness,  for quiet evenings that offer a little respite from craziness,  for short tempers quickly resolved and selfishness overcome,  for being unseen on days where you feel unseeable,  for remembering that there is always hope, always grace. 
Read more