Honey From The Rock

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. And today is my first attempt at Lent, ever. I thought about what to do for this season (because I firmly believe that there is a season for everything and knowing what is fitting is close to wisdom). If Lent is about learning discipline, about training towards godliness, seeing grace and dwelling in mercy as our physicality falls shorts, as we see our own humanity, our mortality, then perhaps I must work towards something that I consistently fall very far short in. Prayer. I don't pray well. I think a lot. but prayer? what exactly does that look, sound, feel like? So here's my Lent-ing. My giving up in order to take in. How I will fast and pray. It's simple. I will not eat sweets and I will pray. I will give up sugar and sugary things because I want to remind myself of what I need compared to what I only want. I need food right now but I need real food. Protein and fiber and carbs and vitamins and minerals. I want only what I need. I also n...

Q.  What is your only comfort in life and in death? A.  That I am not my own, but belong— body and soul, in life and in death— to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

Tonight is for Beyonce, and forgetting in dancing. To cha cha in public, to rap the little bits of Jay-z floating in your head. To think of making your middle schoolers proud as you blare Beyonce and Usher and laughing knowing their reactions at the Jbeib's mixed in there. In the words of the growing legend, Kid President, make the world a better place by dancing. And tonight I'm tired of the heavy, the serious, somber. Now is a time for freedom. Part of the industrial revolution and the cultural changes leading up to it was the growing use cotton for clothing. Social freedom grew as people began to wear cotton underwear - they could feel the fresh air over their skin and it was liberating. Today was warm, the smell of mud and warmth. Liberating. That's how Beyonce and Bieber make me feel- like wearing cotton underwear after hundreds of centuries without it. It's time to dance. dance like Beyonce in your underwear.

I am weary of being here. And I know that I am actually saying I am weary of my sin and of my life being hard and getting up early in the morning. But there are moments, and sometimes days, when I crave something different. Slower and fuller. Maybe idealized perfect. But still, not this crazy chaotic immobilizing apathetic strange place. I want pine trees and hardwoods. I want snow. I want a little more time to read and to sleep. I want to bake. I want to write. I want to go for walks in the evenings and the mornings. I want to know when the sunsets are beautiful and I want to hear birds crying and calling and singing. I want to be on a lake and I want to smell the mud. I want to be home. The echoes of home here are good coffee. Laughing roommates. This big blue soft blanket. The window, poorly insulated and letting in drafts of coldcold air, by my bed that lets me see the fog weaving through wet tree trunks. The Old Testament prophets speaking hard condemnation and sweet salva...

Gratefulness leads to thankfulness that burgeons into praise. Father God, Thank you, for cookie dough. for tea. for roommates when we scream out laughter until the tears come. for learning hardhardhard things even though I don't actually want to. for Your love that never fails, never gives up, never runs out on me. You are always enough. To embrace this means not to give up hope, it means to hold on. Amen. My Lord is faithful. Praise the Lord.

The sweetest music for today, believeyoume. Perfect for this gloomy Saturday afternoon in a coffeeshop with navy blue plaster and brick walls.

I had big ideas for this Christmas break. big ideas. I made a Christmas bucket list that included knit socks, learn to play a Christmas carol on my mandolin (which I haven't touched in three years), decorate Christmas cookies, go ice skating. I think the only thing I achieved was watching White Christmas while drinking Baileys and playing poker with the family. And then I got sick. I came home under the weather as my father would say and then it just took a turn for the worse. The worse being laying in bed with a fever and being grumpy and unrealistic and mean. When I'm sick, especially fever-sick, it goes all the way into my bones and changes me. No big plans for this break, just grumpy, cranky, people-alienating days of believing all the lies. You know how sometimes in the olden days, people would hallucinate when they had really high fevers; I think I'm a little like that, my brain changes and everything looks and feels different. I cry really easy, I get upset and annoy...