Made New

You. You there.

Make an incision in my veins and bleed me dry.

Leave me there, a pounding heart.

A burning body, writhing.

By taking away all that I am

I can find all that I am.

And this lifeless body can be filled again--

New. True.

Fill me.

I am Yours.

Take this writhing body and replace me.

Love, Joy, Peace.

Patience.

Kindness, Goodness, Gentleness, Faithfulness.

Self-control.

“I know I’m filled to be emptied again;

This seed I’ve received I will sow.”

*  *  *

The world is new.

I am a child, the earth cushions my feet.

I dance in freedom, in joy.

Are you broken? Come.

I will hold you in an embrace until you can stand again.

Let’s love.

Let’s explore.

At the base of my being I long for adventure

I long to explore, to see

To give explosions of joy to others

To travel to unknown places.

My heart pounds in these revelations.

*  *  *

Day by day,

I feel myself coming back to life

My heart restarting.

Broken places being healed.

Veins full of His passionate fire.

Vigor and Love.

Soon I may be able to humbly stand,

Made New.

Step Three

Hilary Mankin 1992-2012

I stare at the words on the casket, knowing full well what they mean, yet still unable to feel it.

I’ve heard that you only use 10% of your brain. Part of me wonders if just 5% more were used that I’d be able to wrap my mind around this more quickly.

“Do you think that tree is beautiful too?” Coco asks me. I turn my head in a haze and stare at the tree across the cemetery, its branches enveloping the surrounding stones. Yes. Of course that tree is beautiful. Just as every person is beautiful.

Hilary.

I feel bad for smiling so much at the funeral.

The place was packed. Full of people. Love emitting from every person. We are a community—bonded. There is beauty in death. How have I never seen it before?

People come up to me and others: “Hi, how are you?”

Translation: “I love you.”

Love.

Everyone is so vulnerable as they see the body. True emotions and held back sadness are unleashed as the brutal reality of what has happened is revealed. Vulnerability is accepted by all and embraced—no judgments made.

“It’s not an open casket is it? Richard, I’ll lose it if it’s an open casket. I don’t know if I can take it.”

Pause.

Richard nods.

I shock myself. I’m capable of tears and hysterics on demand.

Marisa has a strong grip around my shoulders as I near collapse.

Jarring.

She looks…

Dead.

Is that too blunt?

It’s just a body in that casket. Hilary is far-gone, being cared for by her beautiful Creator. That brings peace, so much peace. But this body.

It’s so young. No wrinkles.

It smells of grass and vibrancy, not wax paper and potpourri.

New.

What a beautiful blessing this life is.

What a beautiful blessing a body is.

A body with a life is finite, but a life without a body is eternal.

I feel bad for mourning with philosophy, though I’ve been told I shouldn’t feel bad.

Hilary.

Why don’t we hug more often? This thought crosses my mind as I leap from person to person, smiling and giving, loving the love and basking in its beautiful presence.

Hilary loved hugs. She would love this part.

Funeral processions are strange. A line of cars, mourning, their lights on like tears. How many of these have I seen, being impatient as the line monotonously drives by? Now a part of one, I see it through different eyes. Community. Love. Togetherness.

“We will get through this. We loved her, and together we will get through this.”

A casket. It’s a basket for a corpse.

I feel insensitive.

But it’s what I think of anyway.

Five long hugs for her mom, as she thanks me over and over but for what? Unknown. Beauty.

Going up to Hilary’s friend from high school. “She talked about you all the time.” Holding him in a hug as he loses composure and breaks down. Beauty.

“Do-Re-Mi” playing over the slideshow during calling hours. Beauty.

The Harry Potter references that made us all smile: ‘Riddle’ funeral home, the hearse had ‘Kingsley’ written on the side, ‘Always’ on the flowers. Beauty.

Unintentional purple ink. Beauty.

Hilary.

“Back to reality.” What does that even mean? As if this period isn’t reality.

People die. Reality.

Hilary is dead. Harsh reality.

The numbness I feel. Reality.

Grief. What a strange experience. How very human. 


Always unfinished.

In Memoriam

Hilary--

I wasn’t expecting that phone call last night,

The one that said you were gone.

(Wearing our springy, lacy dresses

tied in at the waist,

putting flower crowns in our hair.)

Tears bled from my eyes

I slept in my parents’ bed

But no sleeping was had

Just sat.

And thought.

(You show me this rock down by the river.

It’s your favorite spot

My heart is happy.)

You’ve shined so bright, my dear friend.

So bright for so short of a time

Like a beautiful firework,

Exploding joy and laughter, and then gone.

(We roll down the tall, grassy field.

You laugh, and I laugh because you’re laughing--

It brings back memories.)

I’m so glad for our last few weeks together

Unspoken forgiveness.

“Let’s grab lunch sometime.”

“Yes! I miss you!”

(We speak of Anastasia, our desire to be

Princesses.

Souls marveling, joyous jumping.

We are free.)

5/16/12  <3

Learning about Learning

Oh, school. My whole life I've been striving to get good grades, to please the teachers and make them like me (was a total teacher's pet over here, not going to lie), to do whatever it took to ace that test, sacrificing living for homework. This entire philosophy got me through grade school, through high school, through my first year of college.


And then this sophomore year of college happened.


I found myself in classes I didn't necessarily care for, realizing that for the first time that I wanted to choose friends over homework because THAT is where life is, and that this was OKAY. It was my own choice, and I suffered the consequences of this. Got an incomplete in one of the classes and have to finish the coursework in the summer...and I'm absolutely dreading it. 


Why? There is no reason that I should be struggling. I most definitely don't deserve this second chance from this professor, yet she gave it to me anyway. Why am I struggling so much? I have the time to do the work, I have the means, I most definitely have the time, but I still am faced with dread when thinking of the endless discussion questions and meaningless books. I'm sure to someone, the course is interesting, but to me...it's like ripping out my fingernails one by one. Everyone has had this struggle with something in their life, I'm sure of it. 


I myself am struggling with wasted time. Why am I studying "insert class here" when I could be helping people, loving on people, learning more about God and pursuing God so that He better equips me to love people? This is the core of my struggle. The struggle of my heart against what is expected of me. 


That's the core of it. My heart and entire being struggling against what is expected of me.
Still not sure what to do with that realization, but it's nice to know.

I'm starting to believe that everyone out there struggles with this concept of our very natures rebelling against what is put in front of us. This is why people find themselves in jobs that they hate, in life situations that they don't like, etc. But do we do anything about it? I sure didn't. I don't know. I want to explore the Bible and see what it has to say about this concept, because I'm sure it does, because it talks about EVERYTHING (which is awesome), I just don't know enough to be able to put anything here. I'm sure it has something to do with patience (which is a wonderful trait that I am just...not there yet) and the fruit of your labor (as in a degree), but it is still a struggle. 

How can I find peace and life in a situation that I don't like. How, during these last two years of school, can I find life, so that it is not merely academics, but that I am living?

This is what this summer is about. Discovery. Learning. Finding balance. Balance is so so so beautiful, and treading in this new adult world makes me feel very unbalanced (because I like control...it happens). Balance. Even the word gives me hope. 

Balance. Where you're fully aware that you could fall to either side and in any direction, yet you remain steady, wobbling slightly, but never falling all the way. So good.  

Tangent Thought:

I miss learning for the sake of learning. I really do. I love learning, and somewhere during this semester I forgot that. I wasn't being nourished with knowledge, and I slipped. You know what my favorite college class so far has been? Sports and Society in Ancient Greece. It was so cool to learn about this entirely different culture, and of the Olympics, and just...everything involved in it. For some reason, that class mattered. We (the students) were explorers of a different culture, and I loved sharing my learnings with family and friends as I told them about the discus, about the nudity in the Olympics, about the tossing of the bread. I miss learning. I miss learning about flowers, and the neighbor down the street. I miss reading books, and how to books. I miss being taught a new skill, and being able to use this new skill to show or help someone else. 


I've been struggling for a long time with academics, if you didn't notice. When I was in high school, I wrote this poem, and I find it appropriate for this post. This poem is still particularly powerful for me. I wrote it while I was taking AP Calculus. I was good at math until Pre-Calculus, then it just slowly went downhill from there. 

How does calculus better me for life?

I don’t see the point (x, y)

I come home and find Mom

Writhing with agony with the news

Of Grandma’s terminal cancer

And I slam on my knees and scream out

“Why God?!  Why?!”

Finding the derivative of “why” won’t give me the correct answer

No cure for Grandma, no way to help Mom through her pain

Even math has its limits

Blessings: An Introduction

Sat by the lake today. So much beauty. The grass was chill, yet not damp. As I looked out on the lake, I saw boats, fishermen, life. Little yellow bugs climbed onto my journal. A little gust of breath was all it took to make them move, as they jumped to the other page. They were no bigger than a pin prick, looking like tiny yellow jumping slugs. I wondered if they were a family, if maybe I was sprawled over a nest of theirs, or if they were traveling to another place, passing by me and saying hello. 

When looking out over the lake, as I was laying down on my stomach, I saw the perspective of the lake from a small animal's point of view. The wheat-like grass framed my vision as I peered into the blue abyss. It was one of those moments that screamed, "TAKE A PICTURE," yet the only picture you have is your mind.

Sometimes I wish my brain was a computer, so that I could take pictures as I see them and recall them later. I wasn't blessed with a photographic memory, and actually tend to forget things quite easily, so sometimes it gets a bit difficult to retain information or sights. But if I could take pictures with my mind...now that would be something!  

The sounds as you sit by the lake are so beautiful--so pure. The birds are chatting away; the water lapping against the sand and the wheat-grass; the applause of the leaves in the trees as the wind caresses them. It's so beautiful. So true. So loving. It's in moments like these that God reveals Himself to me. The little moments. The little nuances. The little blessings.

This blog is an exploration of my thoughts as I travel through this thing called life. Everyone is on their own journey, and we all deal with that differently. I LOVE sharing stories, and struggle when I'm journaling, because I can't share my stories with anyone. I'm also aware that it's a nuisance if I share too much, so blogging seems to be a happy medium. If anything I write about strikes your fancy, get a hold of me. Let's talk about life, about spirituality. We're all adventuring together, after all, and that's the beautiful thing. :)

It is so good, this thing called life.

It's also extremely frustrating, but I believe that that is part of the fun. 

Mmmm...yes. It's official; I like blogging. :) 

Train Tracks

I
Sometimes I feel like a train
Just going, going, going
And not in the way you think, 
Where I’d be on the right track
No.
This track is detoured, derailed,
Until I’m devoured by the train, on my own path.

II
Chugga Chugga, choooo who
In the hell do you think you are?
Choosing your own track?
He’s got your back though you think that He’s laggin’ behind,
But if you opened up your mind you’d see that He’s been there the whole time. 

III
I feel like a caboose, though I long to be the conductor,
Maybe if I duck under the wheel He won’t notice.
Do trains even have wheels to steer?
Faking knowledge is the new thing, I hear.
Oh, dear.

IV
My track made sense.
I knew where it was going,
I was like a rooster in its crowing
Like a lawn mower mowing
Cutting the competition out and
Speeding about faster than lighting in
Life’s swift storm.

V
Your track is greater,
Like many I found this out later
And now I can’t stay here
Complacent.
Instead my thoughts swirl like thunder
And I’m slowly pulled under
Until You pull the thoughts asunder
And I get back on track.
Chugga Chugga choo choo!

This is Power

I stand majestically, the wind screaming against my hair.

Whipping crisply, flinging morning dew

Towards the ground.

This is power.

My legs are planted firmly into the ground

Shoulders are back, chin raised as a salute.

Eyes piercing the horizon, enveloping all that exists

This is power.

Everyone surrounds me, eyes glazed, sitting at my feet

Awe. Wonder.

“Why thank you, how kind.” I say.

I smile, they faint.

This is power.

With one single swoop I could kill them.

Break them with words.

Break them with the rage reverberating through my veins.

But I feel Your presence behind me,

And I stop.

My piercing eyes well up, afraid to turn.

I see now that it was my choice to stand,

To hold myself higher than those around me.

Frightened, I remain upright.

Standing is all I’ve ever known.

I feel You approaching.

My heartbeat quickens with Your pace.

Tears stain my proud being.

You are right behind me, Your breath in my ear.

“Surrender, let me guide you.”

I am a child.

Anxiety increases as I fight You.

I will not be a child like them.

“You are them,” You whisper.
No. I will stand tall. I am better. I say so.

My mind spinning, too many thoughts.

I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

I turn.

And I collapse, the child that I am, in Your arms.

Power.