You asked for it...: Oh Irene...

You asked for it...: Oh Irene...: The thing is, there are these amazing waves all up the beach probably because of the hurricane or whatever. Last night Michal, Faith and I ...

It's all quite angular

One could only assume, that everyone has an angle

If you live long enough, every paradox will convince you

Geometry is not the only proof, all things are congruous, consistent

Loves trappings are innumerable, we don’t have to concede

If there ever is a life where I am completely happy, or content

It will be in the acceptance that all imperfections work for the good

Some nights I find that world, in dark blue skies as stars rise

I have always found it in the ocean, in trees, in seasons, in trust

I am not ashamed of how many times trust has been broken

It brings more character, makes me look innocent, frees the betrayer

Soon, I’ll learn to speak plainly, truth will be the only angle

The unsaid will no longer bring disconnect but completion

Things are according to plan, if we let hindsight work in us

I interrupt this broadcast to bring you Carl Sandburg

All day long in fog and wind,
The waves have flung their beating crests
Against the palisades of adamant.
My boy, he went to sea, long and long ago,
Curls of brown were slipping underneath his cap,
He looked at me from blue and steely eyes;
Natty, straight and true, he stepped away,
My boy, he went to sea.
All day long in fog and wind,
The waves have flung their beating crests
Against the palisades of adamant. 

Shake me I'm holding

Stifle me, before I let go
I've been living too long off of the old
Things you left, things you opened
All you possibly never intended to finish
When I'm better I'm my own woman
Sinking in memory I'm human
Recalling your best I'm caught again
Knowing your faults, too compassionate
Even brick driveways have their cracks
All breathtaking joy has a drawback
Love promises pain, signs away your rights
hopes and dreams, into equally broken hands
What little I know when wisdom is called for
What intellect lacks understanding swallows
You're a pinpoint of light, a garland, but not a sun
I'll wish I was yours while knowing I am safer not

Wounded Knee

As I'm coming to the end of Summer, to summarize some of my thoughts on the last part of this trip, one subject was on my heart a lot, and my mind. Sometimes a song, a phrase, a lapse into the poetic cover more than an essay would. I can't give you compassion, knowledge or understanding of things that may have to be experienced for yourself. But I can try...
A refresher, 
A history lesson for you, 
A true story

Wounded Knee

I took a drive, out on Two, out to Wounded Knee last night,

I didn’t cry but I was hurt and I was broke in circles,

I wasn’t lost I tried to find, where we lost our way and life…

I took a rock from the foot of an old grave there,

to fill a hole I just found in our race where the blood leaks out,

a loss of blood a loss of truth, a loss of who we are, who are we?

I found a path thru the dark, down to open spaces,

It was cold and it was dry and it was full of mud and lies,

just behind a line where many names where signed, where many children died…

Hey Jah... (the Lakota name for God)

This is just a song I wrote during some of my time on Native American reservations and following the trail of tears, studying the history, the injustice & generational oppression over the years. I can't put into words the emotions, the bloodshed, the heartbreak, the hopelessness & the horrible poverty that make up the full color version of the stories, but someone has to start somewhere

Broken bread and poured out wine

Hello from Sunny Florida,
I promise its not much hotter here than in the Midwest. I would know, I traveled all Summer looking for cooler weather. So I have some thoughts to blog, much to process from the Summer... but this morning I give you this...
This is an excerpt from My Utmost For His Highest... I know the date is off, but it feels appropriate right now.

Read the whole thing if you will, but this is the part that always resonates with me.
"Our Lord never dictated to His Father, and we are not here to dictate to God; we are here to submit to His will so that He may work through us what He wants. When we realize this, He will make us broken bread and poured out wine to feed and nourish others."

May 15th.
The HABIT of RISING to the OCCASION "That ye may know what is the hope of His calling . . ." Ephesians 1:18 Remember what you are saved for -that the Son of God might be manifested in your mortal flesh. Bend the whole energy of your powers to realize your election as a child of God; rise to the occasion every time. You cannot do anything for your salvation, but you must do something to manifest it, you must work out what God has worked in. Are you working it out with your tongue, and your brain and your nerves? If you are still the same miserable crosspatch, set on your own way, then it is a lie to say that God has saved and sanctified you. God is the Master Engineer, He allows the difficulties to come in order to see if you can vault over them properly -"By my God have I leaped over a wall." God will never shield you from any of the requirements of a son or daughter of His. Peter says -"Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you." Rise to the occasion; do the thing. It does not matter how it hurts as long as it gives God the chance to manifest Him self in your mortal flesh. May God not find the whine in us any more, but may He find us full of spiritual pluck and athleticism, ready to face anything He brings. We have to exercise ourselves in order that the Son of God may be manifested in our mortal flesh. God never has museums. The only aim of the life is that the Son of God may be manifested, and all dictation to God vanishes. Our Lord never dictated to His Father, and we are not here to dictate to God; we are here to submit to His will so that He may work through us what He wants. When we realize this, He will make us broken bread and poured out wine to feed and nourish others.

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Dear Chicago, The best is yet to come

En route from Chicago to Amish Country

I'm laying in my van seat/bed/dressing room, leaving Chicago for a quick 3 hour drive to the church we play in Indiana in the morning. I feel sick, borderline exhausted and I know that though the audience appreciated it, tonight was not my best.
So many things are running thru me right now, last night at this time we were leaving western Minnesota, a few hours into what should have been a 10 hour trip one of our back tires blew out. Just after 4am we got the van parked at a Walmart, slept until the tire center opened and then all piled out of the bus and into the store for a 7am Tour de Walmart, which started with a bathroom stop and ended with Jess, Ben and me laying in a row on the bottom shelf of cushions in the furniture department falling asleep.
We did get our tires drivable and eventually made it to Chicago, from whence we are now departing, all too soon...

As I'm leaving the windy, dirty, beautiful, crime filled, history laden city. It brings up my history with it, and I try to keep my eyes dry...
My heart is too often on my sleeve these days, but I have stopped making apologies for it.
Three years ago almost to the day I started falling in love with my best friend, right here...
Chicago, look at what you started and didn't finish.
All that is in the past, but history being behind us doesn't delete it, it seems to concentrate it. We seem to marinate in mixtures of everything that was, what got us here and what it did to us. Which only makes the present more potent, not unbearably so, just richer... piling on the memories and emotions don't make for something light. But the stronger I grow the easier I digest, its true that struggle makes you stronger... But I keep feeling this whole falling in love, loving and losing, learning what love is thru pain thing...I keep thinking its run its course. I keep hoping there was a master plan behind truly loving (the "more than you love yourself" version) and having to let go, besides just teaching me a lesson.
I'm a good reader, there has to be better ways to learn lessons... And if it is a lesson, Dear God, let it make sense now instead of unraveling after another few years of letting go... These things are all layered in here, rolling around, half thoughts, half prayers...

Speaking of prayers, I spent part of last week at a conference surrounded by artists & musicians part of me was in heaven and part of me felt like I kept myself a little removed at first, unwilling to mingle, unconsciously preserving myself from being involved with more people that could let me down and vice versa, mostly vice versa... Because while I was there, as I watched other people step out of their fear and their comfort zones into what God had made them for. I came away with many lessons. One, that God wants me to stop trying so hard and just to be.
Two, As I've been talking to a painter friend a lot lately we've covered a lot of insecurity, and other traits of our birthrights as oldest children... As she talked about making a mistake in a painting and how now she doesn't know where to go from here with it. I saw so many of my life choices mirrored in our conversation, and my motivation for not doing things, painting, improvising, writing, loving... things that have repurcussions, things you can't just back out of once a mark has been made.

And last but not least I spent time thanking God for loving me where I am, and wanting to learn how to fully love others where they are, not where they could be, or where I hope they'll go, not at a distance, not with expectations... All of those things are things God is perpetually teaching me, breathing into me day by day, time after painful time. And its not a bad thing. As I'm writing this, as I'm driving away from Chicago, as I've been processing the final stages of grieving the loss of a love I had to let go of... I know without any look even to the future or what may still come of it, how many more ways I can be shaped by it. I know that each pain increases my compassion, each ripping break to my heart, deepens my sympathy, every tear sharpens my understanding and this deep, "wanting the best for someone else at your own expense" kind of, grown up love. Loving like a woman, loving like a human, loving like a little piece of what God has for me broadens my wisdom. It isn't just about me, or about me and him, its always about Christ and Him crucified, its always about the perfect unfailing love that is God. Life is about understanding His love for us, its intricacies and pains. If my small human heart and soul can live and beat and break and go on loving someone else like this when they don't even understand the love was there wanting the best all along... What does the maker of love, the beginning and end of all love, feel for me, as I am, when I don't even know it. The more I know love the closer I am to God... Thanking Him for loving me, for how he loves me. Not who I hope to be, not an image of me, not his version of me, knowing all of me He loves me right here. And that should be enough.

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When words aren't enough pictures take over

This week in
Detroit Lakes, MN at Experience Church - The Perfect Place for Imperfect People

Ottertail, MN at The Creamery during The Summer Gathering with Fire Starters, Travis & Jenna Vaad and others

Chicago, IL at Risen Savior Assemblies Fatcalf Cafe - with old friends and new

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