i'm so over this casual thing

i want to know You.

i don't want to know You like this...

"hi, sara!"
"oh...hey...man. it's been FOREVER. how are the kids?"
"uh. what kids?"
"oh, that's right! you don't have any kids. sorry. what about your wife? how's she?"
"yeah. not married."
"oh. well. you should be."

awkward silence.

"well it was great to see you...buddy!"
"you don't know my name, do you?"
"what? is that my cell? well...see ya later!"

that's how i know more than three-quarters of the people in my life. but not You. that's not how i want to know You.

i want to know You the way i used to know by the sound of the car whether or not it was my mom or my dad coming up the driveway. i want to know You the way that the sound of jingling keys confirmed what the sound of the car had just revealed.

i want to know You the way i knew that every sunday afternoon, it was guaranteed that i would smell the scent of pasta and meatballs floating down the driveway as i walked up to the house.

i want to know You the way i know what my sister is going to say after i say, "you're causing a hazard here!" (she'll respond, "move," by the way. in case you're curious.)

i want to know You the way i know that i'll sneeze twice for every three times i cough. i want to know You the way i know that i pull at my lip when i'm in deep thought. i want to know You the way i know...

well, the way i know no one else. i want to know You better than i know anyone or anything else.

sometimes, the loneliness in my life is so real, i feel i may choke on it,
suffocating on the void of it crashing in around me.

but if i could just know You. like, really know You.

maybe then, i would find the cure for this loneliness.
maybe You're what i'm lacking.
maybe the voids are only filled in when You're here.
maybe.

i want to know You. i want to know You. i want to know You.

magnificent mess

i wrote this almost two years ago, and it's as true today, right this very second, as it was when i wrote it. surely, i am a dead man (er, woman) walking.



my death is long and drawn out
a parade of gore and slaughter
my flesh dangling in strips
sloughed off of my body with every blow administered

with every bloody footprint trailing off behind me
i am more and more free
beautifully torn, broken and scattered
a magnificent mess

i look just like You must have

Your death set freedom in motion
and mine follows in the pattern You first began

the final and most excellent contradiction of my life is that
dying is just the beginning of living

it's a waiting world, after all

anticipation is horrible.
but it's beautiful, too.

just like the rest of life, i guess. this love / hate relationship of living.

i am loving waiting for the things i'm waiting for because the best kind of prize is a SUR-prize.

der.

i am hating waiting for things i'm waiting for because...well.
it's waiting.

and my life revolves around convenience.

doesn't yours?
c'mon. you know it does.

-sigh-

it's like when i was a kid, and i knew we were going to disneyland in the summer. i'd wait all winter and all spring, waking up every day, hoping that it would be summer magically. maybe because the disneyland gods were magical and they lived in a magical kingdom, somehow they could make winter into summer or spring into summer.

but they couldn't, and waiting was my lot in life.

that waiting, though, was not just my lot in life, it was my whole life. the excitement of falling asleep each night, hoping summer would be wrapped up in all it's splendor sitting on my front porch with 5 tickets to disneyland - this was my world.

but each winter or spring morning that had not become summer sent my world crashing to pieces. oh cruel, cruel, disneyland gods. you're not magical at all.

then, night would come, and the cycle would repeat itself.
hoping, crushed, hoping, crushed, hoping, crushed.

until one day i went to bed hoping and woke up on a summer day and all the agony of waiting seemed like no pain at all. the disneyland gods had smiled down on me and given me a summer's day. a disneyland day. a day that fulfilled all hopes. at that moment, waiting seemed but a moment.

i hope my disneyland day is coming soon.
and i hope you're there. i really do.

interrupting completely uncalled for

yup. that's life, ain't it?

mysteriously ok with it

i used to hate mystery.

now, just to be better understood, i'm totally into mystery books and movies and the like - the stuff that keeps you guessing 'til the very end. but that's just it. i like them 'cause they have an end. i read them or watch them with the full knowledge it will eventually be over, hopefully satisfying my oh-so-curious mind (curse you, m. night shyamalan).

but true to life mystery - ya know, like the kind you experience in your actual life - yeah. hated it.

ironically, i'm finding as i get older (i can actually use phraseology like "as i get older" now without sounding totally ridiculous like when i said it as a 12-year-old), i'm enjoying mystery.

i thought it would it be quite the opposite. i always heard that people only become more and more stuck in their ways as they get older. older people are more likely to freak out when something changes suddenly or because they can't control situations in their lives.

perhaps i was born old. perhaps i'm getting younger as the years go by. perhaps my dysfunctional, overly anal childhood is getting revenge on my adulthood by immaturizing me. (yup. made that word up. nope. you cannot borrow it.)

whatever the case may be, i am most definitely no longer a hater of mystery.

perhaps i'll even love it one day.

there's a reason the word "irony" begins with "iron"

disclaimer: i am female. i will talk about all things female whenever i please because, as previously stated, i am female. if the simple facts of femaleness make you uncomfortable, you probably shouldn't read this.


yesterday, while on my way to work, i got that feeling. not that feeling according to most males, as in that-feeling-i -need-sexual-healing (but thanks, anyway, marvin). the feeling which occurred was the strictly female feeling that we get only when we are celebrating the very fact that we are indeed women. once a month, God built our bodies to throw us a party, just in case we ever forget the joys of womanhood and take it for granted.

as stated before, i was on my way to work when that feeling occurred, and i was totally unprepared (taking my womanhood for granted, obviously). so i stopped by my local grocery store to pick up a few party favors for my celebrate-womanhood-fiesta-extravaganza. (yes, that is the technical term for it. don't let those quacks tell you otherwise.)

i ran into the store, got what i needed to celebrate, and then ran quickly back out. yes, i paid. at least i think i paid. when one's body is throwing a party, it's hard to keep track of things.

i was almost to my car, party favors in tow might i add, when i heard this awful ruckus coming from a car driving past me. as any human being would do, i looked back to assess the situation. it could have been some crazy person swerving my way or a meteorite crashing into the safeway. curiosity didn't kill the cat. it saved the poor bastard. or at least gave meaning to its death.

curiosity delivered - the ruckus was coming from a white sedan not cool enough for its make or model to be noteworthy. the man in this nameless car had shoved his head completely out of his window, whistling and hollering. as soon as i realized that i was the cause for his causing a ruckus, i glanced down at my bag of party favors, thanked God for irony, laughed, and kept walking.

apparently laughing at someone is a turn on because the guy came back.

by this time, i was in my car, attempting to back out of my parking space, but white sedan hoop and holler man was blocking me. he backed up, signaled for me to continue backing out (as if he were doing something polite), and then pulled up next to me as i straightened my car out.

now, i barely have patience for this sort of behavior on days where i've totally taken my womanhood for granted. but on the first day of my week long celebrate-womanhood-fiesta-extravaganza...well, the only thing i have time to do is party. so it's safe to say my patience was non-existent.

he rolled his window down. i rolled mine down. sainthood is mine.
he said something clever like, "what's your name?"
i answered, "sara." equally clever if i do say so myself. then i said, "there's someone behind you. you should move."
he said, "oh ok. wait here. i'll come back around."

i laughed again. i couldn't help it.

thankfully, i didn't stick around long enough to find out if laughing at him really did turn him on. but i was glad that someone was ready to celebrate my womanhood with me. way to go, white sedan hoop and holler man. i am the party, and the party don't stop. (actually, it does. thank God.)

charity case

i am an avid reader. always have been. when i was a child, i could lose myself completely in a book, wrapped up in the worlds made available to me only through binding and ink. i would spend days and days reading, filling my mind with nothing more than nonsense and fantasy and gibberish. the good stuff of life, really.

i miss those days. i find myself too busy for gibberish and fantasy as of late. HOWEVER, when i do find it in me to waste my time on something useful like reading, i have a tendency to read and then re-read books - again and again. i never trek the same world twice or feel the same emotions twice or learn the same thing twice. it's always something different each time. this is not ALL books, of course. only ones which i found life-changing the first time around. once life-changing, always life-changing, i say.

i am currently re-RE-reading (that would be the third time) blue like jazz by donald miller. if you have not read this book, BUY IT. if you don't have the money, STEAL IT. or borrow it. stealing's just more exciting.

now, i'm not yet completely through my third round, but the last chapter i read moved me in a way i cannot explain. the best part is that i hardly remember reading this chapter before. perhaps it is because of the place i am at in life that it stood out to me.

i am comfortable. i have pretty much everything i want, and most certainly, i have everything i need. i am young and have my whole life ahead of me, so i have not yet arrived. ("arrived." a word we use a lot in american chistendom. what the heck does that even mean, anyway?) but i am well on my way to wherever it is that i am going. for the first time in perhaps 5 years, i understand that the path i am on is useful (a change of perspective, not necessarily reality), and i am enjoying it for the most part (at least right now).

ok. enough. to the good stuff.

the chapter i spoke of above has one concern: grace. this is another word flung about on a regular basis in american christendom. grace is the crux of christianity, and even a using a word like crux in this sentence speaks deeply of how powerful that truth is. everything points back the cross, for it is without argument the most beautiful grace experience that one human being could offer another.

the power of this chapter, however, is not in its portrayal of the beauty of grace. grace is beautiful. that is a given. the true power is in the realization that i am unable and unwilling to identify myself as one who is desperately in need of grace. donald miller uses the phrase "charity case."

i am so comfortable, so self-impressed, that it is difficult for me to think of myself as someone who is embarrassingly in need of grace. pathetically in need of grace. it is hard for me to admit that for me, grace is a necessity, not a nicety. it is life and breath and food and drink, not a mercedes benz or a triple venti skinny vanilla latte with no foam. it is the theme around which my entire life revolves.

i am a mess. i need help. i am a charity case. and most of the time, i hate it. i am ashamed of it. i want to hide it behind smiles and handshakes and sunday morning "God bless yous" and "praise the Lords." but all the pretty words and random acts of kindness in all of the world cannot save me from what i am. it cannot change the truth.

i need grace.

it seems so elementary, you know. grace. christianity. Jesus. forgiveness. uhm. duh. if i can't get that, then what's the point?

but it's subtle. i think i get it. that's the problem. i call my form of godliness a life lived by the grace Christ has offered me. but anyone can stop cussing or smoking or be an usher or go to church every sunday or even , if you want to be radical, actually give a crap about other people.

but where is the power? grace is powerful. one man being selfless changed the entire course of human history for all eternity! even if you don't care about Jesus or who He really is, you cannot deny that fact. whether or not Christ is who He says He is does not negate that fact that what He did changed everything for everyone forever.

but that kind of powerful, world-changing grace escapes me. i have no idea what that's about because i cannot accept the fact that i can't do anything alone. i will always be in rehab, i will always need a support group, i will always be in need of therapy, i will ALWAYS be a charity case.

i just need to learn how to love it. or at least accept it.

i'd love to be able to have the kind of attitude paul had about it. he complained to God about a certain hardship he was facing. he asked the Lord to remove the hardship, and the Lord gave him an answer. He said, "no." well, essentially. He said it nicer than that, as only God can, but in the end, the answer was still, "no," offering only His grace to face the situation.

and paul responded like this:
"therefore, i will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. that is why, for Christ's sake, i delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. for when i am weak, then i am strong."

now, that is powerful.