well, hello.
i’ve returned to van gogh’s arles. the house isn’t yellow. it’s not a new city, but familiar. and i’m still sane. but there is vibrancy in color and new community. i don’t love the city, the lights, the landscape. but my community and life is bursting with new sunlight. seismologists are stooped.
as i sat here, phrases perambulated, and i kept thinking, ‘that’s the perfect title.’ but then the bridge got overcrowded and i couldn’t bear to push anyone in the koi pond.
orlando: redeemed. you are enough. don’t fortify the parthenon. he is jealous for me. neither a nebbish. the face that launch’d a thousand ships. vegan, surely not; well, maybe.
and there it stood,
whatever it was, i mistook,
as responsibility.
and when i denied,
myself, my mind,
it became possibility
i’m taking a mini sabbath today to prepare for lent. i’m really excited to take it seriously this year. in the past, i think i’ve tried chocolate and coffee and only once successfully gave up facebook. but it was just to do it, to see if i could. i made it about myself, and depended on myself so i failed or forgot or became self-righteous, complete with the effigy and title of perpetual dictator. equals demise and removes any room for him to move.
but! one big enough to make anthony ray do a double take. lately i’ve been stumbling through the practice of meditating and focusing on the hebrew-like plainchant of getting covered by the dust of His feet. realizing jesus is enough. instead of the customary pursuit of greek education and being a renaissance woman of sorts. the hebrew system pits distribution against accumulation. obedience against information. weakness against strength. dependence against independence. denial against indulgence. righteous against religious. [related side note. genesis 15:6 calls abraham righteous for merely believing the Lord. righteous: morally upright, without guilt or sin. grace! gah.]
that, more or less, sums up why i want to participate in lent this year. i’ve underrated obedience so many times. the paradox in the responsibility of actively denying ourselves of activity, control. he calls us to be holy. living sacrifices. i heard this fact about israelites who brought sacrifices to the temple in good faith but the animal was blemished so the priest couldn’t kill it. but it was blessed so they couldn’t send the animal back with the person. so these blemished animals would spend the rest of their lives at the temple, where god dwelled in the old testament. literally living sacrifices. that’s us. blemished humans that should never stray from the presence of god. and never do because of what christ did. i’m really excited to have 40 days to continue to focus on that chasm. that truth. that gift. that sacrifice.
michael collins didn’t get to walk. there will be frustration in mere observation. in the inactivity. but in a very small way every piece of meat or dairy i deny, i hope to remember remember… that only he is enough. i look forward to the day when christ rose so that we could he could forever dwell within us; and for the picture of what the day will be like when the gates swing open and all will be made new. what a feast it will be; vegan, surely not. well, maybe.
it’s so beautiful how only you can satisfy this heart. [that probably the title that captured my feelings best. but it was too long.]
i’ll drink socrates’ hemlock, if i must.
ka⋅lei⋅do⋅scop⋅ic /kəˌlaɪdəˈskɒpɪk/ –adjective
1. changing form, pattern, color, etc.
2. changeable, fluctuating, protean, variable.
3. indecisive
