W26
Winter Log
120525
got a little peek at the moon before it disappeared behind the clouds
First Hike Home of Winter
Who could love the winter tempest?
Who could look at her face to face?
Who could know her ways –
her steel blue,
the slice of her blade,
or her inability to discriminate?
We watch from the safety of our homes, of which she has power to cover and crush.
We watch from the warmth of hearth, having never known the full embrace of her cold… those who have often do not survive.
We watch from our automated vehicles, rarely experiencing her empty expanse on foot.
Sometimes you cannot even watch, sometimes she blinds – in day and at night.
You must consider,
you cannot forget,
you must be prepared – your life depends on it.
This is wilderness and the house in the valley has provided an intimate glimpse.
I welcome her back, knowing her visit was inevitable.
The furnace went out in the valley house so we are relying on a pellet stove and space heaters.
My yukon’s 4wheel drive went out last night (causing the walk.)
I trust God to make a way.
Winter in the valley is a lot different than winter in the mountain.
Or is it that life is different now?
Or is it that I am different now?
I would have been happy to delay this aspect of winter as long as possible but did not mourn when it occurred the evening of December 4.
It was like stepping back into an old friend
or a secret known only to me and God.
I do not like the cold and Montana winters are deadly forces of nature,
but the valley has brought newfound appreciation of winter.
Quiet – even when the winds rage.
Formidable – not for the faint of heart.
I’ve learned that winter can hold me in ways that summer never could.
120425
before the storm
120325
K39 meeting
120225
A happy, little accident
LITERARILY
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
THEMATICALLY/SPIRITUALLY
★★★★★
Rewatch after 10 years… way sadder and relatable the second time around.
CONCEPTUALLY
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
THEMATICALLY/SPIRITUALLY
★★★★★
Winter has just begun and I already feel so weathered.
Not from Winter itself –
but from Summer.
This Summer took something from me.
No man, no enemy can take that which God bestows so whatever I lost must have been in season to go.
The loss still feels like loss, nonetheless.
I grieve it quietly because it has no name.
When the pain slips out, I am disappointed in my inability to articulate.
It sounds like anger –
bitterness from deep within –
I want it to sound like devastation,
like the betrayal of innocence,
like heartbreak.
God has been working to disillusion me for quite some time.
What hurts is that I was disillusioned by church culture long before [REDACTED.]
I wonder why God would bring me to the same conclusion.
I wrestle with the concept of community –
hearing of its value everywhere I go, told I am nothing without it, but ever out-cast.
I have been cast to the outer darkness of my communities – this fact beknown to some, unbeknownst to others.
Those who have done so unknowingly are those who hate or fear the darkness.
It feels like I live in the darkness and am of it.
It feels like Jesus met me there nonetheless.
It is here that he tells me that even the darkness is not dark to Him;
that night shines like the day,
for darkness is as light to Him. [Psalm 139]
It is here that he promises me the treasures of darkness and the hidden riches of secret places. [Isaiah 45:3]
That He would meet me in this place and gift me so abundantly is my wealth.
That He would call me friend is something even more.
Innocence Lost
It doesn’t stop me from wondering why God would make me to be this way.. why it feels like the closer I get to him, the further I get from being able to obtain human relationship.
[REDACTED]
I am exhausted by societal constructs that want God to be a certain way, ways that conflict with how He has met and loved me. It feels easier to love in solitude – just me and Him. Taking my love for Him into the world is something like hearing the echo of crucifixion while He sings to me about the conquered grave.
My heart and mind know that this is what people do.
My heart and mind know that their rejection is not a rejection of me but a rejection of Christ and his incomprehensibly loving nature.
My heart and mind know that God cherishes his beloved, even in their lack of understanding.
My heart and mind know that bad theology cannot separate us from His love.
Yet my spirit revolts at every misrepresentation, every false doctrine preached from a pulpit using the name of Jesus Christ. My spirit revolts at the thought of every child being taught that God sends people to hell and at concepts like tongues as evidence.
My spirit revolts at anything
that implies that God will not restore all things,
that God does not redeem all things,
and that there are territories that are off limits.
My spirit revolts at concepts like
conformation,
whitewashing,
and exclusion.
The Assemblies of God has been a most unforgiving terrain to carry and uphold these values.
I feel so alone and abandoned by people I hoped to be my friends.
I am angry at their dismissal.
The wound became real this summer.
Over the fall, it bruised.
Today it is locked somewhere deep.
I can’t let it out.
Even if I could, where would it go?
Would it just evaporate?
Would it be absorbed into the black velvet?
My words and thoughts have fallen on deaf ears for so long that I can’t imagine an alternative.
I don’t know where my words end up.. I just know that there has only ever been hints of resonance.
I wonder what the fullness of resonance would feel like.
I wonder if there was a moment in which I felt it.
I think so..
I think there was a moment where I felt and experienced synergy.
[REDACTED]
But then I am snapped back.
No.
True synergy would never allow what has happened.
In many ways, I feel my current position is a result of that moment and its fallout.
I feel angry at the boundaries that were charged in place of closeness,
silence in place of communication,
exclusion in place of recognition.
I feel robbed.
[REDACTED]
