Adam's Sin was Silence

"When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it." - Genesis 3:6

To the head-over-heels schoolboy seeking his schoolgirl

Who is the apple of his eye, a beautiful pearl

That giggles at his jokes with her hair on a twirl

Go out audaciously and show her the world

To the employee that is overworked and underpaid

Whose contentment is nothing but a big charade

On the belief that opposition is like pinless grenade 

Fear not the ghastly expressions of those dismayed

To the girlfriend that has received one too many beatings

Whose radiance and faith seems ever-fleeting

For having suspected a boyfriend who was cheating

Be free and proceed with your therapeutic meetings

To the high school speech class trainwreck

Whose t-shirt pools as sweat runs down his neck

Because this moment is the summation of the entire trek

Do not worry about their opinions for they are but mere specks

Proclaim your love no matter the stakes.

Profess your displeasure as it is no mistake.

Scream to the masses despite your aches.

Speak the truth even if your voice shakes.

Let all those with lips have their inner-prophet awoken.

God gave you words, so let them be spoken

Tiny waves

"“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus." - Matthew 14:28-29

In perfect harmony, the tiny waves rushed over the cold, dampened sand that lined the shore. Shells and oh-so flat rocks, longing to be skip-p-p-ped mixed themselves in to the sand, a beige rainbow.

The water was cold, chilling to the touch. Every once in a while, against the uniformity, a large wave--which is really just a group of determined tiny waves working together--would come and spray the glossy blue water far past the markings of the daily high-tide.

Peter grabbed hold of a fishing net as he was so used to doing on early mornings like these, except this time it was to make room. With the others, like the tiny waves working together, they pushed their quaint boat off the shore. With a point in his brow, Peter turned in time to see his footprints in the sand- and then they were gone, washed over by a group of tiny blue waves.

Bobbing up and down, the fragile boat stewarded their heavy hearts well. Engulfed in fog, silence was over the surface of the deep. Subtle sounds of water meeting wood complimented the eerie rising sun that was barely visible off the surface of the water. 

With sunshine of a new dawn glistening off their moistened and downtrodden faces, Peter watched them dream. Deep down, Peter dreamed himself awake, his imagination unrelenting. Aspirations of security and belonging and even purpose, he floated away. Anything but the mundane.

Eyelids cracked open, adrenaline pumped. Boat still bobbing up and down with the current of the waves, it seemed as if everything stood still. There He stood, or swam, or floated, upon the glassy blue border where hearts of stone sink. He radiated.

Though He stood stoic, calm, and confident, the crew of bobbing men sat doubtful, paralyzed. With a ghastly, unsure tone, Peter, of all men, spoke up. His whispers were nearly overshadowed by the still-crashing waves.

The water was cold, chilling to the touch. They stood on the glossy blue water, together, soles dampened.

He was floating on waves of security and belonging and purpose. Peter's cold, wet feet tell a story of faith louder than his mouth ever could.

A place called home

I've never heard of a place called home. I've never heard of a place where I could rest my head and my heart and my mind and my soul. I've never heard of such a place... until I heard of you.

Home is a place where mercy reigns. A place where grace is abundant. Love in this place? Love is like an ocean without a shore; a nation without borders. This place. This home.

Home where is where you fill in the cracks with pure gold. Home is where you repair and mend and fix and craft something beautiful out of something horrible.

Home is where I take off my shoes, personalized holy ground longing to be occupied. The place where my soles track dirt and grime. The place where my soul tracks dirt and grime. You clean it effortlessly.

Home is where I exhale. You breathe into me the breath of life. I soak it in. I savor it. I never want to let it go, but there it goes. You breathe into me again, like waves crashing elegantly into the shore, in and out in perfect harmony.

Home is absent of rhythm. Walls, barriers, shields, armor, masks line the carpeted floor in perfect un-uniformity. It's a place where "having it all together" is impossible and unnecessary.

If only I was a linguist whose knowledge of words spanned past language barriers. And if only I had a 26-volume encyclopedia set, including the world's largest dictionary and most expansive thesaurus. 

But here I stand with nothing but my own experience. I've been reigned on and flooded over. I've been broken and have the gold-filled cracks to boast. I've had my soles and soul washed and made new. I've been left breathless. I've taken off my mask.

Where is this place called home? Experience shows it is wherever You are.

Resilient light

"Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper." - 1 Kings 19:11-12 

I began walking down the street as the large summer sun slowly made its descent over the horizon. Pointy polygon shadows produced by red roofs cover the street with a calm intentionality. 

There are no cars. There are no barking dogs. There are no young boys or girls learning to ride their bikes. The streetlights crack on, plagued with synchronized arthritis as they eventually transition from weak flickers to onslaughts of fluorescence. 

I look above the white, dented garage doors to my right to see shining numbers of gold and silver. Flags wave. Basketball hoops stand almost-straight. The world is as it should be.

Yet inside of me, deep down in the roots of my being, things are not as they should be. 

Still walking, pacing through life's streets, I come over a small hill. I rub my eyes. I rub them again for good measure. Off in the distance, your house is brightly lit. There is not a single cover on any of your lamps. The air is salty.

Deep down, I am torn and broken, astonished and blown away by the magnificence of this beauty. The beauty of failure. It is not in the vast and colorful résumé of spirit and truth that I find beauty, but with my lack thereof. Before this day, I stood at achievement's feet, a mountain I was not able to climb solo, awaiting my award. Achievement was cruel and I'm certain they still are. I never failed when I hiked with you.

The pressing feeling starts in my feet; sandals producing well-deserved blisters. My calves stretch and stress gradually as I keep my eyes fixated on your house at the bottom of the hill. I stomp the pavement so gracefully as it slaps the soles of my feet back.

In my core, I am shaken by the expansive vocabulary others use to sum up feelings of guilt. Yet here I stand, mouth agape and tongue dry from the very same words, used to sum up feelings of guilt. My guilt. Every time I would hear those words, they flooded over me like an ocean. The seabed was my only resting place. I never felt this guilt when I swam with you.

The air thickened as I drew closer to your extremely illuminated house. A fog rolled in slowly, covering a multitude of shins and sprinklers and hydrants. Your lights continued to shine through it, though.

As far down as my roots go, I am burning with anger. A terrifying giant, equipped with a hot-red face and closed fists, weapons of mass reduction, consistantly wearing myself down and down and down. A heavy heart of anger outweighs a clear head of peace. I always felt at peace with you. I never burned with anger when I fought the fight with you.

Three gentle yet firm knocks in quick succession. I took a breath of fog and perked my ears. Silence infected the air. What if I failed to catch you before you left?

I knocked yet again, a little less gentle. The hard wooden door stops my already-sore knuckles in their tracks. Silence meets me in this place. What if my guilt repulsed you, sending you in the complete opposite direction?

I smashed desperately on that dampened door, one more time. Just one more time, I needed to. Only silence.

I turned the rounded and wobbly doorknob and pushed in. It opened, like I knew it would. You looked at me as you sat comfortably in your favorite chair, your body not fully turned towards me. Beyond you, the glimmer of a roaring fire in the fireplace. I step inside.

This is no house, this is home. This ground is holy. I take off my sandals. Closing the door behind me, I turn to go sit with you. You stand up from your chair, slowly and cautiously as you always do. You walk up to me, the fire still crackling loudly behind you. With your hands firm on my shoulders, you look directly into my eyes and smile. For a moment, silence reigned once again.

"Welcome home" you whispered gently. Oh so gently you whispered it.

With you again, at last.

My winding escalator

Truth be told, my mind has been running a lot lately. Truth be told, I let it. 

Truth be told, I return back to ideas and concepts and thoughts like a fool returns to his folly, like Wile E. Coyote returning to the Roadrunner. Wile E. Coyote did say it best though, "It is the curse of an addict to chase the thing that destroys you."

My heart would love to stop and rest, but my mind is always up for a good chase. Some thoughts carry little weight: clothing, technology, trends. Others carry more: blessings, opportunities, friends. Some carry more weight than I wish to admit: personal weaknesses, shame, death.

All too often, I find myself in a place I know too well. It's a winding escalator and it's moving down. I find myself thinking heavy and weighty thoughts, the heaviest and the weightiest, all while I'm descending on this winding escalator.

As it takes me down, I look outward. I see the stars and I see the planets and I'm in awe. I wonder how it all works, I wonder why Jupiter's Great Red Storm never stops, I wonder if it all weighs more than my thoughts. I can't help but feel that it doesn't.

I turn to go back up, but the weight of all my thoughts is too great. The first few steps are hard but I make it up them with my own strength. As I stop to rest, the escalator takes me down and down and down and my progress is lost. It's almost like I'll never be able to do it alone. It's almost like I wasn't made to carry this magnitude of weight on my own.

Though, truth be told, there is one thought that trumps all. There is one thought that is more than just a hyperactive imagination or an extremely fascinating concept or a good idea for a best-selling novel, there is one thought that's a reality. My reality.

It's true, it's the curse of the addict to chase that which destroys them, but I am not an addict to these trivial thoughts. I'm not addicted to thoughts that hardly weigh me down like technology or trends. Nor am I addicted to heavier thoughts like blessings or friends. And I'm definitely not addicted to thoughts like shame or death.

I'm addicted to grace.

And though it is true, this addiction to grace destroys me, it picks up the pieces and crafts them into something, something more breathtaking than any thought I've ever had, something new.

This thought and reality triggers an emotional response deeper than shame, death, or the universe for that matter.

I think it's because the genius behind this crazy idea of grace holds the universe in His hand, winding escalator and all.

A defeated shadow

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me: your rod and your staff, they comfort me." - Psalm 23:4 

"I assured you it would be okay, that everything would turn out better than you could ever know. You looked at me with doubt. I could tell by the way your eyebrows bent toward your nose and the glimmer of a soon-to-be tear in your eye, you were scared. You turned and looked ahead, at the valley before us. You took a step forward but I pulled you back. Before going any further, I grabbed your hand. You grabbed mine back and gripped it tightly, so tightly. We stepped forward, together.

At first you kept your head up, your eyes not straying to the left or to the right. All seemed to be well. In the beginning, your footsteps were small, the first followed quickly by the second, yet not too far apart. Eventually, it seemed as though they got longer and you began to walk more confidently. For a split second, it almost felt like you loosened your grip on my hand.

You turned your head, only for a moment, but it was one of the longest moments. Harder than anything you've ever experienced, it hit you head on. With your head turned, you didn't see it coming. With your head turned, you almost forgot I was there. But you didn't; you squeezed my hand and I squeezed back.

It was clear how that hit affected you. Your steps got closer and closer to each other and they came much slower. You never let go of my hand, even others may have thought I wasn't there, you never let go.

And as we took each step forward, together, I wondered what you were thinking. I wondered if you were scared. I wondered if you were exhausted. I wondered if you were heartbroken.

Your lips didn't move. They didn't mutter a word, they didn't speak a sentence, they didn't open at all. But your heart did.

Your heart yelled out, piercingly loud, a shout that echoed through the valley of the shadow of death, the deepest, darkest, and longest valley that we've ever set foot in together. Though your lips didn't budge, your heart cried out, 'Lord, I'm scared. Father, I'm exhausted. God, my heart is broken into millions of pieces.'

As a smile grew on my face, I squeezed your hand tighter. I always knew your strength, even when your actions didn't confirm it. I always knew your emotions, even when your face didn't show it. And I always knew your heart, even when your lips didn't speak it. 

'God, I need your strength.' You said to me. 'I can't do this without you.'

And even when your strength was running low, when it seemed reasonable to stop and rest, you kept walking. You kept putting your left foot in front of your right, and then putting your right foot in front of your left, still on the path through the valley of the shadow of death. But yesterday, the shadow of death lost. Today, the shadow of death will lose to me again. And tomorrow, the shadow of death will lose once more.

You gripped my hand tighter and immediately I squeezed back, assuring you that I'm still here."

Eraser marks

"For we are God’s masterpiece." - Ephesians 2:10 

"I watched as you reached into your drawer of supplies. You pushed and pulled, scrambling up the contents. I could tell by the way you tossed things around exactly what you were looking for. Crayons, pens, pencils, paintbrushes, every last thing you could possibly create art with, but you pulled out an eraser.

This time, you weren't trying to create something, you were trying to change something: yourself.

You did your best to change every last thing about you. You changed your friends to your enemies, your compliments to your insults, your "definitely-nots" to your "definitelys"... You tried to change it all.

You left me heartbroken, crying over my own artwork.

With everything you had, you tried to change who you were. I don't know why, but you did. You tried and tried and tried, but it was left at that, you merely tried.

I loved you, adored you just the way I made you. I created you-- you were and still are my masterpiece, the one that I boast about, the one that will never be topped.

You called yourself horrid, unlovable, and worthless. You aren't the Creator, but you are the created, so be careful about how you talk about someone else's artwork, someone else's masterpiece.

You thought you saw through it all, that you saw what others didn't. You were wrong.

What you didn't see is that I didn't draw you in pencil, erasable, I drew you in pen, or even permanent marker. There was no way I could ever make a mistake, not on someone as important as you.

And I didn't."