in which I want to talk about the lambs

I want to talk about the children. I want to talk about the little ones, the least of these, the ones with single-digit years on this earth who have already lost more than any adult should endure. let alone them.

I want to talk about hills to die on and covering Blood and swords and flailing arms. I want to talk about planted flags and crossed arms. I want to talk about little ones caught in the crossfires.

I want to talk about politics and the Church, how somewhere in the middle they merged into a hydra with foaming mouths and breathing fire. I don't know where the Bride went, and I think her Groom is grieving.

I want to talk about eyes. I want to talk about the way the world is watching our every move. I want to talk about how a leader who identifies with Jesus Christ and also with the ugliest of hate died this past week, and how the world rejoiced and danced in the streets. because they hate us, and we wonder why. they taste the word "Christian" on their tongue and spit it out. His name makes up the first part, and they're spitting Him out because of us.

it's rending me.

{photo via pinterest}

I want to talk about how this day left me short on words. I want to talk about the grooves that heels are grinding in the dirt with the kicking and the screaming while He is writing in the dirt right beside us, phrases familiar and convicting.

He says, let the little children come, and do not forbid them. we say, but Jesus, we're doing this for You. 

a friend of mine called it "holding the least of these as hostages in [a] culture war," and he's right. because where you stand on the issue isn't the point. it's really not. the point is that we are commissioned. to set the captives free, to tend to the widows and the orphans, to give a cup of cold water to these little ones.

did we forget? did somewhere, somehow, the footprints on the beach and the trace reminders of the Son of Man serving breakfast on the beach disappear? because I can't stop picturing His face, the gentle lift of His head, His meeting Peter's eyes and softly speaking, "oh Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me? feed my lambs."

we've missed something big, something intrinsic to who He is, this Son of Man, this Prince of Peace. today made it clear.

I can't stop hearing His voice.

do you love Me?
feed my lambs.

magnolia roots ::

{via pinterest}

i drove in my car today with the windows down with the blossom breezes flooding my nose. and i inhaled and my heart whispered to my soul, this is my sea. because some people have seaside breezes with salt and adventure, while i have suburbia with its sidewalks and blooming magnolia trees.

and the cherry blossoms swayed in the breeze and murmured, remember what you have remembered. 

because i think a lot about the trees during the springtime when everything becomes new and green. and i think about Jesus and the blind man, and the spit made mud smeared on his eyes by the hands of the One that kissed the dirt to life in the first place.

what do you see?
i see men...they look like trees, walking about.

and maybe he was right on point with this strange metaphor. we are more than human, more than flesh and bone and sinew and blood. we have roots that sink down, down deep into the soil, reaching and winding together with all the others, and the Life that pours from one enters the other.

unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. 

and alone is something that doesn't touch, an empty death of sorts, a vague immortality that leaves the seeker empty-handed and the warrior without a sword.

{via pinterest}

i'm all about seeking these days, becoming the one with the mud-smeared eyes, because i want to see what He sees and less of what i think i should be seeing. i want to see Truth, not some misshapen passed-around hat that reeks of foolishness and the sweat of too much doing and not enough peace be still.

and i'm tired of looking around to seeing one closed door after another while the least of these is standing in the middle of the street naked and alone. and so many offended cheeks are turned while the Son of the Most High weeps in harmony with the cries of His beautiful lonely ones.

and so i'm being a tree with magnolia flowers in my hair and reaching out my fingers to the ones with the words i can't even bring myself to type streaked in tears and blood on their faces. i'm reaching out my roots to touch a thousand faces and draw them in where peace abounds.

she was forgiven much
because she loved much.

{a beautiful sister is giving away a piece of her sea, of the mermaid she is within. you can find rain and her beautiful life-giving giveaway here.}

upward gaze ::

{via pinterest}

i've decided to stop looking down

because all that's down there is grass and dirt and my feet and the path less traveled. 

and He's not underground anymore, because He's risen and now sits among the stars. and i'm going to spend my hours in the stars this spring. no more shame with downcast eyes and hesitant steps that aren't exactly sure, that aren't exactly steadfast. 

now that she's back in the atmosphere

with drops of Jupiter in her hair

she acts like summer and walks like rain

reminds me that there's a time for change ::

drops of jupiter // train

people are living on the "even the..." too much these days, while i'm rubbing the eraser over those words until they disintegrate into thin rubber strands on the paper and get brushed away as far as the East is from the West. 

i'm resolving and loving regardless. and that includes loving you in the skin you're in, and looking past sex and race and orientation because those are words but they're are who you are, too. because He didn't stop and pass out checkboxes just to make sure the crowds were lovable before He stretched out His arms and poured out pints and pints of redeeming blood. 

so why do i?

so no more looking at the crowds with pointed fingers, Church-Bride. no more figures where faces should be. see the dove daughters and rainbow hued sons and paint-streaked kings and offbeat queens, just like He did. 

and that means loving you too. it means loving me like i'm worthy of His death and rising and loving and sword to the throat of Hell for me, oh all for me. and for you. and them.

:: amen.

so let it be.