meeting broken eyes

{via pinterest

i never know what to say to them,

to those men with the dirty clothes and outstretched fingers. to the guitar-toting girls on the median with their cardboard signs and hand-sewn jackets. 

their eyes might be pleading, but i wouldn't know.

because i never look. 

because for some reason, i am ashamed to meet their faces.

 it's not fear i feel.

they're the ones without homes or jobs or money. but i'm the one with a blush of embarrassment and low-ducked head.

i need to learn to look. 

because there are souls behind that filth. 

i remember a little girl me holding her daddy's hand, feeling so self-conscious in my green velvet cape, while my daddy handed red and yellow-arched "dollars" to these men and women with nothing to eat and no place to go. 

even then, i was shamed into silence.

into lowered eyes.

not just here in this country, but across oceans too. 

people with nothing, they frighten me. not because i'm afraid of them...

...but i'm afraid for them, and my heart burns with the shame of having so much.

i measure my shame with theirs and keep a down-turned face.  

these people have so much soul. 

{via pinterest}

sometimes Jesus is in cinnamon apples and warm home hospitality between sisters. 

and sometimes He finds us in the pews and kneeling benches of candlelit cathedrals. 

but sometimes 

He is in the small.

 in the filthy. 

the shamed. 

the dirty beards and faces lined with so much grief and battered old guitars. 

He is in those haunting eyes which i must learn to lift my head to meet with a smile that speaks Jesus to the emptiness. 

because i forget who He is. 

i forget that there is heart there. that every situation is different, and Jesus sits amid the unwashed hands and eyes that i ache to see. 

the eyes that speak volumes that are yet unwritten but should be. there are stories here.

i just need to raise my head 

and meet their eyes. 

casa

{via pinterest}

i'm home again.

it's a weird feeling, being back in my little apartment with all my own trappings and comforts of life.

traveling seems to transform my view on the world a bit more each time. showing me new corners, but then reminding me of the comfort of my home when i finally do return.

currently, it's freezing outside. it's the kind of day where i want to just curl up with a mug of soup and a really great book. perhaps even close my eyes and tuck myself under a quilt for a little winter's nap.

florida was warm and tropical. waving palms and crashing ocean waves onto the sandy beach. sand everywhere, wind in my hair.

in that place, my best friend became a wife. family was bonded and friendship for all of life to come were forged amid the dunes and ocean spray.

now the Midwest winds are blowing and the skies are so grey that the blue of summer is almost forgotten.

but my travels brought me back to this.

there is not home. there is a moment away.

{via pinterest}

this is my place. 

this is my corner. 

blue skies and sand are for some, and i love it when they bring me in and share their scrap of glory.

but cold winds and winter's swift coming

this is my place now. 

so i will find my comfort in worn novels and steaming mugs of tea. in patchwork quilts and bubbling tureens of soup. in the fall lineup of television shows and the caress of familiar laughter.

this is my corner 

my dwelling.

and i will grow here. shiver here.

love here.