the second page :: foreshadow

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{to read the first chapter, visit here}

another page now to turn, when books and words show more than we dare to realize. because we get stuck, i think with away in the manger when no one really went to this quiet manger where cattle are lowing and babies don't cry.

because there's more to this than just picture-perfect nativity and glowing mother and oh so proud father and stars and a Star that shine down over this little Kodak moment where someone should have had a camera.

sometimes it seems like they did, but they didn't.

there was blood. there was tears and there was pain. and there was a crying child who lay in a pile of straw, wrapped in strips of clean linen,  because the world who should have opened their doors to Him shut them tight and shouted

no room 

no room 

no room 

a hundred thousand times over until a cave cut into rock was His only place to be born.

and then His only place to lay when the hearts of every Pharisee shut tights and cried

no room 

no room

no room 

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a hundred times over. and they wrapped Him in strips of clean linen -- and they laid Him in that cave to rest. not in life, but in death.

and then there were the seekers. the shepherds and the Magi from every walk of life, coming to behold and kneel with gifts of wealth and gifts of hearts.

 because the shepherds were disciples that came and laid their nothing but praise at His feet, because it was all they had. and a man named Joseph was the Magi who gave his garden and his herbs and his never-used tomb. because that was his honour.

and there was the angel in the sky singing "you will find Him lying in a manger. Emmanuel. Jesus." and the seekers ran to Him after waiting all their lives to find this Messiah, this one to save them, their land and their souls.

and then there was the angel again. who sat this time, no singing or multitudes. just the one. but this one's message was just as full of power, if not more.

this time,

He is NOT HERE.

because He is risen.

so the writer in me finds the foreshadow, finds the promise in the silent night and the holy night and the bright and the calm.

and so as i sing, the tears will fall down my face because there is more than sacred touching earth and life being changed as we know it forever by an innocent child soon to become the darkest with our sin. not His, but ours.

fall on your knees,

oh, hear the angel voices.

oh, night divine. 

connection in the Sovereign

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when i tell people that i blog, sometimes i get the strangest looks. when i mention a friend that i have made, how dear she is to my soul but our only connection has been the one that flutters through cyberspace, the looks intensify.

because it doesn't make sense, if you give it too much thought, and if you don't understand.

how does it work, exactly, for women of every walk and every age and every standard to merge their souls and bare their hearts to one another?

does connection take face to face, hand to hand, and breath to breath?

or is it about heart more than flesh?

because there is love that radiates 

from screen to screen. 

there are voices that ring together with laughter over steaming coffee mugs, and then there are the clusters gathered to weep and mourn a broken heart with tears that flow in brokenness, despite the distance.

there is connection. 

this i promise you.

this is the blending of earthy and sacred. i've said it before, and perhaps too often.

but, oh, God became flesh, and gold became straw.

and connections become invisible and fingers touch and grasp together.

these sisters, these seekers that stand together with one hand stretched to Heaven and the other pressed to qwerty keys, they understand.

this is sacred connection of the strangest type.

this is Sovereign sisterhood.

sacred conversations

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ever since my dear rain wrote this post, i've had my eyes open.

every place i go, i study the people who surround me.

do i know you?

i catch myself staring now, perhaps more than i should. 

and i'm overwhelmed with soul. 

did i forget that we all had one, this thing of soul? that strangers have stories too? 

have i simply been ignoring? 

i want to know you

because i know Him. 

i go to Him in prayer a lot. prayers of gratitude, broken pleas for want and need. 

but i forgot that we can have conversations about the day. i can come to Him and sit at His feet and just talk.

just communing. 

God and i have been conversing a great deal lately. 

on tuesday, i wrote about my encounter with meeting broken eyes, in finding honour where shame tends to resides. 

it's becoming a theme

a symphony of sacredness, of humility at the foot of this splintered blood-stained cross. 

what are you seeking? 

are you daring to converse with the King of Kings?

Reflétant

Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?  ~Winnie the Pooh

Tonight, I am taking the time to think.

I'm not sure what it is about tonight that is causing my mind to become lost in thought.

Perhaps it is the fact that the sky is finally calm...after almost three days of storm-churned clouds and pounding rain.

Or that I had my second dose of the final Harry Potter movie tonight, and was reminded yet again just how much my heart belongs in the stone corridors of Hogwarts.

Maybe it was the taste of the entire pack of strawberry Twizzlers I slowly nibbled through this evening until the wrapper was empty and the fruity taste of the only member of the licorice family that I enjoy lingered gently on my lips.

Might it have been the growing list of questions that have begun to collect on my blog...brimming with untouched inspiration, awaiting  my answers in the coming days?

Perhaps it was the way I spent my day...curled on the couch in the company of three other women whom I greatly admire, laughing and weeping and learning together amid plates of summer salads and fresh-cut fruit.

Whatever the cause, my mind is lost in itself tonight.

I'm not even sure what I'm thinking about, to be honest.

I'm simply overflowing with the beauty of life.

My thoughts dazzle me, as though the stars had melted with my dreams, calling me to waltz with them tonight.

There is much to be said for the beauty speaking...

...but there is much unsaid for the elegance of secret thoughts.

And then, when the Empress ran aground / And my eyes turned blue and green, / I heard a gorgeous sound, / And that's when it became a dream / When the sky fell in, / When the hurricanes came for me, / I could finally crash again, / And that's how I became the sea. ~Owl City, How I Became the Sea