dear Focus on the Family, Fantine was a prostitute.

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dear Focus on the Family,

I want to ask you about shame. I want to ask you about the way you dug your hands into a big pail of soapy water and scrubbed away at the dirt that is humanity.

and then I will press the play button on that ancient cassette player and let you listen to the words you wrote down on a piece of paper and handed to a woman to read as she voiced the role of Fatine in your radio drama recording of Les Miserables. 

and then I want to ask you more about Fantine. they called her a prostitute in that alley and she was appalled. you could hear it in her voice, the way she spit the last syllable of her accused profession. "I am not a prostitute," she snaps.

except she was. and you changed it.

did you think you were doing her a favor, tidying her up and making her presentable for the hordes of Christian listeners that would be gathering around their listening devices with their children and their grandparents. did you want to make it easy for them not to answer questions from inquiring little mouths :: daddy, what's a prostitute? 

but really, you did Fatine a disservice. and in the process, you did us all one, too.

Van Jean saves her, gathers her fever-riddled body into his arms, vows to tend to her little girl. the story is beautiful, yes. but it was beautiful the way it was. in fact, it was better before you changed this important detail. 

she is worthy of saving because of her humanity. does supposed morality make her worthy somehow? does her profession of sex worker make her less allowable? or does it make you uncomfortable? that idea that Jean Val Jean, Prisoner 24601, gathers into his arms the body of a woman who has slept with countless men for the money they press into her palm -- does it make you clear your throat and side-step the issue?

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obviously it does. because you took it away. you made her fragile and moral, a newly made virginal woman with a child from long-repented sin, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

what then do you do with this Man, Jesus, as he reached out his hands to the naked woman flung into the dirt with pointed fingers from Pharisees? will you scrub her clean, too, until she is covered from neck to toes with a cloak and pretend no one knows what's underneath?

to love another person is to see the face of God. 

{les miserables}

because when you take away Fantine being a prostitute, you take away the Gospel-glory that clings to the edges of everything. you take away the holy breathing of the One who speaks Life over the gory and the broken and the smelly and the base. He takes the sh***y and pitches His tent there.

so, Focus on the Family, Fantine was a prostitute.
and the glory in that is immeasurable.

barbed wire snapping song

{photo by Elora Ramirez}

we live in a world of barbed wire fences.

we're pressing flesh against sharp points and rough edges. we're desperate enough for touch, for connection, for community, that we are willing to endure the slicing and the bleeding and the tetanus-created lockjaw of silence. and it's all for the sake of being touched.

and here I am, in my home with the hardwood floors and the windows that face the East with the sun flowing in, humming Children of the Heavenly Father with tears in my eyes. because this can't be what He meant when He breathed His name over us like the holiest of commissions.

it's fitting that we're stepping into this time of year, slowly placing one foot in front of another as we approach each station of the Cross, each moment in the journey from Son of Man to Lamb of God. we're approaching His time of broken body. we are standing mere feet away from the blood-stained Israeli stones.

and I'm hushed in the holiness of it all. hushed in the realization that there was the barbed wire of nature that pressed deep into the forehead of fully-Man-fully-God. there was the bits of bone and metal and stone twisted into leather strips that severed skin from muscle and bone.

the barbed wire was destroyed the moment that death started working backwards. 

"it is finished." and He meant it, every weak and agonized syllable. it is done. it is complete. there are no more fences, no more twisted rusted metal gates designed to shred and tear and bleed and sever. it is finished. 

we're good at swords, somehow. we're good at evisceration in the name of love. we're good with breaking, but not so good with loving the broken. we're good with thudding, not so good with the gentle touch. we're good with barbed wire fences and darkened windows.

I want to be good with Jesus. I want to become good with Holiness streaming from my lips like water and Grace filling the baskets surrounding my feet like so much bread and fish created from scraps of "all she has is..."

I don't want to be so good with a sword. I want to be better with wire-cutters. there are wounds, blood, all for the sake of being touched. there is the virus of silence raging rampant through the veins of those who have been bound and gagged by the well-meaning millstone carvers.

but look at yourself, beloved ones. those scarlet letters are written in chalk. the rain is coming, pouring, and they are blurring into streaks that match the glorious sunrise. do you hear? that is the sound of rust caving under blades.

run free, lioness. He has laid flowers in your hair. He is leaping, arms raised and mouth wide open at the joy of you. the sight of you has Him undone.

the night has ended. this is the Morning. 

{beloved, there is room for you with us in community. no barbed wire there. only meadows. 

join us.}

the silent moment :: everything

i remember the night i held a gun to my head. and it was the quietest moment of my life.

i was seventeen. the gun was plastic, a $2 knicknack from WalMart, one of maybe twenty just like it, tossed into a plastic bin and carried from one country to another. i was one of close to four thousand other teenagers all pressed closed and gathered in a Peruvian resort, all in pursuit of discipleship and missions. seven of us felt something tug at us. we were performing the Lifehouse Everything Skit.

it's burned into my head. standing on that stage, the music in the background, every step and movement rehearsed to an art. and how can i stand here with You and not be moved by You....and then came the lifting of the pistol to my head.


it was the most profound hush of my entire life. everything else seemed to fade out, a whisper in the background as i met with the Most High for the first time in the most sacred of ways. it was the first time i ever heard Him speak. and i was holding a plastic gun against my temple.

you're about to throw yourself at Me figuratively

darkness is holding death

throw yourself at Me literally 

i will catch You. 

let go of death, grasp tight to Life

i will catch You. 

{photo by Ron Nickel; property of dramaticelegance}

i was supposed to drop the gun to the floor. 

i threw it across the room. 

i was supposed to lean toward my friend playing Jesus, reaching for his hand. 

i flung myself at Him. 

there were other actors there, playing temptation, lust, deception, distractions. they were there to fight me, to keep me from Him. they were acting, and so was i. but there was something deep in me that was not acting. something had broken inside me. and it got loud inside me for a split second. it was a moment of warring, clawing and clutching for the hand of the Holy One.

and then He dove in and held them back. arms stretched out, He held back the flood. 

and the quiet came again. the hush of the Holy overcame me and something inside me settled. i was on my knees, three thousand miles from my American home and comforts, from my familiar church and my well-known faces. 

He met me there, silent in the crowd 

with a plastic pistol to my head. 

fall fresh on me // avocado

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i've always been captivated by the inside. by the stuff that no one sees, the painting underneath the varnish that was forgotten for a hundred years until one brave chisel flaked away the dark to show the light.

and it's springtime, or almost, and i'm watching as life is fighting winter every minute and every second to find its way out of the ground and into the blue sky world out here.

i saw a little girl find a feather the other day, and she smiled and held it up, and the silken strands were still so strong despise the wind and rain and squashy mud all around. and my soul picked up the feather too and tucked it in my hair, the little girl in my heart throwing back long dark waves of hair and laughing to the sky

Spirit of the living God,
;; fall fresh on me

and i'm starting to find God in the little things again, the things i forgot. and i know i've written here a thousand times about the beautiful ones, the almost hidden ones in the Bible, the ones He noticed that were invisible to everyone else.

it's the slicing of the avocado, that thick black shell melting away under silver to reveal the green of nourishment and the thick pit that holds life at even its tiny tight-locked core. and it's marvelous how much life can be wrapped up in something so wrinkled and unappealing to the eye.

sometimes i feel the pain of that knife slicing so smooth through the vileness that has built up around the life potential He placed in my heart of hearts. and it hurts so that i falter and weep and beg

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Spirit of the living God
:: fall fresh on me

and then the green is seen, and the life tucked away deep within comes to the surface and blooms rich like springtime with glory and life shining from every pore. oh, how i ache to be radiant, to cover my face with a veil for the Light bursting from me to every corner.

now i feel infant fingers pull at long waves of my raven-wing hair, and i bring down my own fingers on the soft ginger gosling down that clings to the head of my beautiful little one. i think of future days when i will brush her hair and tell her about feathers and grace and the Light of the Son.

but for now, she falls asleep on my shoulder and lets loose the sweetest of baby sighs, and i feel something stir deep inside my soul. it's that little girl, tucking the feather behind her ear. she sits beneath a tree with the soles of her feet pressed together and elbows on knees.

and she whispers soft like the newcoming springtime breezes

Spirit of the living God,
:: fall fresh on me

mantra

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there's something about the unknown, something deep that i cannot fully explain, even though i'd like to try. we've become a people set on the solving the unsolvable, unmasking the hidden, and insisting on the knowing and the knowing now. 

but there's a lot of power in these unknown things. and it's okay to exhale and whisper, 

i know naught, save Thee. 

there is so much power in the things that are yet hidden, those things too vast and too beautiful and too strange to comprehend. things He knows, and that i don't. because He is God, and i am not. 

and sometimes i don't know how i'll take one more breath, because life is hard sometimes and the dishes fill the sink and the tears fall to match the shower drops, invisible to all but the One who sees it all.

and there are times i find myself on my knees with the water raining down on my head and strands of hair falling on my face, and the ceramic is the only thing keeping me from falling down through the core of the Earth.

but getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way

to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of 

:: air ::

{sarah kay}

because He is One, and He is Three. and i am body that dies but soul that lives eternal. and i cling to the Rock that is higher than i, and i stand in the storm. 

i want to live from inhale to exhale, and then live again. i want to burn with the holy fire that never goes out, never falters, even in the rain. 

and i lift my hands and sing fire to the sunrise, the mantra of the warrioress that thuds beneath my skin as familiar as my heartbeat. 

i know naught, save Thee. 

{linking again, only redemption, with dear emily and her community of imperfect prose}

Beautiful Scars

"Hate leaves ugly scars; love leaves beautiful ones." ~Mignon McLaughlin

This morning, I took the black, inky tip of Sharpie to my arms.

It goes against everything we were taught as children -- how many times were we scolded for writing on our skin with pens or markers of various sorts?

However, today, I simply cannot think of a better reason to go against the grain.

So, Sharpie in hand, I carefully wrote four simple letters on each arm.

L. O. V. E.

Why?

Because I love you. And I've been there.

To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA, www.twloha.com) is an incredible organization made up of hundreds of people all around the world, standing against the lie that is so commonly whispered in the ears of today's youth.

"Nobody loves you. You're not worth anything. You might as well simply die. All you can do to numb the pain is to draw that razor blade across your wrist. You're nothing."

And so, several times a year, people all around the world take out their Sharpies and write these four simple letters across the skin on their arms for no other reason that to raise awareness regarding depression, hate, self-mutilation, and suicide.

So many people make their way through this world hiding behind a smile, or simply trying to blend into the woodwork. They don't want anyone to know that their hearts are screaming, that their hearts are bleeding for lack of love.

I used to be like that. I tried to keep up a brave face and keep smiling. In fact, very few people even knew that my heart was dying and all I wanted to do was curl up in a corner and simply vanish. I wanted out in the worst way.

My own scars serve as a daily testament to where I was...where I used to be...the musical score to the most agonizing symphony I have ever found myself conducting.

This is why this day means so much to me. I want to the world to know that I've been there. I want those broken, wounded souls to know that they are NOT alone. They ARE loved...and not just by me.

You see, there was once a Man who wrote LOVE in the most ultimate, self-sacrificial way.

He wrote LOVE on His body in blood...in lashes...in thorns...in nails...in the blood-stained splinters of a cross.

And He did it for me.

The reality of this is so powerful to me, as a former broken angel, that it brings tears to my eyes as I sit here thinking about the extreme LOVE that was showered upon me.

I was undeserving. I was broken. Cut down. Covered in scars.

And His blood took my agony, my shame, and my fear.

He LOVED me. He wrote His LOVE on my heart.

He made my scars beautiful.

To Write Love On Her Arms Day -- November 12, 2010

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~Romans 8:38-39