tribe :: being seen

{via pinterest}

i think i have found the most beautiful word :: tribe. 

and honestly, it's a word i used to hate. there was this movie we watched when i was younger. i don't even remember the name. but this woman called her children "the Lacey tribe" and never told people all their names because "life is short and time is precious."

and it made me feel strange, unsettled, even when i was eight. because why wouldn't time be precious enough to list off your own children's names? why lump them into this vile thing...this tribe?

and then i realized something for the very first time, just yesterday, at almost twenty-three years old :: being part of a tribe is about being known.  to take the idea and make it about being identity-forgotten, to strip away the you-light from this candelabra of tribehood, is to destroy the very essence of what it is to be.

because the Lion sang tribes into existence from the soul of the man who wrapped himself in fur and lied, who worked fourteen years for love, who dared to wrestle in the hour of his unknown. and from him there came twelve, and from one came the One. and there is something so precious, so unique about each tribal voice that led to the breathing of the Most High.

being in a tribe, finding your circle and your family of exhale :: it's about being see. it's about gazing and locking eyes with another, the brush of fingers over your cheek to leave a soft painted blessing on your skin.

{via pinterest}

// because you're seen. 

it's not about being smooshed into some sort of grey-hued mass where you blend in, where you simply are. it's about the circling of arms around you as sisters braid your hair and wind your neck with colour. and there in the caves with the soft lap of the water against the stones, the light flicking and the Light flowing from He-Who-Sees gathered in their midst. 

we see you, unique one. 

we know your name. 

and i know theirs. because i'm their family, and they are mine. and we take the time to see their lives and call each soul by name. just as the Lion who sang the stars, one burning flicker of light at a time, and whispered their names in the darkness. 

dearest daughter, 

I have known you long. 

sacred :: remembrance

i awoke with a pull. a voice in my head, whispering things undecipherable and beautiful.

He's trying to tell me something. 


because as i opened my laptop and began to read, soak myself in Lion's song and sister's words, i began to sense a pattern. again, a pull.

because rain wrote of truth in the thin places, of memorials of the sacred moments. and sarah wrote of love up to the dark, of life written out and remembered in Glory.

and i felt my soul crumble, not in the way of broken stones and shattered dreams. but in the way, the way you only understand if you've felt it before.

that crumbling of release and refreshment that comes when walls of fear and shame come tumbling down and all you can  see is the sun and Son, both shining down on your face, but One brighter than the other.

sacred spaces worth remembering etched in ancient lines across palm, 

and did you know that remembrance is synonymous with love? 

love-marked space says 

something special is here, 

something mysterious 

and worthy

 and holy.

:: rain: lullaby for light ::

and oh, how those words pounded tribal of brave to me. 

because memorials frighten me, sometimes. i'm apt to step into His shoes, into that place of writing in the dirt, scribbling hard with bleeding fingertips of every shame and every broken moment. somehow, i feel i must remember my shame, remember why i am unworthy. 

and then come sandal-clad feet, pierced and bleeding. and they are not the silent feet that some focus upon...

no, these are the pounding Feet that stood on the neck of Death and ground him to powder at the base of the Cross. they belong to the Gentlest Warrior who holds Hands high and cries in Lion's roar

Mine. 

and He destroys my memorial to shame. because He did not die so i would remain. oh, He died that i would rise with Him. and together we gather stones with carvings strange and markings still unfamiliar. 

grace. 

forgiven. light. 

eternity. brave. warrioress. 

Mine. 

and on this altar, i burn my rags and stand scarred and unashamed beside my memorial. i am barefoot, in the sacred place. 

He and i both.