:: joy dance

{via pinterest}

the pursuit of joy is a dance, a thing of glory.

it's feet placed squarely against smooth cool wood, that slight intake of breath right before the music starts, a matched exhale with that very first note.

happiness can be found easier, under the stones that cover the bed of a stream or right between the complimenting syllables that trip so sweetly from the lips of an admired one. 

but joy. ohh, joy is the elusive White Stag of the Great Lion's master plan that leads you in a mighty chase to place you direct in the center of His roaring triumph.

see, I am doing a new thing, a mighty thing.
joy, joy, joy!

it's a majestic thing to be in the center of this whirlwind of joy. because to get to this center, this pearl in the midst, there comes that grain of sand tucked in the sensitive corners of the soul.

the rubbing and the aching brings the sorrow.
and then comes the dawning in a rumble of Lion's song and dew-drenched blades of grass.

joy is something sought after, something requested and then begged for, a thing that draws the greatest and the lowest to knocking on the door with flattened palms and an urgency incomparable. joy is not the feeling. it is the being. it is not the treasure, it is the hunt.

you would not have called for Him had He not been calling for you. 
{paraphrased from C.S. Lewis}

and so joy is a dance, a leap and a skip that can be done alone but is better with two, with clasped hands and fingers raised and head thrown back.

{linking today with beautiful emily and the imperfect prose community}

quirk

quirky people make the world.

especially those of us who pass daily down the pavement without even a whisper of those little wonders that make so odd...so perfectly unique?

do we suddenly awaken to realize that we bite our nails, that we always tap-tap the top of our soda cans, that we turn off every light in the house except the one above the bathroom mirror?

and those are just the little ones.

i think we all have habits that even we don't realize.

the quirks that make us unique, the ones that set us apart from everyone else in the world.

i'm the biggest advocate of quirk. maybe it's because i have so many of my own.

i'm all about embracing the individual. because we weren't made to fit. we were made to break.

we were created to stand out, to be set apart.

why blend? 

we weren't made to swim with the other fish.

we were made to leap with the whales, to sing with the dolphins.

 perhaps it is our calling to be the odd ones.

 we are the nose-wrinklers and the coffee-drinkers. the sun-singers and the music-wearers. the ones that dance to no music and write when inspiration seems to be a thousand miles away.

“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.” ~Marilyn Monroe 

so embrace those habits, those weird little things that make you sigh and smirk and giggle.

please don't let the world crush your song.

broken dreams make beautiful mosaics, after all.

catch the sun. sing His song.

be a quirk, little one. 

Phantom

I remember... there was mist. Swirling mist upon a vast glassy lake... There were candles all around, and on the lake there was a boat... And in the boat, there was a man. Who was that shape in the shadows? Whose is that face in the mask? ~Phantom of the Opera

Every one of us is chasing a phantom.

A masked, hidden part of ourselves that is locked away behind some elegantly created facade in which we seek to find a more absolute answer to the questions burning within us.

For some, this phantom is love. The ache to be accepted and adored just as they are...the ability to be honest and free, to feel the arms of someone around them when the moon hides behind the clouds and nightmares invade.

Perhaps it is an escape from loneliness and the fear of never being needed by anyone, spending the rest of one's days with only mocking photographs and painful scars as companions...

...or a sort of monetary stability where the worries of tomorrow fade into a blackness of foolish trivialities.

My own phantom is a burning need to know. A need to discover what there is about me that makes me special...unique...different. What would make someone want to be with me, to know more about me than just my name and what colors are my favorites? Is this surmised uniqueness even true?

These phantoms have fingers of fire that brush ours cheeks with a burning flash of ice...a voice of whispering doubt that echoes in the darkness of starless midnights. These demons haunt our minds and plague our souls with their poisonous beauty and razor-sharp comfort.

It is in these moments of solitary darkness and overcoming despair that we grasp our Light and face the blackness boldly. We face our phantoms with Truth, revealing their mysterious sort of beauty as nothing more than skeletal monsters, teeth bared to rip out our hearts.

We call them as they are: Deception, Fear, Shame, Faithless.

...turn from them. Run to the One who is Faithful, True, Honor, and who Endures Forever.

He is no phantom.

He is real.

"He has redeemed my soul from the [dark] pit; and my life shall see the light." ~Job 33:28