permission to chase {page seven}

it came again, the silence. that breathing calm after the storm that often follows a bursting of bravery. the words -- my own words, those from the lips of others -- have been burning deep within me, a fire in my bones.

i've felt a little unravelled and a lot vulnerable. i opened my heart to the world in my last post, gutting myself and pouring out my grief toward the broken Church like a drink offering on the ground. so many thought i was dropping the title of Christian into the mud and making a point to stomp and grind my heels against it until there was nothing left. 

:: but that wasn't it at all. instead, i took the moniker and set it loose on the sea, like a message in a bottle, a page out of my Story. 

i want to reach out and take the hand of every person who wrote me harsh or concerned or confused. i want to draw them into my arms and whisper, i'm scale-shedding. i'm not leaving Him on the sand. on the contrary, He and i are wandering the beach together. He's not afraid of wandering. 

 i am the lover and the loved, home and the wanderer, 

she who splits firewood and she who knocks, a stranger in the storm.

:: adrienne rich 

those words up there, they epitomize this thing i'm doing, this thing i'm letting Him do. i'm letting Him strip me down, bare and scandalous. He knew the scars were there, but i'm letting Him see them. i'm dropping the arm and letting the tears fall. my eyes are closed, yes, but the arm is down. 

i said before i was tired. when i was young, there was this slogan, this little smiling fish swimming the opposite direction of all the other frowning fish. go against the flow. but i couldn't help but look at that little fish and wonder, aren't you tired? 

i always thought the point was that He lifted off the too-heavy yokes, stripped away the heavy chains that were exhausting to drag around. He never wanted to trade one weight for another. 

Mandy etched words in the front of my copy of Thrashing about with God :: to the one who chases Light and makes space for sacred selah. we've never met, but she breathed those truths over my soul like oxygen, and i'm gasping, even though i had no idea just how empty my lungs were. i'm breathing in the Holy, the Wild, the Spirit, the Lion's Breath. it's all my soul can handle. 

i feel like my spirit has dreadlocks, twisted knotted things of beauty cascading down that i'm just starting to appreciate. but the well-meaning Church keeps pressing a comb into my hand, whispering, you're knotted. go straighten yourself out and come back in. you'll fit better. 

but i'm drawn to the One that's beaming Light down into my soul, the One who broke my chains and turned me wild and fierce. i'm running, flitting, chasing after Him.

and i can hear His voice on the wind,

I like your hair. 

:: dreaded souls :: imperfection

{via pinterest}

i've fallen in love with dreadlocks.

i'm not sure when this attraction began, when i first felt the pull toward these tangled twists of hair. i wasn't anticipating to have my heart transformed by a styling of hair.

but dreadlocks have woven themselves into my soul, this thing of turning hair into art, of pushing boundaries in the safest ways.

i associate them with artists, with canvas-breathers and word dancers. those curls that brush against the cheek of the bowed head over djembes and battered acoustic guitars.

there's something rich and so flooded with soul when art and dreads combine, a portrait in itself. it's ink swirling onto wood, it's light pouring through the window panes and casting colour and shadow everywhere.

it's unintentional art turned into powerful intention

 maybe i love them, these dreadlocks, because they're me.

is that too much, to compare myself to a style of freedom and tangled beauty that i can never fully comprehend?

who imagined such beauty could ever come from this? who invented this Light?

a tangle of smoothness, taking something once simple, twisting up into a complicated simplicity that changes souls as well as faces. it's imperfection, and it's beautiful.

and that's art. 

all on its own. 

and i've fallen in love.

and He who sit on the throne said, "see, I am making all things new." and He said, "write, for these words are faithful and true."

i may never have dreadlocks of my own. they aren't something my Love appreciates, being one who takes pleasure in my smooth hair.

but my soul is dreaded. 

i'm bound to embrace this imperfection that follows my feet. why would i not breathe it in, accept these imperfections and make them beautiful.

if He makes all things new, all things good, all things beautiful -- then this i ache to emulate. i want to follow in His footsteps, stepping down the path with the ambition to dwell in His mercies

to make all things beautiful. to take my imperfections and make them into Art.

to make them dreaded.

{linking imperfection with emily today}