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.

beautiful {a fae*rie tale}

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finding beautiful was something she found almost impossible. really, it was something she had to pursue, something she had to chase down. but it was always so far away.

and then she tucked herself in among running water and air-light bubbles. and the chaos still continued outside, the television murmuring and little baby whimpers as sleep claimed her bright blue eyes. but there was silence and stillness and fragrant beauty in the candlelight with the water splashing.

she felt a mermaid there, nestled among the sea-foam that would consume her if she was not careful. her skin glistened and her the ends of her hair dripped sandalwood and night-blooming jasmine. she started to hum, she couldn't help it, in tune with the soft flickering light that swooned around her.

she pondered the grace and wonder of the candle flame, how the light faltered in the breeze of her own lips but then returned stronger and brighter. was that beauty, not something with skin and eyes and hair and the curving shape of lips?

that it was the gentle bending, the fingers curled into hair and lips parted with the harmonizing of a familiar growing Song that was more than just a strain of notes and melody, but a state of being. 

was beauty a sort of surrender? 

:: it was, in fact, the ultimate. 

ink smears

do you know what it's like to hear the voice say

flip the pages and flow

but to have no idea what the flow means? black and white in sunless nights without the urge to fight anymore?

did i forget my passion once again, like the strummer with the broken strings who forgot how to sing in the night we mentioned before?

it's battlescars from movie stars who pinch invisible rolls and wail "i'm fat" and nothing can heal that but reality.

and it's hard to get past that when the mirror speaks lies and the world speaks water for truth but the reality is wine, but we tossed it out with the trash because we counted the calories on the back.

do we remember who we are? 

the chosen people with broken telescopes that won't look past tattoos and high heeled shoes and conceiling black robes that leave everything to the imagination?

we forgot our before with empty shores of seashell glass and glassy eyes and one footprint where two would have failed.

because it's nothing we can done alone. because silence is okay, but pushing the door shut and crying don't let anyone see, don't let anyone in

i feel more broken when i turn my back to Him.

because He already sees, and it's broken hearts that He heals and tattered scrapbooks that paint His portrait when we couldn't even see the road.

so black and white is okay, i think, in the long run when all we have is the sun at our back and the Son at the front where the ink flows and we can acknowledge our broken pieces.

so pick up your pen, dusty traveller,

the dawn is here and the ink is flowing.

{linking imperfection with emily}

three things :: spoken word

sometimes i wanna write what i feel.

i want to take what i see and do the undone and fix the unfixed and light the snuffed candle all over again. but then i look and i say, do i even see? do i even know anything?

and so i take my pen and my paper and my too-many thoughts and i sit and i wonder just what might happen if i knew something, anything at all.

i watch the people, feet on pavement and pavement on feet. and i realize what i know.

i know three things, because sarah kay says good things come in threes, and she's right, after all.

:: i know that light kills the dark ::

and when you're walking in the dark and there's nothing but a match in your pocket, it's a good thing to know. and when you're walking in the Night and there's nothing but a verse in your mind reminding to be still and know that I AM...it's a good thing to know.

:: i know that art is the voice even when it never speaks ::

i know that sometimes the silence of a paintbrush screams SEE ME and the whisper of just one wavering note in the empty concert halls cries I CAN DO THIS AFTER ALL and the raised arm on a stage is the salute to all things undone and all things done over and over and done well.

:: i know that mystery is just that, and it's okay to not know ::

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i know that knowing is part of the battle, and when you don't know what you know that it can crush and scare and be unsure. but it's okay to have a mystery that you don't understand.

and it's okay to let Him be the mystery of Love and Flesh and Man and God all in one small infant bundle, growing up up up to be Death and Life and Salvation and Water and Broken Bread with Wounds that Heal.

that is what i know. no more shaking ground for i stand on What, on Who i know.

because i write what i feel and i feel what i know. and i know Him and little else. but that's power, okay? that Light is more than enough. that Water is more than enough.

because i know these things. Him and Him only.

everlasting, time over time, from age to age.

Alpha and Omega, You answer. because You know

more than three things. 

Poem

Poetry should... should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance. ~John Keats

I've had an obsession with poetry as long as I can remember.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have been pouring over old, leather-bound volumes, lost in the elegance of the poetic word.

I don't know why the deep and extremely graceful words of poetry have caught my heart the way they have since my youth. It's not something I can really explain, any more than I can explain my love of chocolate or horse-hair paintbrushes.

Maybe it's the openness.

Poetry has an intimacy that prose simply cannot touch.

A strange sort of melodic power unlike any other written form.

It's curious, really.

Prose, the telling of story or the recording of facts in a narrative fashion...it has a magic all its own. But poetry...the incredible flow from line to line, the whisper of thoughts and dreams once hidden, now laid bare.

Both are magic. Both are intimate.

But only one

Can break the rules,

Change the game

And still hypnotize

The soul.

The smell of ink is intoxicating to me - others may have wine, but I have poetry. ~Terri Guillemets

Real

I have OWD. Obsessive-writer disorder. It's a fact.

I will spend hours staring at the same blank page, racking my brain for something to write. And it can't be just any old nonsensical idea. It has to be perfect. Flowing. Grammatically correct. Poetic, while still being real. Tonight alone, I have started and erased about ten different blog posts.

Why?

...so many reasons.

I have people that read my blog that don't even know me. All they have are these words, sporadically typed up and published by a nineteen year old wanna-be writer who's nuts about Jesus Christ, cares too much, loves until she's got nothing left, and might just be a little be insane.

And honestly, I was at the point tonight when I didn't even know if I was gonna even write anything worth publishing. Again.

But then, I got to thinking.

There's about five people in my life who know me on an extremely intimate and personal level. They've seen the beauty, the ugliness, the tears, the heartbreak: my husband, my parents, my sister, and my two best friends. And every single one of them has told me at one point or another that I mean the world to them...just they way I am.

Last night, my husband kissed me in the grocery store parking lot for no reason whatsoever. He just grabbed me, put his arms around me, and kissed me. We've been kissing one another for almost two years; the kiss itself wasn't uncommon. But there was something about that innocent kiss that made my eyes well up. Jon has endured a lot in the 2 1/2 years that we've been together, and even more since in our 9 months of marriage. And even after the fights, the pink socks, the late dinners, and the lack of blankets, he still loves me enough to sweep me off my feet and remind me of just how much he loves me.

So now, I've decided. No more over-scrutinizing. No more self-degradation.

I'm done.

I'm going to be real. I'm going to shoot straight. I'm not going to worry about being the world's best blogger, or the most perfect writer. I'm not going to hide any more.

I'm tossing my mask on the rubbish heap.

I'm going to be me.

Girl, 19. In love with and sold out for Jesus Christ.

Madly in love with the man who stole my heart and made me his bride.

Artistic, emotional.

Loving hard, caring deeply, heart on my sleeve.

Blessed with two of the most amazing parents and sweet-hearted sister in this world.

Has two incredible best friends, and a whole host of remarkable friends who make my world shine.

Slightly insane, but that's okay.

Because that's me.