I send you...

I wrote this for a few different friends who are walking through some very difficult times.
These are my words to them.

I Send You

I send you warmth on a cold winter's night.
I send you quiet moments to be still in the presence of your God.
I send you a tiny spark into your darkness
to light your way when you don't know which way is up and which way is down.
I send you hope in the most unlikely of people
to speak a kind word into your ear
or a smile into your eyes.
I send you freedom from secrets and expectations you've long held onto.
I send you freedom to change and to grow into the person you were created to be
and patience in the process.
I send you the strength to be laid bare and broken and vulnerable
before a community that loves you
and a God that loves you even more.
I send you peace in those moments of despair and loneliness.
I send you truths and stillness to calm your anxious thoughts
to give your weary body rest.
I send you strength and courage
to sit with the anger, the pain, the guilt, the disappointment, the sadness, and the loss,
to watch it change shape, soften and transform
into something new and holy and good.
I send you powerful moments of knowing
deep down in your bones and insides that you are kept and you are loved.
I send you grace.
I send you grace into darkest corners of your being,
places you wish to be left unseen.
I send you the lightness that comes with a burden lifted and sins forgiven.
I send you the feeling of God's love
in every pulsation of your heart and every breath let free from your chest.
You are so deeply loved.
Know that.

trust that something will grow from nothing

Two posts in one day, can you tell my workload is dwindling? Or maybe it’s my procrastination that has taken on all new levels as I just have one more paper left…anyhow, I was searching through old emails for quotes, because I often send quotes to myself so I can remember them later. I came upon an old email I had written to my friend Emily in Colorado. My roommate Mel had just moved back to Seattle and I had just moved into my studio and I was feeling the loneliness of starting anew. I had spent most of my energies maintaining friendships in Seattle or with friends across the states and with my roommate, that I had not formed a community in Portland. I wrote about how hard it is to have no community or to experience glimpses of it here and there as friends would visit only to be left wanting more. What stuck out in the email was this, “It's so hard to trust that something will grow from nothing”.

I stopped as I read that again. Something has grown from nothing. An amazing community has grown from nothing. I had felt so far out in the desert, so far from community and so far from people that know me. Fast forward. To open my eyes now and feel so supported and encouraged by the people around me, to find a community that bears one another’s burdens, that is open and honest with their struggles, that loves in all circumstances- I am just blown away. How did this happen? It reminds me of the movie Under The Tuscan Sun…this woman dreamt that she was wandering all over the countryside in a desperate search for ladybugs. She looked everywhere with no luck. She grew tired in her search and fell asleep in a meadow. And when she woke up, she was covered in ladybugs. This is how I feel. I tried to find community, I looked and looked and just couldn’t find it. And then it seems, that just out of the blue, community fell into my lap and I am surrounded by such amazing people and they truly bless me in so many ways. There is so much to be thankful for.

God is so good.

If you’re wondering what quote I was looking for in the email, here it is.
“The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust—not only for all the gifts that I receive from God, but gratitude for all the suffering. Because in that purifying experience, suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God".
–Brennan Manning

on being known

I LOVE knowing people’s names. I really do. I love it when people know my name, even if I still blush a little when I tell people my full name, or when people give a hearty chuckle when they hear my name. I feel like people know me when they know my name. It makes the world a little smaller, community a little more real. You could go all around town all throughout life without having anyone really know you, and the idea of that forms a pit in my stomach. We are wired to be relational to be with people, to be known. This is why isolation is greatest punishment. We NEED people.

Complex pathways of the brain and regulation of certain functions of our limbic brain makes expulsion from the company of others the cruelest punishment humans can devise. Studies have been done long ago on orphan children, finding that children NEED affection and emotional attention. Feed and clothe a human infant but deprive him of emotional contact and he will die. We are born with the innate need and desire to be known.

It’s not easy to be known; it requires vulnerability and risk. It’s not always something that comes easy. We hide ourselves for fear of truly being known and on the other end of the spectrum we have within us a deep desire to be known. We need it but we fear it. What does one do with that? I find myself hiding myself away at times for fear that people won’t like the real me and trying to be vulnerable hoping that people will like the real me, so much of life is lived somewhere in the space between.

I value community and that place where everyone knows my name. I like feeling at home with people. Take for example, my place of work, at the coffee shop; someone can come in everyday and we quickly stack up fleeting moments of interaction and all the while have no idea who the other is, but one day, a moment is taken to ask the name of the other. Once names are exchanged, it’s a whole new interaction as if the name is your “in” this allows you to ask questions, see who the other is. At least this has been the case with me, maybe I am a little nosy or curious, but I can’t help it. For me, it has that feeling of “yeah, we go WAY back.” Like an old friend. And even though that’s not the case, I like that feeling of seeing an old friend when they walk in the door.

I like going for a run in the neighborhood and passing my favorite old couple on the street with a smile and a wink. Or running into Steve who is giving his son a pep-talk on how to ride a bike even if it’s scary, or passing Lee and his co-worker out for a run along the riverfront. It’s the hellos I’m after, the community, the recognition of knowing and recognizing the we are all tied to one another.

We are all fellow travelers in this life. We’re all in this together.

To Be Compassionate

You’ve been tossed into the valley, into the mire

You feel lost and in the midst of fire

They tell you they will be there for you

They will help you through

They will stretch their worlds for you

To be compassionate

And we all want to be compassionate

But where are they now?

People struggle with pain

Pain in their own hearts, they’re always hiding

Their pain rises and meets yours and they’re colliding

It overwhelms, it stings and it’s just too much

To be compassionate

Compassion means to be with, to suffer with

And it’s too much

To be compassionate

But we will dig deeper

Stretch our hearts a little wider

To be compassionate

We will hold your pain

And be with you

Suffer with you

Tell you that it will all be okay

Slowly, ever so slowly

Time will bind you back up

And heal you

And you will believe us when we say that it will all be okay.

names, faces...people, places

I've been working at the Dragonfly Coffee House for about a month now, and I really just love it. It feels like home there. I am getting to know people's names and quirks, which is really what I crave and love about working in a coffee shop.
It's more personal. It's more relational. It's something to work for and to work on.

One of the questions from the Myers-Brigss test asks a question, "The more people with whom you speak, the better you feel" yes or no. Even though I'm an introvert, I definitely answer, 'yes' to this question. If I were to go about my day, running errands and such, all over town without talking with a single person, I wouldn't really feel as though I actually had a day. I need people and conversation in my day to make it real and worthy of counting as a day.

It's funny, too, I remember telling a co-worker at the coffee shop I worked at up in Seattle,(Richmond Beach Coffee Company) my personality type and how I was an introvert, obviously. She immediately scoffed and said, "never in a million years would I dub you as an introvert." I was shocked; of all my letters, the "I" was the letter I was most positive was spot on. However, in thinking about it, in that environment, I knew everyone; their drink, their name, their car, their family, their morning hair and tired eyes...and they knew me. They brightened my day. They brought me birthday balloons, cards, dishes, money for my Malawi trip. They knew my name. I felt alive in that place. Just as I feel alive in Alaska, at camp and in Malawi with the kids.
I think certain places and people can bring out our best, bring glory out of our depths, calling us to more, to truly live. These are the places and people with which we belong.

I've been craving that sense of community lately, that sense of being known and being alive. It's been a little lonely in this city of bridges. I went to an event for a school project the other night. There were roughly 400 people or so...I'm really bad at guestimating, but it was something like that. I went by myself and felt so anonymous and nameless and alone; it was awful. Later in the night, I ran into another Social Work student, which was a life saver and made me feel a little less stranded, but the feeling stayed with me all night.
It's so easy to feel small in this big world, and I find myself grasping for anything that will make the world feel a little smaller, even if it's just asking someone their name.

p.s. I met another "Hannon" this weekend. This was monumental seeing as how I have never met another Hannon that I wasn't related to! And he's a talented singer-songwriter and one of the nicest guys, check him out, Dave Hannon.