beautiful words

This quote is speaking so much to me this morning. I love everything Annie Dillard writes. She has a wonderful way of words.

“I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wondering awed about on a splintered wreck I've come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty bats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them...” –Annie Dillard

almost poetry

(I apologize for being so verbose; this was written in a late night, sleepy state.)

some thoughts that resemble poetry..

I am a tattered and torn person in the process of becoming

Who it is I am meant to be

Into the image of the one I long to see

Transforming and changing

Imago dei.

If only I was cleanly cut with no jagged edges

Made to fit perfectly so,

Here and there.

Into the dreams I’ve so carefully drafted

Through the paths I’ve chosen

and will find again in pages unwritten

I’ve learned that the pieces don’t always fit just so

I’ve learned by going where he leads

and learning to let go

Must I still be learning?

I’m in love with our world.

That hurts and breaks

And in my hands I feel the warmth

When I hold them up to the wounds

In our world that is fallen and broken and crying out for hope

Daily I see pieces of a flawed and imperfect humanity

Yearning for redemption

Aching for heaven’s waters to spill over the earth and wash it clean

Yet, in the midst of a scarred world,

I can’t help but find myself in awed moments

Grateful for heartache,

That echoes within

And calls out to others

in a melody

that we all know

I am astounded by the immense weight of hope in the midst of suffering

In spite of dire odds and circumstance

We remain a people

Clinging to slivers of hope

And remaining faithful

As we lean a little more into

the next page

and into a love that is with us

until the end of the age.

no words of my own today

I've been drawing and baking and talking and eating and running all day and at this point I have no words of my own to share so i will leave you with a couple photos...

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.