life ebbs and flows

Jesus, I come into the warmth of your presence knowing that you are the very emptiness of God. I come before you holding the water jar of my life. Your eyes meet mine and I know what I'd rather not know. I came to be filled but I am already full. I am too full This is my sickness I am full of things that crowd out your healing presence. A holy knowing steals inside my heart and I see a painful truth. I don't need more I need less I am too full. I am full of things that block out your golden grace. I am smothered by gods of my own creation I am lost in the forest of my false self I am full of my own opinions and narrow attitudes full of fear, resentments, control full of self-pity, and arrogance. Slowly this terrible truth pierces my heart I am so full there is no room for you. Contemplatively, and with compassion you ask me to reach into my water jar. One by one, Jesus, you enable me to lift out the things that are a hindrance to my...

October 26, 2011. That is the day I last wrote a blog. That's not the day when my life changed but it is a day that I can recognize as one of the last ones when I knew who I was and what my purpose was. I'm not generally a quitter. Sure, sometimes I quit on books or I quit on small projects but in life, nope. I  try hard at most things, usually right until the end. I won't say that quitting is not a thought that meanders through my being when something gets tough but I have come to learn that when I stick things out I come out having learned a thing or two. But I did quit. I quit a big commitment. I said I would live in Washington, DC and I would do my best. I tried. I also had my very first panic attack, too. It was too much. I couldn't think or breathe. I couldn't cope with the devastation I felt for leaving Mongolia early that March morning. I couldn't cope with no one understanding what Mongolia had meant to me and how it had changed me right down...

i've heard about this book for a couple of years now, but never had it in my hands. someone unintentionally put it in my hands this past sunday so i've started the journey through. be on the lookout for snip-its here and there from me. i have a feeling it's going to be liberating. "Because it is a distortion of being more fully human, sooner or later being less human leads the oppressed to struggle against those who made them so. In order for this struggle to have meaning, the oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity (which is a way to create it), become in turn oppressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both..." "...Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both..." pg. 44, Paul Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Erin just sent me the link to a series of photographs, depicting life in Mongolia. The pictures are hard. They are simple. They depict life. They are real. Check them out here . Let me know what you think.

it won't be as cute as a baby story, on tlc, but it is a story. a story of a family. a colony. scavengers. this, my friends is the story of the ants who took up residence in my work desk drawer. it's a friday afternoon and i was thinking of a snack from my food drawer [yes, i have a food drawer]. i knew i had some rice cakes in there and i was hungry for just that. as i opened the door, my mouth flung ajar, for what did i see but a million ants. that's right, a million. i had seen ants all morning, here and there, but not enough to be alarmed. i thought they were the lone rangers--exploring out on their own. little did i know, they were scouting out the rest of the desk for crumbs and goodies. i looked at the ants for probably a minute straight--doing nothing, simply mesmerized by their pure existence. i snapped back into reality and tried to find the source...what were they after?! it sure wasn't the rice cakes because there wasn't even a single one on them [not su...

as often as you can, find time to sit on porches, sharing and laughing.