xo

when the wind blows i know that love is real. when strangers ask me how i am i know that love is real. When my mother buys me bananas without me asking her for them at all, i know that love is real. i do not want to explain myself.
Do you think that trees get sad when they see sticks on the ground, knowing that their own little pieces are lying about, all broken and small? Pieces.peaces.
today my heart broke and i know that love is real. I’ve heard it said that all moments exist in this one and i am begging the Lord for that to be false because i need another day
to not look like this one.
What is enough? why isn’t it a sin to say goodbye?
and i know the kingdom aches to see me cry, but my heart is making rain   because things won’t be the same.
It is clockwork how clocks work- telling us everything we would rather not know. Damn the clocks for telling us when it is always time to go.
Do clocks go to heaven? I hope not.
it is always time to go.
i let some seasons foster sorrow-but today i cried next to a tree- and the sun broke through the leaves. and the light touched my face, and i smiled, the light went into my face and the light became a part of me.
sometimes children are sad and free.

Words. I have a lot and you have a little but i will share and if words were food, i would make certain, that you were never ever hungry.
words are food.
If the word “stay” was a food it would be an exotic seed or nut found only in dense uncharted forests because it exists indefinitely but it is rare and hard to believe in sometimes.
sometimes you can feel in your bones
what tomorrow holds.
and damn those bones for not speaking,
but thank you bones,
because though sometimes you feel empty,
you’re really always whole.

Searching for Heritage

i think that there is more to life than figuring out who we are and i think that it is in the subtlest, secretest instances of life and love where we truly discover and come to know ourselves.

καιρός

God has compassion on our humanness because he understands because we are his. there is a difference between rest and control. we do not have to wait until tomorrow with god because he is beyond space and time. seeking deliverance in somedays breeds chains because we don't have to wait to be free, we are free today. it is natural to want to solve problems but we don't have to. we tend to think if we don't get everything right we are failing to fulfill our role and purpose. but really our role in the story is to trust God. do not fear the mountains looming ahead because God has never taken his gaze off of you. and let him show you every single step as they come. the heart of the father is that we all be fed, that we all be full. But not for us to follow him just to receive. trusting in yourself leads to a crooked, broken life. trusting in the Lord is fullness. john 6:27. Don't pour your energy into seeking things of this world. we are of another kingdom. seek that one while physically present in this one. Grasp that you are a child of god. Our real true bursting lives are hidden within God. the reality of the cross is that Jesus fulfilled the law and it died with him. When we fall jesus says,"that's not who you are, you are my daughter, get up". talitha kum. we need to get better at saying "Yes, God." expect God's goodness. we are not in lack. everything about jesus wants you to love god.
Be occupied in believing.

Without you i would never Rise,again

longing has it's reasons.
Summer is dear to me because I identify with its ways
i was created to reveal to others the freedom, warmth, and abundance of Christ.
summer also reveals to us freedom, warmth, and abundance; all of which, in their rawest forms, are direct characteristics of love as it comes and does with Christ.
summer gives us a taste of eternity.

Found children are, in a sense, summer's own.
we carry light that comes from the same source as summer's light.

I long for summer because
i long to be understood.
i long to be awakened
i long to be full
and dont we all,,

Our souls share pieces with that of summer's song.
summer's salvation.
light to light, life
it lives
light gives.

December baby

sister don't believe yourself that way
because trust me one sweet day you will find your crown again.
dont let yourself
wear so thin
you are so wanted.
but unless you rise
you will not begin.
and i know you are awake but you like to pretend
to be asleep in hopes that maybe soon
you'll convince yourself
that nothing lies ahead.
but baby you have this anchor of hope
that will not leave you
sitting dead.
don't want to be dead
dont believe yourself that way

lost and found and don't look down

the future is untouchable because once we arrive to it, it will no longer be the future. it will be the present. it will be a present. so why do we invite the future to wrap its hands around our wrists, making us its puppets, hating it letting it begging it wanting it. affair.
i have been learning that we grow when we're not looking. and our thoughts do not always only bounce, some days they build houses or walls or bridges and do we decide which? some days i think we do.
once again i will say
how beautiful this all is.
a what a gift, what a fragile place, to be in love with the sheer notion of
living.
and i think of how much has changed and how much has been lost and found and i know in my bones that i wouldn't have it any other way.
and realising that if one man had not looked at one woman in that one corner of the world on that one day, they would have never had a child and that child would have never grown older and never met another grown child, and those two grown children would have never fallen into life together and they would have never had a you.
damn.

if you are too afraid to change the world, you never will.

a sister of mine told me saturday that changing one life is changing the world. and that i have done it and she has and that we were together right in that moment.
something enchanting to me about talking around a kitchen table with beautiful humans who are no longer orphans and who know that. 
it's an underground railroad type of living that we do, where we love so much that it may be a secret because we do not know any words to articulate
the depths.
something enchanting about going home and understanding that you never truly left. because pieces of everywhere you have been and everyone you have loved linger like jewel dust on your skin and scent. and those places and people carry in them, pieces, of, you.
good thing you are so much.

Harvest

sometimes i treat god like a dusty overdue library book. yeah what a great read, i feel better now, i'll put it away since i'm done and deal with that later.find it in the closet, look over it some more, and then become thoroughly distracted by life and things.
sometimes i treat God like santa claus on christmas eve. 'God, i am going to sleep now, please when i wake up make everything i want be the way i want it to be and maybe with snow thanks.'
wake up, stand up, brush up, grow up. born and off to the races.
this is a fragile age and often a fear stirs in me that perhaps i will be just awful at being 18 or 25 or 50 or older, and that here and now it as good as it will ever get, but haven't we all thought that before?
and looking back, can we travel to peace by the understanding that everything that has been has led to what is now and everything about today is going to lead to an abundance of somedays and that Cannot embitter us because we have no reason to believe that those somedays hold anything but glory.

peace drops like a bomb every once again, just going about my business and then this remarkably powerful thing falls from nowhere and everything is different because of it.



thinking of storing this golden autumn air in some jars. we are breathing time capsules.

nonfat no whip triple grande hot cold lip burning newspaper folds, youve gotta find prospects, make cuts, make war

we are a nation of cufflinks and newsprint.
we love when our husbands lose weight.
we complain about the weather because it's the only thing
we can't vote on.
how can i be honest without tossing rocks at lady liberty

when children get taller, they dress in grown up clothes and stomp around in big shoes to make something of themselves because all of a sudden they have to make the world work.

we hide grey hair.
we look down upon youth because ignorance is bliss
is bliss
is bliss
is bliss.
our storybooks are called the evening news where the princes trip on stones and the kingdom catches fire and we clap and sing because we never ever knew that we would be here.

i used to think my mother was born as a grown up and that kids stayed kids and grown ups stayed grown ups and olds stayed olds.
if only.
but there is something beautiful about every harvest of a generation inevitably rises from their desks and shimmies out of their graduation gowns and stops putting sugar in their coffee because we all want to make changes
we all want better and more for ourselves and each other and there is no flaw in that
but i still fancy the notion of skipping all this nonsense
and joining the circus

Be in my Eyes be In my Heart

dizzy because life is just so much. two years ago my hair was about six inches shorter and my life was about as many millions of degrees different as a life can be. from this i choose to not settle in sorrow, but to have hope. because in only two years absolutely everything has been turned every way for every reason and through pain and change there has been monumental growth and becoming.
today i am learning fidelity and abandon.
tomorrow i will learn.
every day
every second i will learn.
what will be your story now?

i will tell you something almost every day i decide to go to bed early tonight. seclude myself, away from films and friends and fields and just go to sleep because to wake up you have to sleep first. it never happens.  it never happens. it takes hours to get around to falling asleep because there is always so much else that demands attention and time, but i think that it will be a good idea to decide to have free time. jesus doesn't say come to me and i will give you a to do list, he says come to me and i will give you Rest.
advice from a tree suggests letting your roots grow down deep, and i suggest not over thinking the whole roots situation because we all have them every thing has them but much of their strength comes from the sheer fact that they are hidden they are deep within soil and foundation that it would take destruction and effort to see or destroy them.
i pray that we can all stop living
with this constant mindset of need and desperation
and realise
that we are loved and breathing and everything
is going to be alright.

i apologize insincerely if my words are repetitive. motifs of the heart.

beautiful that us in our ingenious youth know the entire world and everything that will ever happen front forwards and back but we dont even know what the morning will bring. plan to make a plan to make a plan to make something of yourself. But darling, you are Already something. You are so much something, and you are some one's Someone, SOmeday some how some where some way, you will see and understand why all this why because to soon to delay to only stay, just stay ,
i say.

The Ruffian

whether i am kissing the lips of a boy or the rim of a coffee cup i want it to be honestly and out of love.

Circa Aug. 25

it is never fair
to love a gypsy.
And this room sings into the quiet of my mind
finally.
i'm trusting.
some Change is an 'accident;.
some change comes in the mail or
via phone.
other change is chosen.
And in this second I am
choosing

to change my eyes
towards the changes.
it is here so I will have It.
here is this n[e][o]w.
air, feeling, face, season, reason,
drenched in divine Jesus ink.
covered in his fingerprints
faithful

Martha

sometimes you wake up and you don't know where you are. in the night a shabby gypsy train came to your window and stole you and shipped you across the Ocean to california. the Long way. and everything looks so familiar but feels so foreign, that you cannot seem to determine whether it is your body, or your heart- that has shifted.
one may call it a soul vacation, to live and change and not understand completely where you have been but to know that today, for whatever reason, has healed you somewhere somehow. even if just for a moment and even if just a little.

how extraordinary and how grateful i am for the hearts in us that have the capacity to notice the absence of places feelings things and people. to miss and to long for, to have those abilities is a miracle, i feel.
but then again i feel too much.

when your lungs fill with concern and all of the watches are broken, we are brought to that familiar peculiar fragility of life once again. should we pray to be enchanted? should we pray for something so heart shatteringly fleeting? now, is that righteous?
i don't believe that we will ever read enough books or take enough pictures. we will never be done listening and not listening to the wisdom of our mothers. never will we forget some things that we should never have had to remember and at once we will never remember as much as we desire to.
in effort to be and know grace, we must realise that our striving is brought to a screeching halt in it's presence. as mercy pours into our lives, these aches we cling to- the ones of knowing the expectations that we will always never meet- they are swallowed in the sea of salvation.
and at once, she with the violet name,
locks eyes with the S(u)[o]n
and every bruise is laid bare to burning
a discomfort which must be endured
because discipline is so deeply derived from a love
so deeply designed.
and she stands healed and whole.
 and it is time to leave the desert.

Go, live well,
live blessed.

peaches

i want to challenge myself as a person, break habits and build skills. do things on purpose with intention, even if the reason is just because. quiet the thoughts within that have been begging me to focus on all my weaknesses, physically, spiritually, mentally, creatively. Jesus did not create us fearfully and wonderfully so that we can sit around fearful and worrying.
be joyful always.
but what a challenge that is, almost more so when everyone expects it of you. i pray for my roots to be established in love but truly i'm not so sure what that even means. and every human gets sick with feelings, they drive us and we let them.
i want to
sit and stare at trees until
i understand anything.
and seek solitude with my creator
until i trust that some things
are not for me to understand.
satan attacks our self image and our daily concerns because he does not want us to See the beauty and detail with which God has so divinely designed us. the enemy desires our attention to be absolutely anywhere but after the heart of jesus. God promises to provide and seek us, and is constantly doing so but we are often distracted from his faithfulness when Small fragments of worry shattering pieces of our peaces.
don't let circumstances hinder your joy.
our hearts are created with eternal intentions, kingdom bound. this is what makes it so difficult to understand why and how to handle things ending and changing.

i understand that if anyone who reads these words does not know Jesus personally, that everything here will be absolutely meaningless and unresolved.
that's been on my heart as well, because i struggle with doubt more than anything else spiritually.
but i am always always brought back to that place on broken humble knees
with a bare heart and open eyes and i just remember and realise
that nothing is worth it without jesus.

some days it take effort to make life beautiful or to see the beauty in it. this past week my the light in my eyes has been someone dim but it is never too late nor too early to choose joy.

the Woods

when nothing matters except the map on the wal
and this fragile magic of a time has got you
singing in your sleep
laughing at the morning sun.


where even words words ever have you been where
haven't lost it
we do not lose ourselves, we only lose focus


love never dies, it only changes faces

The Dead Sea

this is such a fragile time.
and we can embrace it with fear or choose to respond with trust.
When change is as thick as the heat in the august air we are led to sit in the center of our father's hands. looking up at him with pleading curiosity because we, as humans, so desperately desire to know the next step the next bit of dialogue the next catastrophe and miracle. We look up into the presence of Jesus, eyes laden with innocence and maybe a sparkle of fear.
the truth is that it is extraordinarily terrifying that we do not know what is next.
the past few days or so satan has been tempting me to be afraid because as so many new choices and feelings and obligations approach, we become vulnerable to the devil's tools; anxiety, worry, doubt, wounded confidence, and ,, fear.

But here i ask jesus to wake me up in every way of the word, every way possible, that he lead me down every endless route of awakening. because we are no longer slaves to satan's fantasies. Fear is a deadly poison but it's power has been made completely obsolete by the blood of Jesus Christ.
i choose you, i choose joy

yes, part of our earthly journey is meeting spiritual obstacles and overcoming satan's attacks, these things cannot be avoided. however they can be detected and brought to a screeching halt with the sound of holy His name. be on guard.
the light God pours into us, radiates externally as joy, love, peace of mind, goodness, purity, honesty, and hope. Satan hates when these qualities are exposed to the world because he is absolutely terrified of their power. the enemy cringes in fear at the power alive underneath your skin.
you have authority. as children of the king, we must not allow fear and anxiety to enslave us.
this is only possible by hiding in our heart the truth of who we are, where we came from, and where we are going. -chosen. from Him. to Him. - His. his hands. his kingdom.

you are important.

wake up to the sound, of your fleeting heart

i am beginning to believe that we are born to wake up
and those of us who fail to do so
will simply fall into a most certain death
not a physical death so much as
a life death.
an emptiness and
it is heart shattering to hold dear lives that hold to nothing.
sometimes the devil weaves lies into our minds over the course of a day or a week or a summer.
sometimes he shoots them at us from a demon machine gun,
wounding us right wherever we are most vulnerable.
but sometimes,
perhaps the worst times,
he tackles two year old cities and in them he takes goodness and makes it an idol
he takes lust and makes it a practice
he takes truth and makes it a ration,
because all his power witholds is a little room for alterations.
he cannot steal joy
satan cannot steal faith.
And often times we are stripped and stolen of all else so that we will finally
see
that nothing else is as real nor as mandatory
to live these awake sort of lives.

a storm is stirring in the kingdom
and the children sing here on their knees
the demons fret and fear and flee
and holy hands search for the king. 

it's not just cowboys and indians

tonight was ablaze with intention and divine appointment. tulsa is such a handful of radiance, bustle, and chosen youth.
ya know when you are near someone and the purpose for their life just radiates and they can't even understand because that beautiful oblivion of humility has capsized them,,
that is what tonight was
and tonight made sense.

xxx

Amsterdam is beautiful the way that an old storybook is beautiful.
it is beautiful in the way of a torn tattered sweater.
It is at once believing people still need shoes of wood
and homes of cheese
whilst mistaking cannabis for joy
and sex for truth.

emptiness is with me and my heart is bare
Here,
at the end of the day
i am a train station full of shattered philosophies
an undiscovered annex of light
i am a native, a meddler, an artist
i amsterdam

Life is painting a picture, not adding a sum

these past few weeks have been really hard and the hardest thing i have come to learn is that it is the pursuit of moments which plagues their worth. you cannot, you simply cannot and should not go hunting for moments. little memories, instances stop treating them like easter eggs and start treating them like shooting stars.
there is no quota, no ratio expected of moments to nonmoments.
manufactured moments can be special but there is only so much that can be obtained from them. because if half of their substance was intentional or expected then that only leaves one half of the moment to have been truly captivating and remarkable.
i am learning this among much else
about
moments.

i am learning to step out of my own head every here and there and so and almost zoom the perspective away from the sounds and steps to just really see. and look around, take a quick tour of this happenstance of history before it flits away into what has been.

similar to butterflies, we chase moments because they are pretty because they are desirable. when we have them we can tell people all about it, however when we chase them and catch them there is little to do next aside from release them (either immediately or at a later time).
But when we forget to chase the butterflies- when we are still conscious of their prescense but no longer rabid for their company, and one gracefully steps into place on our shoulders or toes, we notice it and love and get swept up in it before it flies away to the it's next fortunate subject.

so do not chase the butterflies let them come when they will.
and do not live in waiting for them, that will only lead to longing when they go.
trust that they will come and have them when they do and love them when theyre gone and collect whatever beauty they leave you with.