this is it.

"you've brought me to the wilderness
where i will learn to sing
you've let me know my barrenness
so i will learn to lean."

this is the life i've chosen.

and i'm never going back.

no matter how the beauty of this world may call me

this ship is bound for light.

and so i'll bare my face, in the secret place,
and dark night of the soul.

and Only You Can Satisfy My Soul.
[and Your coming, soon enough,
this too shall pass, and we'll see True Beauty]

so let me be found faithful to Your heart.
let me be found set on Zion.
let me be found mourning.
let me be found waiting.
let me be found Burning.

because I'm in love.

and I'm never going back.

it's the end of the world as we know it.

i heard this tale once, tall and towering,
yet somehow true...
and for its borrowing
i am here to let it out,
break the seams,
let rushing water overwhelm
this
infamous drought.

listen all ears
hungry for
emerald
and gold.
galatic fairytales
parables of old
hidden enigmas
never been told.

what
could
this be.

the great feeding
the mystery breeding
the beautiful shes
and the powerful hes
all in need.

for they are the broken.
they are the maimed.

and out of the heart shaped cavern of
hunger.
the calvary speaks,
"whisper Oh Man of the Desert
dusty feet
a wellspring of waters
tall oak Tree.

bury my bones in the
depths of your belly.

count back down from three.

let me grow
out of your skin
and speak to these roots,
say to these anchors like lead -
that hollow evenings are about to be fed
with cement
and there we shall sink deeep deeep
covered
in
the unbreakable.
unshakeable.

make us beautiful."

and there He stands.
mighty Man of war -
the jewel of the desert
sparkling against the Saharan sun

He vies for frail affection
like a hungry village for the burnt batch of rice.
dusty frames have no delight to offer
but still He withholds, only to entice.

this King, a jar filled with blood,
is Wisdom
rushing
roaring
soaking
the alluring Flood.

sparkle.
shine.
glitter.
sweet red wine.

"lets drink from your cup.
garnished veneer
golden studded handle
bubbles
and water
and red
and tears."

this is a pining for light.
liquid illumination.

He sets people on fire.

the people's come bounding.

it's the Burning Man in the desert.

His call is resounding.

and the great eagles of the sky
peer with their one seeing eye
down into the great bowl of sand
the seemingly barren barren barren land.

and the great God of the flame
is surrounded by rusty and weathered lampstands
the shattered and lame.

but they too
are burning.
burning.
burning.

"in His river of fire,
we are illuminated."

no one is being consumed.
like moses and His bush.
forever blazing
this is the hour.


watch.
squint into the Sun.


He breathes.

same old thing

I haven't written in awhile...
which usually means something is terribly wrong.
I don't think, in this case, something is terribly, terribly wrong -
but I do think my heart has been in a rather chaotic state...
and the journey of "pursuing the Lord" has hit a rather
testing and trying place.

I can't decide if this is a beautiful valley to be in -
a great plunge into the depths of love within the arena of my heart...
for the wilderness of the repetitive,
the mundane,
the monotonous,
the routine,
is the greatest wilderness of all.
for this child at least....

eck.
this
is
such an arduous harbor to try to anchor yourself within
especially with sails such as these...
so prone to catch the wind of anything named "spontaneous"
and whose scarlet letter is that of the inconsistent and unsteady.
give me 45 days and i can walk on the path of the victorious,
but watch day 46 hit, and I become unraveled.

if you know me.
you'd agree.

and here i am singing to the words,
"good morning, brokenness..."
for broken i am.
into many pieces, and these pieces haven't found their home
to function as a whole
normal
working
human being.

My weakness is my dependence.
And again my eyes drift to the hills,
for there is where my help comes from.

He promises when I call, swimming in the mess of my own
inability to function without continual Aide,
and my frequent attempts to operate in independence,
even in that...
He would come and deliver me.

Here I am again,
let this cry be heard.

sometimes i try to figure out why He made me the way I am...
and I come to 2 (maybe 3) conclusions.
Let me list them,
to appease my own soul's anguish...
ha.

1.) I was made to be someone similar to Emily Dickinson,
locking myself in a small room of solitude,
and writing until my death bed.
2.) I was made to be an absolute mess of a woman unless
I am given to continuous and extended period of time to
being a little Mary, at the feet of Jesus
(I was NEVER good at being a Martha...)
3.) I was made to jump upon a train, wearing multiple layers of skirts
and bells and trinkets and things, eating off the land,
taking pictures with the camera I don't yet have, and writing small
ambiguous lines of poetry at the bottom of polaroids tacking them on
random trees and doorposts hoping it would breed revival...
4.) I was made for communion, and when I settle for anything less,
I stop being a whole human being.

So,
I lied, that was 4 conclusions, and I coulda kept going if I wanted to.
But I didn't want to.
And I think I'd have to agree with 2 and 4.
They sound right.
How often I convince myself, without totally mentally agreeing
(for how silly would it be if I made those statements within my head,
and then rejected them)
instead...
I just convince myself that I am neither 2 nor 4, by refusing to
acknowledge them...
in the midst of my little ihop life.

i'm making no sense.

and anyways, i listened to a sermon that changed my life.
it was misty talking about patient endurance...
a timely word, if not a billion other wonderful things,
that made me feel
not so alone.

it's one thing to pick the lifestyle of matthew 5,6, and 7 with
aggression and deep conviction for a month,
or months,
or even a year....
it's another to give yourself over to this for the long haul.
5 years
10 years
15 years
and on.

To try to find the rhythm within the wilderness,
and dance upon the dusty ground of
barrenness
day after
day after
day.

for a friend once told me:
the wilderness (hour of preparation, hiddenness, the Great purging)
the crucible of His burning away all that hinders love...
is hard.
its unconventional.
it does not cast a glorious light.
it's messy.
and it is rather humiliating.

oh
but
i believe
(or i wouldn't be sitting at this ugly card table
in this white room,
signing up again for this GREAT death)
it is wisdom.

and again,
His wisdom will be justified.

and...

Standing in the middle of a circle of those named, "the furnace of affliction and voluntary weakness"
as they come from every which direction,
moment after moment,
day after day,
kicking out so violently the props that have formed themselves to
my heart...

ahhhhh!

the props!
the props!
always there.
looking at me with those tired eyes
the props I've grown to hate..
and as soon as i find myself free of them,
the opaque ones come into view....
layer upon layer upon layer of
a faulty foundation.

and the bridge I burned yesterday in the name of abandonment
and violent pursuit
suddenly becomes the prop I find today I lean upon.

Oh that I would exit this wilderness
leaning only upon My beloved.
in that day, that I would be one who fully embraced wisdom
and found herself established in the cement of Jesus Himself.

Oh that I would claim patient endurance as my own...

Oh that I would follow in the footsteps of the flock
foot by foot.
step by step.
still fasting
still praying
still giving myself over the Word
still waiting
still listening
foot by foot
step by step
day after day after day...

Oh that I would believe that in my darkness
He calls me lovely
and one day I will see the wisdom of my weakness
remaining as a heavy cloak bearing it's weight upon my shoulders
as I try to run...

for I know He says he whose forgiven much, shall love much...

and how deep this reservoir of love is being dug.
for His forgiveness and mercy, and even more - His craving of my heart -
is the motivation that gets me out of bed
every single grey skied morning.

He wants me...
more than I want Him.

and I don't see why.
but that doesn't change it's truth.

---

and to tie this rambling post together.
and to bring some summary or some conclusion.

i am stumbling in this journey.
i feel His jealous flames burning away the darkness hidden in my heart.
And
until the day breaks, and the shadows flee away,
I will go my way
up the mountain of myrrh,
and the hill of frankincense.

for i am my beloveds, and He is mine.
and His desire is for me.

replace the plastic chairs.

lola don't know what happened.
she really don't.
but you can peer through her gloriously, glorious bay window and find her
and her paper dolls
barely seen amidst a mountain of browned maps
rolled up over and over with all her plans.
lists and places and trinkets and things
her little life inside this mansion of a cabin - built with woooooooden beams,
ceilings low to the ground,
has
been
interrupted.

watch the terribly divine inter•jection.

it must be
the great pause/reversal on the ancient tape player.

hear it sssskip skip, change. the blood in the atrium beating to a new, ethereal rhythm.
the silver record, switches to something of divine nature.

and she tastes it all crashing down, as rubble and rust cover
her little life of dreaming -
and ceiling dusts rest upon her tongue.
listen
as she whispers to herself, in the squeaky voice behind her mother's
red lipstick, "He tends to do this to me..."

invisible movements.
missing bed frames.
the great reform.

FOR WE HAD IT ALL FIGURED OUT.

ya, she's a dreamer. a seer. a fairy in a make-believe world.
ya, she's an architect. a lover. a terrified child in need of deconstruction.
lola's one of those with chipped white nail polish, and gaudy diamond rings, and dancing fingers upon the bottom of her
hair.
ya. she's a daughter. a dancer. a safe-havened sojourner looking for a home.

and there she was: mapping out all the bold-fonted tomorrows,
with colors and numbers
and connecting dot.dot.dots,
all perfectly in line,
lining up.
cake. and horses. and oceans. and fire from heaven.
babies. and 17 stringed harps. and foggy fruit gardens.

all perfectly one after the other
etched in her expectation well,
going deep within her soul.

columns and rows like pebbles in the walls of castles.
deep dark waters like the kiddy pool in the back yard.

(stones captured from a greater, rock mountain?
waters stolen from deeper seas - stretching beyond those blufffs like mighty knights on the backdrop of sand, sand, shell, and sand.
it must be only the outlines of her coloring books.
ever and only.)

but THEN.
click one, twenty, thirteen, ten.
He comes -
that stranger of a man,
light, and Life, and mystery, and power..
it's either this way
or that...
he arrives on a horse painted yellow
out of the abyss of her inner frame

can you see him
knock
the
house
down?

smell shreds of map and paper and color
all over the ground.
mounds of piles, and piles of mound.
and lola remembers, even through blurred vision within
the waterfall of wondering.

in a whisper she recites those classical words,
"I love it when He does this.
yes, I am sure."

for there is something delightfully fascinating about
swallowing the soup He serves.
she's been at the banquet before -
and what sings to her from the table of glass
sounds better to her stomach than all
the potions of concoctions of adventures she's
written out before.
being blanketed, anyway, by sinking, submerging sands of time.

his offering exceeds her faction-ing.

his diamonds are the fat beat that
make the song worthy of a dance.

she knows she's not a good artist.
her play-games bore
the atmosphere.

lola longs to live -
and so she's remembering.

his redefinition is her reality.
for the title of his book is still,
"i know your desires."

watch him reprogram the time machine.


this is glorious.
and lola breathes.


selah unto living.
and living unto
LIFE.

beautiful &&& glorious.

i have such an eagerness to express
but i have written much
and each time i look at its absolute insignificance
or trivial nature
- i erase it.

i will try again...
but i am sure i will end with the same feeling.
maybe i'll post it anyway.
why?
dunno.

thoughts from excellencies of christ class with allen hood.
i encourage all to get it.
you can buy the online class at ihop.org under FSM
i think it's 100 bucks.
it's like 30 sessions, full book of notes, and more...

i think every human who wants to know Him
should take it
because when you do
you realize how little you really know Him at all.

anyways.

Thought #1:

First prophecy in the Bible is located in Genesis 3:15.
It says, "And I will put enmity between you (satan) and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed (coming Messiah); He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel."

Now imagine Eve, once walking in the cool of the garden in fellowship with God Transcendent HIMSELF... fully viewing His glory, bearing His glory to creation in all purity and submission... walking out the full meaning of life, gazing into the beauty of God.

Then, in an act of joining the rebellion against the Loving Father with the enemy himself, she becomes separated from God, bearing the weight of guilt and shame, walking in death rather than the perfection of life, and viewing, for the first time, injustice in the created order.

But! As God calls both satan and Eve to account in Genesis 3, He prophecies the hope of His plan from before the foundations of the world... Adam! Eve! satan! - THERE IS COMING A SEED... One from HUMANITY itself, the race of man that left perfect fellowship to join darkness, One from this race will come a SEED that will destroy the works of darkness, make all things new, and establish a kingdom that welcomes me BACK to my creation.

THIS WAS THE PLAN.

Now we know, because it's said and done, that the Seed was Jesus, from the Tribe of Judah, from the lineage of David... and He came generations AFTER Adam and Eve - but EVE did not know... imagine what it was like when Eve bore Cain and Abel, thinking ... HERE IS THE SEED. This must be the seed. This one will unite us back to where we were.

Imagine the desperation and longing, to be in the place before their falleness and separation.

But satan, he is watching the seed... because he heard the prophecy just as Adam and Eve did... the seed would bring him to ruin. And so we follow the story as the enemy attacks the seed. He brings Cain into sin, and cuts off Abel - in attempts to disqualify both the potential seeds...

Now think of Eve's misery - both her seeds are cut off from the potential of bringing forth the promised redemption. But, we see in Gen 4, she bears another seed, Seth, saying, “For God has appointed another SEED for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed.”

She was looking for the Seed.

Thought #2

Now right after this it states in Genesis 4:25b "Then men began to call on the name of the LORD."

Can you imagine?!

The first prayer meetings, with Adam, and Eve, and Seth (and Seth's son Enosh)... two potential seeds (or so they would have thought), and Adam and Eve themselves CALLING ON THE NAME OF THE LORD - the One whose hands they had been formed by, who they KNEW in the glory of Eden and the clarity of eyes pre-sin... Groaning for Him to return to them.

CAN YOU IMAGINE?!

Thought #3

Now we get to David... still following the Seed. We have more revelation about it: The Seed will come from the tribe of Judah, He will be a King on the Throne of David, and then we enter into the season of the greatest prophetic Words yet recorded about the coming Seed (this HUMAN King who would actually be GOD).

David, in a great prophetic act, decides to set up the Tabernacle, and unlike anything ever done in Old Testament history, he REMOVED the veil and he set singers and musicians around the arc of the covenant (house of prayer...), and they would SING and WORSHIP the glory over the mercy seat that would manifest.

And David, modeling the destiny of mankind (to peer into the beauty and glory of God, through the protection of worship and intercession [lest the glory would break out and kill imperfect and unholy mankind]) he would PROPHECY things to come - which we find in the Psalms.

Little David, gazing into the glory of God, and proclaiming Psalms 2:

There is a coming a King, and all the nations will rage against him.
But there is a God who sits in heaven who will laugh at them...
because He has set His King, His Anointed on the HILL OF ZION...
and from there He will rule.

for I have given the earth My Son (the Seed of not only man but God Himself),
and He will ask of me
and I will give Him the nations of the earth as His inheritance...

So serve the Lord with fear,
and rejoice with trembling,
KISS the Son in intimacy and devotion...
lest He be angry and you perish under His judgment...

Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.

David, in the house of prayer, worship, speaking out the mysteries He sees,
prophesies the End of the Age, and the Millennial Kingdom.
He brings clarity to the Seed and to how the Seed will crush satan's head and the rulers and kings of the earth in agreement with wickedness, bring forth the full revelation of God and establish His kingdom, and redeem humanity unto Himself.

and then David prophesies Psalm 45:

about a King who will not only rule them with a rod iron, but love them and call them into fellowship and co-laboring.
David sees a King and a Bridegroom...
the picture of the Coming Seed becomes more clear...
and the people of God wait eagerly for Him.

and then Psalm 110 - David says, I've seen... I've seen...

"The Lord says to my Lord..."

I saw GOD SPEAK to GOD.
And I don't know how it works exactly...
but God SPOKE to GOD about coming HERE and ruling...
and He will crush kings on the day of His wrath...
He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead...
and He'll be a PRIEST FOR US, and a KING, just like Melchizedek.

David's thinking, "This thing is getting crazier and crazier..."

and all while He's in the house of prayer, gazing upon the beauty and knowledge and glory of God.


and then the prophets build this beautiful picture of the King, the Seed, the God-Man.

Isaiah says in Is. 4...
not only will He be a King who subdues the nations and establishes righteousness from His literal throne in Zion, but He will be a HUMAN King, who will draw the hearts of men unto Himself... being both beautiful and glorious and appealing.

Is. 6...
He actually peers into heaven and SEES this coming King, high and lifted up, which John 12:41 tells us is JESUS HIMSELF...
Isaiah SAW Jesus, before He ever was born of Mary, HIGH AND LIFTED UP.
And not only will He make all things new, and restore all the death that came with the fall but He will command the armies of heaven.
What king has all men in subjection, yet also the angels of heaven?
It's the Commander of the army of the Lord that Joshua caught a glimpse of in Joshua 5:13-15.

It keeps getting better and more glorious and the destiny of men who serve this coming King will be beautiful.

imagine!

Is. 7...
Now right after Isaiah sees this King, spoken about to Eve, longed for up through Abraham and Moses, through David's reign, high and lifted up, he finds out this Glorious Redeemer King will come as a BABY!!!
Not only will He be full of all power, wisdom, honor, and strength -
but He will make His first appearance on the scene in the most humble garb known... the flesh of a meek infant in the poverty of a manger.
THE GOD MAN... born to serve, and born to die.

ISAIAH IS THINKING, "WHAT IN THE WORLD?! THIS DRAMA OF GOD IS UNHEARD OF.... (oh the scandal of heaven!)"

Then in Is 9...
he find out the baby will grow up to be a King, and the government of the earth shall rest upon His shoulders, and He will be called:
• WONDERFUL COUNSELOR
• MIGHTY GOD (a baby who is GOD!)
• EVERLASTING FATHER (a King who is a Father!)
• PRINCE OF PEACE (who will dash to pieces the nations, all for the sake of peace)

and OF HIS GOVERNMENT and PEACE THERE WILL BE NO END. This human, God-Man, King will cause all things to come into newness and perfection INTO ETERNITY all for the sake of fellowship with MAN.

THEN in ISAIAH 11
Isaiah sees He'll be the Branch of Jesse - the human God from the lineage of David's father... yet in verse 10, He is ALSO the ROOT! A God-Man, high and lifted up, surrounded at the throne with angels, meek, lowly, full of zeal, coming to reign, coming to reverse death, coming to destroy satan, who is a BRANCH and a ROOT.

It gets crazier...

and the 7 spirit will rest upon Him...
the fulllllness of God resting upon the frame of a man.
and He will cause the earth to change...
He will change ecology...
the child shall lead the bear,
HE'S CHANGING EVERYTHING... wait... HE IS COMING.

---

and THEN Is 42...
This one will not raise His voice in the street... He is going to bring forth this promised justice through meekness... through death and suffering...

and Is 49...
Isaiah sees it will all look like it was done in vain..

but in Is 52 and 53 tell us why it looks like it will be in vain...
because He is going to come and DIE FOR THE SINS OF HUMANITY...
this GLORIOUS KING, whose beauty and majesty has been building through the visions of David and Isaiah, is going to be a
man of sorrows
familiar with suffering
stricken by God
bringing pleasure to the Father by being crushed
bearing the sins of many
and MAKING INTERCESSION for the transgressor...

yet God shows Isaiah ---
HE WILL RISE AGAIN

and we see HOW He will bring the plan prophesied back in Genesis 3 about the seed INTO fulfillment...

it's scandalous
it's unprecedented
it's glorious
it seems impossible that it will ALL fall into place

and then Is 63
we see Him ruling and judging in wrath the nations
as one would tread a winepress...
the unfulfilled words
we still wait for...


---

and the prophets are seeing and declaring the HOPE OF THE NATIONS, revealing the true nature of God until Luke 1...
where He brings forth the SEED... the prophesied One...
through the womb of mary, a little girl, HE CAME.

the God-man.


AND THIS IS WHERE OUR JOURNEY BEGINS...
we get to see the Glory of Heaven come to EARTH.


AMEN!!!!!!




that's all for today.

LOVE YOU all and happy spring!
and i am glad this is not trivial as presupposed at the beginning of post, mostly because it isn't my own material.
it's good for me to retype what i'm learning,
because it enters my heart deeper.

the grand reversal.

i feel like writing,
but then i suppose... (and i do suppose in the supposing)
one writes to be heard.
and i believe that is so.
also because someone once said it...
they really must know.
(though my knowing is knowing i don't really know)

so pause.
"art is talking.
and if it never reaches an ear
it is as though it was a still-born...
a cry one will never hear."
for silence is oh-so astounding.

true?
probably, maybe, not always so much.

but whatever.
all wish to be heard:
& known,
assured they are
more more more
to be watched and partaken of,
even if by one
(or One, you know.)

so.
my floor is rather blanketed by
an array of clothes
(old and uncool, and especially over-worn)
and so i have to tiptoe to my bed
which is a mattress on the floor

you can tell when my heart is in utter chaos.
by things such as...
shirts and skirts and a mountain of books
abandoning their hangers
and leaving their nooks
of shelves or
proper
placements.

a property predicament
nothin finding a home.

granola tastes good to my tongue.

&
i had a dream where i lived in a mansion
that smelled like olllld wood and had
secret passageways,
up and down, like
dr. suess or something .

this is
my heart.
but i
feel
locked up
in the study, perhaps...
the
doorknob ain't turninnnnnnng
and where is the brass skeleton key
to
set
me
freee.

come on.

but it's okay.

seasons are seasons
and may always comes with spring.
so i'm waiting in this winter, winter wilderness
to feel something again.
His "thump thump" heart beat.

oh
but He is chief among ten thousand.

and i wrote today
this is what i wrote
in my ugly black journal

[well, i really can't find it]

but it was about dying.
suffocating out the "me".
becoming one with the God-man
bleeding on
that treeeeee.

something something about dying
and finding life.

so here i am dying in a town that
looks brown day in and day out.

with no piano.
no piano.

(oh Jesus redeem me.)

and...

i got myself a grave.
here i sit.
the dirt is my pile of chaos of clothes
and my tomb is this mattress and sheeets.
and i feel breath leavvvvvvvving my lungs
never to return
finding it's last

hopin' my ressurection is soooon to come.

by the way.
i'm never too beautiful.
black under the eyes...
and no clothes fittin' right
with brown wavy locks.
for the mirror isn't my friend.
at all.
at all.

and you won't take notice.

but i remember.

He's my only friend.

and it's okay -
because this is going somewhere
and it's worth it
and it's real.
real.
real.
like lightening and winter's fall of
ice upon the window pane,
every morning
reminding me

what is REALLY going on.

and it's okay to be in secret
shrouded, oh so hidden, by time.
and
speakin' of whichhhh

that which is carried within the womb
(the womb of time is what i'm saying)
isn't always ours to hold in our arms
and nurse from infancy to more and more
reality
known as maturity

for sometimes it's at the altar we lay it
and leavvve it there.

so these dreams.
these prayers.

these over and over tears and yearnings
for the words of God
to come forth, bear fruit, walked out in the flesh
may be
some things
only to see from afar.

but what is, who is, the voice in the wilderness
never to walk NEXT to the messiah much at all
this time around...
but wisdom will be justified
when the children come a BOUND-ING
and screaming the truth of the father.
the truth of their roooots.

and so.
some are bob jones'
standing at the side watchin at a distance.
longing to be marchin in the parade of the
apostolic, signs and wonders, new revelation
straight from heaven.
but he's crippled.
lookin down at his
mangled feet.

oh well.
this must be humility.

moving on.
moving on.
moving in.
moving in.

letting selfishness be torn from this skin
so only what is of Transcendence can remain
will keep on, keepin' on.
only this that is of God
will stay.

for i'm a selfish brat
wanting spoil for my own on this side
when
again i say, i was
born
to
die.

i'm just a friend of the bridegroom.
i'm just a friend of the bridegroom.
i'm just a friend of the bridegroom.

please look away from me.
i'm nothing much to see.
i promise you, He who is coming,
is much
much
much
more beautiful.

he is jealous for me.

Verse 1:
He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realise just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

Pre-Chorus:
And oh, how He loves us all,
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us all

Chorus 1:
Yeah, He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.

Verse 2:
We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss,
And the heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain this regrets,
When I think about, the way…

Chorus 2:
He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.