Drive, Darling

It is sundown. Sunlight is wistfully dancing in golden floods of deep warm hues on the leaves of the evergreens outside. Clouds scatter across the sky like a tearing blanket, dousing it in colder purples and blues. I am not feeling well. Mind and heart have taken a beating and I'm wearing it; on my face, on my sleeve, in my heart, and I hurt.

I want to drive.

I can drive now. It took a while, but now I am on my own, window down, engine roaring in a pulsing rhythm that comforts me in a world that has gone a little mad. The wind swishes past my face and I let the cold air bite my nose and ears and cheeks; I let it tangle my hair. I love this; the freedom of knowing I am on my own. I am part of this incredible engine, I control it, I am powerful. I can drive. And for the moment, driving makes everything seem alright, even though some things are not, and I am home. 

 

Opera

We made fruit mince today. Christmastime is soothingly melting towards us over the horizon, so we prepare with citrus peel and brandy. November. Perhaps it is not yet time for carols, but maybe for Pavane and Christmas-flavoured adagios? We know a few good ones. And so they play.

They play the way the flavours of fruit mince mingle in your mouth. Tossing and turning in a sea of colour; reds and greens and golds, mixing, folding, wrapping into one another. I put a spoonful of raw, pungent fruit into my mouth and it turns into something extraordinary:

OPERA.

I can almost hear the voices swelling in a vibrant, incomprehensible language that somehow doesn't need translating. Dried fruit swollen in butter and brandy numb my tongue; warm it down the throat; settle it inside me. Christmas is coming. Just wait a moment while I calm the flood of '!!!' that has risen, unbidden, into my lungs and heart. Opera in my mouth. Strong, dramatic, exquisite song with a sharp, gorgeous stab of nostalgia. This is the land-ahoy moment of Christmas. Somehow, it is also opera. But don't ask me how. It just is.

Be-ing

We are change. 

In books, the plot moves, the characters develop, in science, the variables change and warp, cells live and die, and in reality, things are changing at infinite rates. Things age.  Reality is in constant flux.

 

At the essence of being human is change, affecting how we live, where we go, what we do. Don't breathe on me, I will get a cold, don't go there, you'll get an arm chopped off, don't slide down the banister, you will hit you head and get a concussion. Most of the warnings we give or receive arise from the urgency to protect someone from unfavourable change.There is no way we could be human with being succeptible to change. It is how we were made. 

We are change.

The only being not subject to change in all of reality is God, so much so that even his goals, his character, his attributes, his desires, his loves and hates, do not change. He is perfect be-ing. As humans, we are fallen become-ing. Though God remains constant and steady, always the same, always as true and righteous, we are ceaselessly becoming something, someone else. What is that end? What are we going to become? Will we ever stop?

 I think perhaps we might. 

When in heaven, I am sure that time will not be. Eternity will be our clock. We will not age, grow weary, get angry. We will always be honouring God in all we do. I have no idea how we might change physically, if at all, but I do know that our hearts and souls will not change in one aspect at least. Thye will not become dark again like at the beginning of time, and they will not depart from God ever again.

Becoming, changing. These are the themes for our very lives. They are visible in books, movies, reality; in the play of children, in the interaction of work colleagues, in the 5:00pm clean-up times of families. They are obvious in every aspect of our lives, highlighting the incredible God who is not subject to fickle fluctuation. This stark difference between Him and ourselves should make us want to cling to him, because he will not change his mind one day, nor leave us when we most need him. 

He is a constant, the best thing that could ever be hoped for in this universe. 

The best that could ever be. 

Merci

The last few days have been a string of ughs and uhhhs. Eyes heavy, distressed, a combination of misfired shampoo, rubbing eyes with chilli-covered hands, flies flying into my face , and a sticky lack of sleep. Lids refusing to stay open far enough to see. Arms useless, shoulders tense. Ribs aching with too much something.

Hhhhhh. . .

I wrote three letters yesterday, before I had to teach a score of young things. Two of the notes were thank you notes, and the other was a three page complaint. I felt the difference of thanks and complaint acutely. I muttered and stormed my way to the letter box at 1:40 in the afternoon, knowing I had to come back to teach piano, and I just didn't want to. I had 20 minutes of freedom. So I continued on, huffing, puffing, scowling.

Now, here I will mention, it is often in these moments that I pray for beautiful things from nature, or a little helpless animal to be placed divinely in front of me so that I have a release for my tension, or some sort of catharsis.

Yesterday, I didn't pray for that. Often they don't show up anyway. And I'm a grown-up. I was going to sort this out on my own. I wanted to grumble.

And then.

From somewhere in my peripheral vision, my eyes-- those hurting, aching, worn-out eyes-- stumbled on the most beautiful thing I'd seen for a long time. Upside down. A nest. I went over to it, half-crying with it's perfect wholeness, turned it over, and found myself standing there with my letters in one hand and the most beautiful bird's nest in the other. A few moments passed. Still there. I had to teach. Sshhh... The complaint went away. Relief and release replaced it. The rest of the walk to the post box was thankful; thankful for the nest, thankful for God's sharp knowledge of where I was at and what would graciously, lovingly heal that moment for me. Thankful that I am not alone in those moments where I lose my sense.

Thank you. 

 

Blur

 
October.

Arm up, in the air, watch it dance across the sky, to and fro, to and fro. Let my fingers twist and twirl in the air; let them glide. Both arms out; up; background of blue and white, bundly perfection. Close my eyes, breathe in. Feel the sweat on my back and the burn on my shoulders – distracted; the jacaranda has burst into purple flame. The still air wills the little flowers to the ground and they drop – amethyst falls out of the sky. The grass is yellow and plays a warm symphony to the sun-drenched earth. It is a frantic, heated polyphony. Still, quiet, loud, ever moving, all at the same time, somehow, someway, and not slowing enough to be known through and through. It is a blur.

It is Summer.

There is no Spring here. Summer simply has attributes of Spring, and here, we must be content with that and watch the season turn on a dime; hairpinning its way from Winter in a fleeting instant.

Summer. Golly.

October.

In eleven days, I will turn seventeen. I will get my Ps. I will finish school. I will pretend to be a responsible adult for a year before becoming one; officially. I cannot hairpin like this warm season, into a more beautiful, loving, obedient woman. No. I will continue on slowly, learning always and never stopping, until I am made more like Him every day. And one fine morning-

One fine morning I will awaken with a clean heart and a renewed spirit. But I will beat on, boat against the current, through 'life', bearing always toward that one, radiant moment.

And then forevermore.

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Swirling Swell

I have been at the beach; the glorious, pounding, grey and green, swirling swell. Heaven. I have a confession, though, I cannot deny. I am chilled by and scared of the beach. The tossing and crashing of that chaotic beauty is slightly more than I can bear. And yet, when I swim out, fresh and scared, I settle. I find the peace that I was desperately searching for on the foamy shore in the cool, blue, rolling hills. The waves are behind me, the sky is ahead. Heaven. I love coming back, digging my bare, pale toes into the sand, down, down,down, and then letting the incoming tide wisp more sand around my ankles and up, up, up. The water goes to my waist. Laughing, my head goes back as the next wave splashes into the clouds above me. Euphoria bubbles out in an expressive expanse and flail of the arms; in the shake of my head as I blink the salt out of my eyes; in the uncontrollable giggle that escapes- loud and full- into the air. Heaven. Heaven, heaven. Beauty and freedom surround me and soon, become me. Beauty. Freedom.

Journal Entry One-Hundred-and-Four

I have drifted. Again. It is as if my heart has collapsed for a moment. A long moment, sure as heaven I'm not feeling clearly. I can think marvellously, but my heart- oh, me. This is strange. It is not a bad state from the looks of things. . .I mean, I'm utterly fine.

But that's just it. I'm fine. I don't want to be fine, I want to be an extreme. I don't want to 'fit' into this apathetic suburbia-scape. I want to be head-over-heels in awestruck love for God, or deeply angered; enough to know the release of forgiveness when- if- I accept or receive it. I want to be wracked with sadness, just to grasp the peace that would wash over me like a cool wind off the ocean. I don't want 'fine'. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. . .and I suppose, in a funny way, I want sin so that I can understand glory. I have an insatiable appetite for 'everything'. I want to swallow it whole. I want to be rich in soul-filling growth and goodness.

Perhaps that is it.

Perhaps I am poor in spirit.

Yes, I suppose that is me.

Oh, look. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:3) What hope. Certainly, though, we can be poor in spirit and not do anything worthy about it? Perhaps the kind of 'poor in spirit' that Jesus promises to reward is the kind that starts with the emptiness, but continues with the search-- the search for God.

I don't want fine. I want God.