momentary writing

What Is Held Between the Covers of my Bible

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If you look closely as you flip through the book of Proverbs in my Bible, you will see dates.

2/22/20
11/22/09
9/21/02

The pages–and not only of Proverbs–are full of highlights, underlines, margin notes, and dates. Pages are marked with ribbons, receipts, sermon notes, and inserts from ‘prayer cookies’.

I have had this particular Bible for almost twenty years, ever since I was in college. Its leather cover is nicked and dinged, the spine broken, edges tearing. It has gone from Indiana to Florida to Cayman to Russia and back again and bears the weight and stories of all it carries. No other Bible that I have bought or been gifted has seen as much of me and my life as this one; nor is is any other Bible in my possesion continually sought out as much as this one because of the very fact.

It is precious. Not only because of what is typset on its pages but because of what it carries between its covers: my life and my journey into Love. As I have said before: teaching is my job, writing is my joy, but Love is my vocation. The Love that Jesus showed to every soul He encountered, even up to and during his final moments in this life, is recorded for us here. The loving lives that we are admonished to are demonstrated for us here. Encouragements I often need (whether for myself or to share) can be found here.

This book is where I learn continually to walk my life in the footsteps and actions of Jesus, where I learn to emulate my Lord, and where, couched by dates and cross-referenced with journals, I can see how His teachings are relevant and alive and how He has held and spoken to me in those poignant moments. Moments of growth, moments of grief, moments of joy, and everything in between.

This book holds me and Jesus, side by side, on this walk through life, because Love is a daily journey.

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Sunset

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The final moments of the day hover at the edge of the world like a last belch from the throat of a great dragon.

A dragon that would gobble up all of Time.

And it does, swallowing the Day down and exhaling Night in return.

Its flame eats itself opposite to the custom, breathing out velvet smoke where, once, fire burned bright.

Do You?

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do-you-love-me

Photo credit – https://brokenbelievers.com/2016/12/17/do-you-really-love-me/do-you-love-me/

 

“Do you even love me?”

I felt my heart drop into my shoes and break. It was asked with such uncertainty. Did they really doubt it so much that they had to ask that question?

“Do you really not know?” I whispered.

“You never say it!” was the protest.

I realized then. It was true. In a big way, we often have convinced ourselves (or been trained) to hear love and to only hear love. But don’t we have four other senses, too? This person, this one who meant so much to me. They waited so intently to hear three specific words that they missed the abundant translations of it that I tried to convey every single day.

They didn’t or maybe couldn’t see my love when I took their car to get serviced before the winter’s first snap and snow.

They couldn’t taste my love in the favorite recipe that I learned to surprise them. (And all the burnt failures I hid in the trash out back.)

They couldn’t smell my love when I filled the sink with their favorite flowers so that we could place them all over their abode.

They didn’t feel my love when I held their hand, kissed their knuckles or shoulder, stroked their hair back, or tucked them gently into bed when sick or exhausted.

They had been taught and trained and could only believe love was real if they hear it and only when they heard it. The tree had to fall in order to make a sound. But do not trees also rustle, rumble, groan, snap, and sigh?

“Do you even love me?”

I reached out and took their hand as gently as I could.

“Yes. Yes, I do. I am telling you all the time.”

A Long Way From Home – Day 3: Little Happy Things

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OK, so huge, wonderful discovery in my parents’ house! When we first got here and I went into the bathroom to set our toiletry bag down, I noticed that it smelled really nice but I couldn’t pinpoint the origin of the scent. I checked the air fresheners that sit on the back of the toilet. Not them. Also not any of the candles on the vanity ledge above the sink. So what was it then?

It wasn’t until I was caught by a few sneezes the next day while in the bathroom and grabbed a bit of toilet paper to blow my poor nose. It was the toilet paper! It’s CAMOMILE SCENTED TOILET PAPER!

Omigosh, what is this wonder, where can I find it, and WHY DO I NOT HAVE THIS IN MY HOUSE?!

Seriously, I want camomile-scented toilet paper in my house now. No joke!

 

Sweetest Feelings

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lovely_hair_tumblrFresh from her bath, the scents of black currant and vanilla clinging to her moist skin like a luscious wrap, she sat on the edge of her bed. Sighing, she reached up to the rollers that held her hair captive and began sliding the clips that held them fast out one by one, drawing the rollers from her hair. A smile curved her lips as the curls of hair pulled free from the implements and bounced, soft and fragrant, around her head and face. Lavender and peach caressed her cheeks, neck, and shoulders as she slid the rollers free, tossing them back into their bag, while the clips descended into their own.

When, at last, all the rollers were removed, she plunged her hands into her own hair joyfully, feeling the sumptuous tendrils gliding luxuriously through her fingers. This was her moment of beauty and bliss. This was where she was utterly free and powerful. Here alone, in this moment, she was perfect. Her body clean and soft, her skin warm, and her hair spilling delicious scents with each toss of her head. The sheets and covers felt softer against her than before, her senses heightened with pleasure in herself. She just laid there in the silken cloud of her hair, letting herself be a goddess.

Just five minutes more.

Presented Without Comment

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I believe in good when my daughter wants me to sit with her while she colors, just because she wants me there. 

It’s still strange when I touch my cesarean scar two years later. It feels like a coil of rope embedded in my skin, worn smooth at its smiling edges. 

That moment when your heart is racing and you don’t know why or what emotion is prompting it: one of the scariest ones in my life. 

“[R]ules might give us some order but love and grace make life worth living.” – Sheila Walsh

NanoBloPoMo 2014 Day 7: The Moonlight’s Serenade

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Did you know that moonlight has a sound? It is unlike anything known to the human ear and each person hears it differently, not to mention each region on earth having its own melody. Where I am, moonlight sounds like clean blue glass, shivering and silvery like winter sparkle, all major chords and flutey melody. Full moonlight builds like a spreading crescendo, like fingers of sea foam on sand dollar strings. Fragile and magnificent, shimmeringly beautiful.

That is how I hear moonlight, its melody sneaking into my home through window panes and sifting into my dreams. What does your melody sound like?

The Unfairest of the Fair

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Artist unknown

Artist unknown

It is fair to call her the Fairest, though most would choose the Most Unfair of the Fairest. Like every Fairest One in the Land, she is looking for love, for that enchanted ever-after. She has been at it for stories and stories, pages and pages, chapters and centuries.

These are the faces of the men she has rejected, perfectly good men who, for one reason or the other over the centuries, did not measure up to her lofty ideal of a mate and perfect love (pictured in the bottom left) and so have become part of her tapestry, trapped for ever after in their rejection, wounded pride, and broken hearts. It doesn’t matter whether they be man, god, or beast, all must be weighed and measured, and these have been found wanting.

What Remains of War

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This belongs to Melissa Snyder

The river had swollen with an early thaw, overflowing its banks and swamping the riverside. Standing sentry in the flooded bank, the river still running with ice flows, was a bare, spindly-branched sapling. Caught and waving from its bent fingers was a shredded swatch of red, fluttering weakly in the late-winter wind. The ravaged flag, its golden sunburst obliterated by mud and fire, was only vestige of the bloody battle fought here. The Winterwise had washed away all other evidence, hiding it beneath the ripple of its icy skirts.

A flash of glossy black with peacock sheen broke the grey of the waterlogged landscape, standing out in stark relief to the white-capped river ripples. Landing on the tree branch, the rook pecked at the remnant, attracted by the golden flicker of the sunburst. Its beak, however, dislodged the flag’s tenuous hold on the branch, and the icy wind grabbed hold with greedy fingers to sweep it away through the grey air over the Winterwise.

The river had swollen and overflowed its banks, washing away any evidence of the battle that had splattered the crystal snow with hot blood.