Tag Archives: reflections

It’s Fools Day

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Fools day

They look upon me with pity

Because I’ve no one on my arm

Why’s it gotta be

that I’m not real without someone to keep me warm

I have a lot of dreams

But they don’t mean anything

To anyone

To anyone

 

I’ll guard my heart

Better than before

Don’t let those wolves come in

Even when they knock nicely at the door

 

Simplicity is felicity

Burning out the dross

If I can tell you something

Lessons in the loss

Why chase boys

When there’s Less sadness in your dreams

Happiness is found

in unraveling the seams

I put my money where my mouth is

Invested in a risk

For you, I gave pieces of myself

Has to be a reason for this

 

I’ll guard my heart

Better than before

Don’t let those wolves come in

Even when they knock nicely at the door

 

The easy route was to toss it out

And burn the framework to the ground

Silence in the shoreline

Nothing’s safe without a sound

I’ll choose a storm chaser

Who finds beauty in unrest

traveling for travelin’s sake

who can be happy in the mess

 

I’ll guard my heart

Better than before

Don’t let those wolves come in

Even when they knock nicely at the door

~lme

Rest in Peace

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Photo Cred:  Library of Congress flickr stream

Rest in peace.

Ok this isn’t what you think, so don’t think I’m being morbid.  Peace.  Peace that passes all understanding that guards our hearts and mind as God tells us in His Word.  Peace comes softly at times.  And the most amazing peace is when you come to know through God’s help the right path to take.  Sometimes the things I thought would cause me to ache for months are much less painful than I expected.  Time heals and reveals.  Maybe there’s an ease in age.  The people who used to make me upset don’t rub me as wrong anymore.  And the peace in knowing that God will provide for me in His own time is super comforting.  Who else do I have to impress in this great big place but the Maker himself?  Sure I see others receiving blessing and their lives changing around me, but I must not be shaken.  I am one soul who knows that God knows best for me and will send me exactly what I need if I trust Him.  I have seen many friendships come and fade with the sunset.  I have experienced disappointment in others and the world around me.  And I’ve come through it with perspective and experience. 

I have watched my country continue to breed materialism until we are soaking in a self-sick and sin-sick place full of people who have lost their zeal for simple pleasures.  We can no longer enjoy lying under an oak tree in the summer or having an actual conversation without feeling unimportant as the other party continually checks their phone (I too am guilty of this).  Challenging ourselves to connect to the actual world instead of the digital world is something we should consider.

Amidst all of the annoyances and challenges is peace.  We can rest in a state of peace knowing that so much does not matter.  Not how much we procure.  Not how successful we are to our peers.  Not how beautiful our face is.  Not how lean our body looks.  Not how big our muscles are.  Not how hilarious we are on twitter.  Not how happy of a relationship we have with a significant other.  And not how much money we make.  For we are all on the same playing field.  And we are ultimately in submission to the Almighty who created heaven and earth.  One day all of these extensions of ourselves will fall off as we rise into Heaven to be forever with the One who knows us better than any person on this earth.  Work to be found faithful 🙂

2 Corinthians 10:18- “For not he who commends himself is approved, but whom the Lord commends.”  Let’s stop caring what others think.  Let’s stop trying to attract the opposite sex or the big-name producer or the money or the fans.  Let’s just try to be commended by God and work hard at what we do and the rest will fall in place.  Live in peace.  Act in peace. Rest in peace.

~lme

Fill your cup at the well

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Photo Courtesy of: The Swedish National Heritage photostream

As you age, you begin to realize that all the discouragement you feel in the your imperfect friendships with people is fixed in the perfection of God.  Think about it.  The failings of others are contrasted in the things He does everything perfectly.  Someone doesn’t give you time?  God is always there for you, always.  Anytime you need to talk, He has a listening ear.  When you can’t explain yourself to a human, the Holy Spirit can intercede in the groanings of your soul as you tell God.  People hurt you?  God has good in store for you, despite how hard you’re fighting and failing daily.  When you feel like people only want to use you or abuse you, remember this.  God wants what’s best for you and wants to bring you home.  That’s why he left a book full of love letters and words to help you stay on the straight and narrow.  Relationships will fill you full of questions.  God doesn’t desire to keep you in total darkness.  He says when we search for Him with our whole heart, we will find Him.

So be seekers.  Be learners.  Be strong in the Lord.  Be lovers of good.

Go.  Be.

~lme

Lyrical poetry for your mid-week

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Photo Courtesy:  Swedish National Heritage photostream

Green

~lme

I pack a punch

Right to the gut

With a song that I wrote

since I only had so much

I live in a world

You have never seen

Ethereal forests

Filled with evergreens

Remember when there was intrigue

In a disappearing act

Where do you go

When the others act like that

I sought advice

in comrades I knew

but they could not console me

in the mystery of you

I will strive for the higher path

No matter how I’m hurt

I seek comfort in someone else

To the man who won’t desert

Filling up the holes

Where the others fall so short

The one who teaches creation

Is the only one who can bind what’s sore

You don’t sing me to sleep

I do that on my own

The silence is my symphony

I won’t take water from a stone

Love must define me

But I must guard my heart

No matter how it unravels

I know I finish what I start

Thursday thoughts and things to think about (the “th” sound)

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Photo Courtesy: George Eastman flickr photostream

10 affirmations to look in the mirror and remind yourself today….

  1. No one, and I mean no one, gets to determine your happiness.  They can’t steal it or conceal it- do not give them that power.
  2. Even if no one laughs at your jokes, you are hysterical in your own right and will find those eventually who will love your humor and wit.
  3. No matter what quirks, glitches or funny personality traits you have, you are beautiful and belong in the world.  And anyone who picks out those instead of seeing you for what you really are isn’t worth your time.
  4. You never have to explain yourself to those who don’t truly care about you.
  5. You can only know what people reveal…. Otherwise, you aren’t a mind reader.
  6. Kindness is a way to live, act, talk and carry out with everyone you meet or have as blessings in your life.
  7. Words and actions must go hand in hand or they begin to cancel each other out.
  8. There’s gotta be a reason that the mind and the mouth were made as two separate pieces.  One should be used before using the other.
  9. Instead of talking about everything you hope to do…. Just go do it and shut up.
  10. Don’t ever believe that you aren’t wonderful, valuable, intelligent or belong in this great big world.  Because everyone does.  Sometimes it just takes finding your niche before it begins to make a little sense.

You are perfectly perfect…. So check out this perfectly perfect song 😉  I’m in love with Elizabeth and the Catapult right now.

Happy Thursday dears…

~lme

More than Enough

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More than enough

by the lovely songwriter from the band, Elizabeth and the Catapult.

Once in awhile

More often than naught

I forget that I forgot

That I got what I got

For a good reason

Though it may not be much

It’s more than enough

Once in awhile

I relax in my seat

I forget what is missing

I kiss fear on the cheek

I feel the light on my back

Though it burns with regret

It’s more than enough

So remember on this mid-week day…. you’ve got a lot to be thankful for…. even if you don’t have all the answers. 🙂

~lme

Come in, the water’s nice

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Photo Courtesy:  This flickr photostream

Standing high above a precipice am I.  And the people below are chanting and calling my name- Jump, Jump they say.  A nagging feeling tugs at me like a string in my back attached to the oak tree a few feet behind me.  The string is saying no and my toes curl under with every sound uttered from their lips.  A rush of fear consumes my body as I peer over the edge at the water below.  But they look like they are having so much fun, bobbing buoys saying come on in… the water’s nice.  If I can just leap once, and then the free fall where there will be no turning back.  The only thing left at that point will be to anticipate the splash.  The submerge.  Of first the feet, and then the water as it climbs up my legs and tickles my abdomen, and the water climbs up to my neck and head and envelops every hair bursting from my scalp as the water overtakes me.  I did it.  I jumped.  When i float back to the surface and resurrect from the watery grave, there they are.  All their smiling, encouraging faces knowing i had one last act of bravery within my body.  We dog paddle around the lagoon with legs and arms in the cool clean water.  The drops of water roll off my arms back to whence it came.  One jump inspires another and another.  I can jump again.  The joy lies just beyond the fear.  Fear pulsating in my ears like a deafening voice can be quieted with just one calm step.  Jump they say.  Jump. Jump.  i wasn’t ready for the plunge.  But in that moment between terror and reckless abandon was a split second of sheer bravery.  So I seized it and ran.

Oh great….. another Valentine’s post

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Photo Courtesy:  British Library photostream

Ok guys, give me a chance…. i hope this one will actually be more substantial than ways to know if you’re “in the right relationship” or “how to find your soulmate” or whatever other interesting read is out there.  I just have several things on my mind as this blessed holiday of love approaches us once again.  And thanks to my dear friend, Lauren, for sparking some thoughts through some great conversation 🙂

1.  Love has been sadly misconstrued in the American culture.  Love in the Bible does not look like what I see around me.  Materialism doesn’t seem to really be a part of biblical love.  Selfishness is not a part of it.  Pride is not a part of it.  And part of me doubts that we really want to actually “love” someone anymore, because frankly that’s just too hard.  It isn’t about candy hearts and sweet words when it all boils down to the bottom.  Love, true love, is wanting what is best for someone else even if that means I suffer.  It means giving of resources without always thinking how this is going to hurt or help me.  Let’s be honest people, 50/50 is not even a legitimate goal in any friendship or relationship.  So let’s just drop that expectation at the door.  Love is active service.  Love is sitting in a hospital room when there are other things you’d rather be doing.  Love is going the extra mile.  Love is giving even when it hurts.  Love is sharing.  Love is listening.  Love is pulling yourself along on the days when you feel you literally have nothing left to give.  Love is trying to think no evil even when there is anger deep inside that would much rather lash out.  Love requires a lifetime of work and will still leave us with more we can do.

2.  “Your actions speak so loudly, that I cannot hear your words.”  This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson has resonated with me every time i’ve read it in my life.  Sometimes when we look at ourselves and others, we tend to see discrepancies in action and deed.  It’s like we say things, but there isn’t anything to prove it.  Jesus tells us in John, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”  This tells me that love isn’t gushy sweet things or love poems or happiness all the time.  It’s action.  It requires dedication.  It will require is to grow and hurt and laugh and cry, but it will make us better.  And this quote shows me that what we do can be infinitely more important than what we say or what we say we’re going to do.

3.  Love is a choice and a difficult one more often than not.  It’s not easy to walk through the fire knowing you could be burned.  It’s not easy to give to people who are thankless.  It isn’t easy to hope that someone will strive for greatness and do a 180 degree turn.  But we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Knowing the sacrifices and the blessing that God has given us will help soften our hearts toward those who have wronged us and toward those we don’t “feel” like loving at times.  To spend and be spent is the idea of real love.  Support, encouragement and a willing heart will go farther in working toward a goal than a continuous negativity that sees the worst in every situation.  We cannot keep repeating the past and hope that the future will be brighter.  We must change.  We must be willing to stretch our hearts and our arms toward those who at times make loving really difficult.  I think i understand that at times.  Christ came to die for those of us who sometimes turn away from Him.  How hard it would have been to still have compassion on a people who really didn’t want you to even live.  He didn’t shake people and scream at them.  He just quietly strove to love them and give Himself for them.

I hope these thoughts can encourage and give you some positive meditation tomorrow on a holiday that has warped our concept of love.  Happy valentine’s day kiddos 🙂

~lme

Water and erosion

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Waves upon waves

of searing, new folds of pain

eroding what I knew

Day after day

Why will you keep haunting me

As if you don’t desire me to recover

How will I heal

If I’m not left alone

My bleeding little fingers

Gripping the Rock

While the damp air whips

My hair about my cheeks and ears

And satan whispers

He is no longer here

Lies are in your chest

Lies are what you do best

I know this is just a test

I would not say I’m brave

You said you’d never leave

So perhaps I can hold on

For just one more day

~lme

In the Future…

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Photo Courtesy: Florida photostream

Where do I see myself in the future?

I see myself in a cottage by the ocean, where the waves are lapping up against huge rocks and the sun is setting.  I can hear sea gulls having a conversation about the weather or the latest thing they read.  I’m swallowed by a sweater that’s entirely too big for me and my feet are tucked up beneath me in my Adirondack chair painted seafoam green.  I am touching a journal with hundreds of empty pages just awaiting to be dressed in lyrics, poems, stories and imaginings of my mind.  It’s quiet by the ocean.  It’s peaceful by the ocean.  And the night air closing in is pushed by the wind, encouraging her to be better and stronger than she was before.  The horizon provides the center, the balance, the anchor for my eyes.  My formerly brushed hair is now lifted off my neck by the wind and brought around my eyes and caressing my cheek and with each breath, I take in more healing, salty, sea air.  I think I begin to understand why the doctors at the turn of the century recommended a stay near the beach for its healing properties.  I lie back, close my eyes and just be.

~lme