Tea with Mr. Wilde and God

I like my life.

It is small and quiet and often times difficult. I can't really afford much, but there is always enough, every time. I have a handful of close friends here and the circle gets smaller every time life changes. There are healthy good byes and less healthy good byes and there are a lot of far away people that I love very much. But my handful of people that I hold here know me and I like to believe that the depth of love and the miles of life we have covered together is more than a fair trade for the small number. I am ever so slowly learning how to be a healthy human being before God and learning enough about myself to figure out where I want to go. The questions are not all answered, but I am sure that I will have them when I need them. I really do like my life, the people in it, and where I am going.

I need to remember that sometimes. It is so easy to forget in the natural process of moving forward and changing and growing and striving. It can be so easy to lose sight of such a quiet feeling while I am reacting to deadlines and people I like and people I don't especially when those two people are actually the same person. But right now, in the Sunday quiet of my house with too many too busy people, before all of the trying to be who I am becoming starts, and before I begin to take on all of the descriptors for the roles I will play today, I want to remember that I really do like where I am at.

I think life would be a lot less stressful if I could hold onto that while I race through my days. I think I would be better at remembering that if I gave myself the time in the mornings that I promised God I would. It's like he knows what I need, like he's on my side trying to help me first, be healthy and second, stay healthy. Weird.

But I am fighting so hard to be so good that I forget that I do not have to fight him. In fact, most of the fighting I do is fighting that he would gladly do for me if I would just stand on the promises he has made and let him fight for me. As long as I am fighting, however, he stands aside so he doesn't hurt me... so that I know he is there after I beat myself up. I do a fine job of that even during this part of my life that I like so well.

Today, I woke up two hours before I needed to be awake after a whole night of dreaming that everything that I need to do in the next three weeks needed to happen and be finished tomorrow. I was so frustrated and anxious that I could not sleep and then I realized that I was probably going about life wrong again. I was probably fighting too hard when there wasn't really a fight to be had. So today here is what I need to remember (and what I will likely need to know again and again for the rest of my life):

I am loved and I am learning how to love. I am loved by God and by the people he places around me and most days, I don't get to know why. But I do get to know that that is enough. "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."

One final thought for the rest of today, "Who being loved, could be poor?" [Oscar Wilde]

Seconds drain too quickly through minutes, straight into hours and back into a single long sentence. One which you do not seem inclined to finish anytime soon. If you want to tell me that you love me, do so now in a hundred lovely actions.

Or just one.

Too much has been said too late...and so much of it behind closed doors. So let us give over speaking, you and I, to those who can afford such overpriced lies. And let us write a new language.

Or not.

Let us go on fighting, but not each other. Not one blow more. You did not know it would end in pieces, but you should have. Every hit hits home and we all live here. And with each small victory, our foundations suffer. We wake and walk each day with lacerations and limps we cannot explain. Truth is a knife edge.

Yours and mine.

There is nothing that cannot be cut; but it never runs you through. We can hold onto our shards or we can build. Neither of us have enough Truth to stand on, just enough to draw blood; but that's ok. We would rather have our altars fallen anyway.

But still...

Sometimes it is just fine to go looking for a fight. "Know your enemy," they say. They understand nothing of Calvary love. And I doubt either of us know much more; or else, we might know our enemy and know where to draw battle lines. And where to look for our fight.

occupied

This is home.

And I do not get a choice in that.

It is both comforting and terrifying

To have the corners of my heart

Occupied like a once-peaceful country.

Someone is speaking for me,

But I do not know what I, they, have said

And none of it has been worthwhile.

Almost.

Your silence means everything.

I want to be angry.

I want to go looking for a fight.

I want to swear until we are both deaf.

But I cannot.

I cannot because everything...

Everything tells me this is home

And I am in love with it.

Nowhere else will have me.

You smile because you know

I am right.

Against my own sad will,

I belong here.

I do not even know why it makes me

This way.

I should be happy

Or, at least, not unhappy.

But when I think about it,

I realize I am just surprised.

That,

And I am so used to fighting,

Too used to fighting to be loved.

But the surprise goes deeper than that

Because even that is changing.