let grateful days be endless

  My heart is warm and tender and open, and torn up and bleeding and blown apart all at once. I feel swirling sentiments of love and unhappiness and peace and edge take over my head and heart, and they leave me no quiet. I am left to sift through millions of pieces of millions of thoughts and feelings and desires once organized and perfect and ready to be voiced.

 Everything changed and everything changes.

wintry walk

 I feel the weight of my own exhausted heart and it spreads everywhere else: what can I do?

 What can I do?

  what will i do?

 Searching your own self is the hardest thing to do: you want to cut out the bad with a sharp knife, and cradle the good in your arms.

 What can I do to make this day better?

  what have i done to cripple that chance?

 In other words, I am to blame for my attitude.

november 20, 2016

 I want this and that and what's out of my reach and what I can't handle yet and I'm upset that I can't have it. Everything's not going my way. It's horrible. Someone make it stop.

 I act this way because I know I cannot make it stop... And so I circle back around to that question: what will i do?

  I free myself from the chaos and take note of the moment. Sitting on the couch in my dress and fuzzy socks, I disconnect to truly connect. I depart to take part of myself. I see everyone around me, and we're all laughing and smiling, but something is missing. Several are missing.

 But we know this, and no, we are not okay with it, but it's not in our hands; so we do something we could not do on our own accord. We do something the common human would never choose because they simply knew they must. It's a miracle that we choose gratefulness. 

choose gratefulness and let it reign.

a grateful moment

 Don't forget what you do have, and what you have coming.

"Little children," we are whispered to, "never lose faith that you are forever healing and forever noticed." 

  For some reason we would rather lose that faith; but sometimes keeping it is the only thing we can do.

 "what can we do?" turns to "what we can do."

 We can choose to love each other unconditionally and hold each other close even when we are pushed away. We can open up when we are shut out and speak tenderness when we are battered; we will be grateful though what we may really want is not granted.

(granted... yet? keep faith) 

  That's what Thanksgiving is made of... Thanksgiving.  I'm sure even the Pilgrims and Indians didn't have everything they really wanted.

  But they sang praise for what they had.

They still spoke thanks for it.

 They chose gratefulness.



  Dear Harm, Hurt, Heartbreak, Selfishness, Sorrow, Tears, and Complaint,
 

   i do, too. 

where to find the prettiness

Everything's not perfect.

I know that; you know that. We all know.

There is not a single thing on this earth untouched by imperfection.

 However, however.

Almost everything is touched with a little perfection.

The perfection of Christ, the perfection of beauty - almost everything.

There is prettiness among us. 

There is... Perfection among us.

the field across from my house

 Look for it. 

Just look for it. It's really not hard to find. 

I wake up each morning and try so hard to distinguish it - where is the goodness? What have I missed? I just stare at my pale morning room. The rays don't hit my walls yet, they don't bring cheer yet; the moon has left her gloom on my walls, left the gray; left the dark. 

I slowly, groggily turn my head toward the open window and can't help but fix my eyes on the sun emerging over the treetops that line the cornfield across the street. It was harvested weeks ago, but it's still so golden and pretty. 

Oh.

I've found some. 

I found the prettiness - I've found the perfection. Soak it in, soak it up. 

Wow.

You are welcome here. I whisper to the brightness. And we talk until I get up from bed.

 So all day I look and look for it - I slip and slide around the corners of our little piece of land in Ohio, pulling up rocks and pushing through tall grass, desperate to find more. And I do find more.

george

It comes little by little, don't forget that.

And sometimes, it comes by lots - just be patient. 

my nephew, Jairus

But sometimes that is all we need, just the little things that exist around us what will grow in importance someday soon. 

But for now, just look at the sunrise, at the autumn trees, at the fog resting over your little patch of Earth.

 I run to the cornfield, my pups leaping and bounding at my feet, I lift my hands up and twirl in the warmth of the sun; I twirl in the cold.

So pretty. So very pretty. 

I realize nothing is perfect, and everything is a lot of madness - but I'm willing to wait for that moment of good, that bit of everything's okay that I never saw before. 

I see that waiting is good, is nice, even. It's suits me, even if I do get tired. 

So, I wait for that moment. 

Come, sit down. Wait with me. 

Leave time in the life you careen through for a heavenly moment. Let it seep into your heart and try your best to notice it. Just wait for it to grow; hold it close and cherish it. Cherish love, cherish sweetness, cherish the littleness of the pretty things around you; cherish how they increase. And increase with them.