28 days of phrase.

the old man is snoring. outside, his tears are falling from the sky and dampening our dirt - sand, whatever. i got sick this week and that slowed me down. i missed a few days at this, and then i started playing catchup with everything else. saturday is a good day for pancakes with the family and stillness. silence, but for the pooling of rain on grounds that cannot hold it. my world is at peace.

despite high competition from the first season of Friday Night Lights, i buttoned up the a chapter called 'the origin of appetite' in Lewis Hyde's "Trickster." We followed the "Trickster" through ancient mythology. Our mediator between the god's and man, He consistently used craftiness to steal particles from them (ie, fire) and hand them to us. He knows where the fat is and where the meat is. He ruffles feathers by taking the line of culture and eating the essentials right off, leaving the dangling, vacant hook. He knows his appetite. He hungers, like all vessels for rich food at premium costs, but he curbs it, because he's seen the power of the cavernous belly. He eats delicately to avoid the snare of desire and leaves the rest. He's been the glutton. His intestines grew accordingly to house nine miles worth of portion, they wrapped around him like a noose. so he knows his borders. He's like Jesse James. He knows when to get in, and get out.

it's a subtle awakening. a wake up call to assessment. What owns me, due to my allegiance by consumption? i'd like to pretend i never wrote that and go with my rainy saturday afternoon. after all, we are at peace here in cardiff, ca. but, who then, will be responsible for the levity of their thoughts?

28 days of phrase.

hunger. it is in our essence to want things. we subtly ache for food and possessions. Some of those things are nutritional in nature. The rest are sheer distraction from nutrition. In both, the human soul is hungry. it likes indirectly smoked trip-tip and fast food fries from McDonald's. I say to my soul, "what is it that you want,?" and it points to everything. Even now, i want a nap, i want to escape into a television set, and yet, i also want to restock the mental fluids with a good book - i wanna be inspired. I wanna get in shape, but i also want to eat rich foods and enjoy pleasantries. Can i safely say that to be human is to ride by the rudder of appetite, which is to be confused? How do you know what urges to follow? Whose song is that which we are humming? Is that the song of the Siren, or the Psalms?

Wisdom wakes to a world in mid conversation. It weighs the words. She analyzes intentions, and then makes a move. Not just any random saunter down any long and winding road. But she looks for beauty and bets her life on it. She knows that immediacy does not insinuate accuracy. It is not the predecessor to truth. So she follows that voice that may lead through the impoverished valley of great despair because she see's some greater benefit on the map to goodness.

We want so much stuff. What are the materials that will help us build a road to the garden of eden, past the thick thorn bushes and through the haunted forests? Though it may cost us a season or two of poverty, we set our foundations in concrete, while the world plants posts in sand. The storms come and both are destroyed. everyone is sucked dry of their wealth by the vacuum of reality. And then, as the haze lifts, finely placed bricks and mortar are ready to build on. Suddenly, the body and soul, want that… it couldn't be more clear. They want what they can feast upon, and not what spoils.

28 days of phrase.

cobwebs. on everything. it's been too longs since i dusted off my tools. the tiny house has been weathering, undisturbed by me. the girls have been it's keeper. i'm back on the job site again, pulling spiders off of my drills and hammer. my left ear is overused, due to the angry roar a chipper scraping thin set off of concrete. most adhesives are not easily removed. that is the nature of remodel. everything is made to last, but nothing actually lasts. repair is a necessary occurrence in our human rhythm. it's a real challenge to make something that can outlast water leaks, earthquakes and fashion. so we're always revisiting what we set in stone, trying to remake it, rearrange it, so it's better. the problem is called human error. even the most imperfect of systems has it's weakness when it comes to who's staffing it. the greatest minds on planet earth are all out back trying to keep the termites off of the window sills.

28 days of phrase.

Nine years ago today, i married a girl from Green Bay, Wisconsin. We were 21 and had the slightest notion of what Love was or is. We knew enough, just enough, to pack our bags and throw our surnames into one. While the Christmas season was overtaking Ohio with it's frosted trees and frozen streets, we waved good -bye and made our way west to the setting sun. It took us 2 years to feel connected to a foreign state with strange streets and restaurants. 2 years to feel like we could call a friend for a surf or a chai. It took 4 years till you could feel the solidity of the earths soil around our searching roots. All the while, we thought we knew each other…
It took us 6 &1/2 years to bring another life into this planet. Beauty and pressure came holding hands, giving us sunsets and kicking dirt. In marriage counseling, it was suggested that it takes 7 years to know someone. i think that's absurd. i know couples in the Wilderness, married for 40 years that don't know each other. You know someone when you're tested past the point of yourself, out in that dangerous enemy fire zone where sleep deprivation and ambition collide together while 2 are learning to care for 3. For us, it was 2 learning to care for 2 more. That broke us. Recently, just recently, we've started to really know each other. Grace met us when we were young and naive, it put the pieces together - it said, "I do." it moved us out to California when all reason and logic suggested otherwise. Grace is still meeting us. It met us this morning at 5:40am when the little chirps of new life start calling from their cribs. it's writing our story, while we're committed to it's plot. I married a girl with long honey curls hanging on tanned skin and a pocket organizer. She married a dude, with intentionally unkept hygiene and un-calculated moves. We're thrown into a scene where beauty is always the outcome, but pruning and loss are the nutrients to bring the rose to bloom. i am amazed at where we've been, and i'm amazed at where we are going. i'm amazed by the girl at my side. i'm amazed by the roar of the ocean and by the call of duty. by the little Anderson with blonde hair with the one with brown. i'm amazed by what Grace allows us to go through.

"it is only in the trying circumstances that human love is given its chance to have meaning, for it is only in these circumstances that it can be bourne out in deeds through time - even, to quote Shakespeare, "to the edge of doom" and thus prove itself true by fulfilling it's true term." - Wendell Berry

28 days of phrase.

For a long time, i've wondered why i see so little change in myself and the community around me.  Like the eroding soil in my back yard, what is often evident in our biosphere is the decaying of life, exposing of broken roots etc. --rather than vibrant new seedlings developing.  this is our great human dilemma. the awkward 2 inch film distorting the way we perceive things, creating that disturbing barrier between what is and what we perceive to be. ultimately, straining our ability to see, grasp, act and fulfill our potential.  In this distortion, we consistently make lateral moves with God and sit comfortably in ambivalence.

when it finally occurs to us that progression is demanded, we realize we're in the middle of an all out fight. the moment we relent, we're stuck again. in the pursuit of God the human heart wants an easy road.  we want things handed to us, like winning Lottery tickets.  we want salvation, sans the sweat strain of cultivating it.  But, when we awaken the to the atmosphere of tension, we realize there is no pain free way of living fully. to follow God, is to seek. there is no other road.

thankfully, God is miraculously reviving the misguided human heart, will, soul -- intentions, building a garden robust. He just says to the cripple, "Wake Up, take your mat and go" and we start intentionally cultivating our landscapes like caretakers and sometimes, even, we are slopping in the dirt like renegade gardeners.  So, Jesus breathes into the human soul, "wake up."  realize your potency,  wake up.  get up.  want what is good and right.  create.

behind the swollen dehydrated surface, undetectable spouts of beauty are rising. it's not a matter of what we see. it's a matter of what is. We can train our souls to trust in what is and appreciate what we see, rather than gauging all spiritual realities on what is perceptible. Everything is becoming. All things hang in the balance of realizing their fullness. The starved, outside our windows, can and should be nourished. who will do the watering? what happens when we wake up?

Encinitas, CA

28 days of phrase

San bernardino,

There's a hole in my heart but I'm not gonna stop pouring liquid in it.  I'm not going to pretend it doesn't exist.   It's there.   Beating. I can't muffle the pangs.  I'm not always going to fill it with appropriate things, either.  Yet, Everyday I spend watching the sunrise over pages stained with prayers and caffeine, that whole seems to find sustenance.  Healing nutrients, of which cannot be found in the physical landscape of humankind.  When I pray, a river of scripture threads my soul, depositing fabric to heal this heart.

28 days of phrase

Lake Arrowhead, Ca

I went to the mountains, when all reason said "stay home."  Guilt followed me 6000 feet in the air.  I travel all the time, she's always home.  Gulit and weight... But I had to go.   I had to go where the air is thin.   Where I could see clearly for miles.  So I leaned in, like one leans into any turn where the motion just takes you.   I said a prayer for the little ones and envisioned them being held by angels.   I took the winding road, on the highway called the rim of the world, up the back spine of San Bernardino.   So, I'm here, in the quiet purr of nature to read Lewis Hyde and study the psalms, and to pray my frickin brains out for Jesus to put his hands in wounds.  I want You like a cup of coffee and I want a refill for afternoon tea and for happy hour.   I want you to be with my friends who have lost so much and I want your hands to provide for the yearnings of pure hearted pilgrims that scrape the earth.

28 days of phrase.

encinitas, ca

the santa anna's are in- pushing hot air from the desert across our faces and sending it out to sea. in retort, waves are marching orderly in causing the coast to crowd with spectators and partakers. everyone called in "sick." no one is sick.

even the grass is waking up and bowing prostrate. green is starting to grow in our backyards, where there has been none, not since we've lived here. color in place of weeds and sand. Every november is different in the dessert. You throw buckets of water around and biospheres begin. november knows himself, yet not in the since that he knows the fullness of his essence. he's looking around to become something. he fancies spring.

28 Days of Phrase.

a song
a sound
pound & thud
greasy face
face down in the mud
when the bird begins to sing
blue notes
beats
heart strings

November. 28 days left of phrase.

there are 28 days left of this fine month. i plan to have a post for each day. i play to wrestle the dragon inside my brain. maybe i'll tie him up. maybe i'll loose a limb. maybe you'll see me ridin' em.

november is a gift. it's the first rest in my measure. i don't usually have time to write at home with the little ladies crawling all over everything. but, i can't think of a better way to reach for december.

november, may you be a long dramatic pause. a deep cosmic breath. i hope you slur your sentences and screw around with grammar. i hope you learn. i hope you light a fire in my backyard, where i can stoke a pipe and hear from angels.

november, i hope you bring babies safely into these pastures.

And God, i'm reaching for you. in all things.