Burning Lighthouse (Part 2)

The lighthouse was on fire. We were running, heat beating against our faces like the ocean beating against the shore. Hot, cold, it was a clear night. Hope had been running from us for years and now it had come. Finally we were here, we were hot and cold and watching our dreams catch on fire. But there was something more, something we were missing still, so we ran, we climbed the rocks to the top of the hill, we ran to the burning lighthouse.

When all else is dark, but for one burning flame in the night, it gives one a surreal feeling as if the lighthouse would always burn on, that it wouldn't really ever burn to the ground and let the ocean eat up the last of it. The waves were the only refuge I had that night. Because when the lighthouse burned, I knew it was you who wasn't ready yet. Like the chaff being blown off the heads of wheat, the fire burned away the fear in our hearts and helped us become who we needed to be to live together.

Hope arises when we trust Him.  

To The LightHouse (Part One)

We started out on the shoreline. I was looking off into the depths of the ocean. I imagined hope afloat upon the restless waves. I had stood and waited so long for you. I had seen you far down the shore, walking towards me, but it felt like you'd never come. I watched you come, and I waited for you for days. But you were so far away. That was when I finally sat down to watch the ocean. I stared until I found a peace in my soul and a hope in the ocean, and I fell in love with the rhythm of the waves. I let them lull my body, rock it back and forth, calm me, love me. "Oh, my, God," I said, "How your love is like the depths of the ocean." and I rocked back and forth in bliss.

Then you came. It all happened so quickly. I was lost in the depths of the ocean and you came and you were behind me, tapping me on the shoulder, than holding me in an embrace. And now we're running, we're running, hand in hand, joy and trust flowing from our hearts like the beat of the waves on the shore, up to the light house.

Fight The Tide

When I love someone, I love them with everything. I will sacrifice everything for them, I will fight for them. When I decide to love someone, to befriend someone, to date someone, it's through thick and thin with me. There's no turning back unless they cut it off themselves, and even then I'll fight for them. Like the song "Alone", by Sanctus Real says, "You are not alone. I will fight the tide to be with you."

Sometimes, it's hard to love people so fiercely. It's hard to be fierce when someone else isn't. It's like giving

all of yourself to someone, for them to give only a little of themselves to you. I don't usually think about this because I have come to terms with my fierceness, and have realized that most would call it extreme. It would be awfully unloving to expect someone to love me the same way. But it's always beautiful when it happens. So I've laid down my expectations and decided to simply love.

Today, while sitting in church, my thoughts roared like a storm tossed ocean. I longed to seek the Lord, but I just couldn't calm my raging mind.  As  I sat there, the Lord spoke to me, "I will fight the tide to be with you." And I knew in that moment that he would fight for me more than I would ever fight for Him, He would love me more than I've ever loved Him, and maybe one day I might even consider

Him a little extreme, but maybe that's the beauty of loving so fiercely.

                                                                                                           * Painting by Kris Lewis

New Delhi

I'll never forget kites flying above rooftops on a dry, Indian evening. I could hear the murmur of families sitting on their roofs as I stared off my own balcony. The smell of curry and rotten fruit tingling my nostrils, I lived a moment that I could live again, and again for eternity.

Maybe it was the thrill of traveling, the good friends around me, or the hope of a full stomach that made

this memory replay itself like a video on my heart years to come. Or maybe it was a small truth that had crept into my soul that evening. It was the moment that life, after going and going, had grown still, and soft, and quiet; and it reassured me that I could live again, that I could love again, that I could change. It was the dry air of a promise for a second chance, hovering in a rainbow of a thousand kites.

My Parent's House

It seemed to me to be one of those places where time stopped, and no matter what you do, or where you go, something about it will always be the same. It is as if time has been altered in some way to my own disbelief and will never begin again. But life will, and it will enter in and out of this little home for years to come.

  In that moment, when I'm all grown up and I've been away from home, I pull up into the drive way of my parent’s house, a song playing on my car stereo, I jump out of the car to hug my mother, looking around, I see how nothing has changed, but for the age on my mother’s face and the tired look in her eyes.

And as time halts, and life continues, I wonder, does life slowly fade out, like a fire burning into coals, until it’s a small, quiet lingering on this earth? Or does it come again? Does it reawaken to the love around it, and grow tender again, and warm, and alive? And if so why? And if not, what happens next in this race we call life? 

Maybe what never seems to change is the welcoming feeling in my heart that even when life does move on, there are people who will love me through whatever I do and wherever I go, and I am in their hearts, and they are in mine, and, together, we learn what love is, we learn how to live, and we find out whether life can come alive again.

Jar Of Rocks

I miss Mikey. The jar of rocks he gave me is sitting in the back of my closet, like all the memories of us praying for each other, crying, and the times we bluntly reminded each other of the truth. Him and all those stupid rocks. He was almost possessive of them, making me promise that I'd take care of them, telling me how important they were. He always said that once I left I wouldn't come back, but I did. I did come back, but he was gone.

Some people never get to say goodbye, but the Lord knows and He sees them, and somehow it makes it okay. So we move on and live life and keep things like jars of rocks in our closets. 

Some things we may never understand, but some things we will hold onto forever. 

Rest in peace, Uncle Mikey. Thank you for sharing your life with me.