Sometimes . . .

 

Sometimes I forget to return calls.

Sometimes I like to eat baby food.

Sometimes I sing while shopping.

Sometimes I cook to much food.

Sometimes I stay up too late.

Sometimes I eavesdrop.

Sometimes I listen to the same song over and over and over.

Sometimes I write.

Sometimes I use to much salt.

Sometimes I give myself a hair cut.

Sometimes I get flat tires.

Sometimes I lock myself out of my apartment.

Sometimes I burn the roast.

Sometimes I stare at the sun.

Sometimes I leave the milk out.

Sometimes I sit in my chair and just breath.

Sometimes I drive thru the night.

Sometimes I need to talk.

Sometimes I get shy.

Sometimes I get it right.

Sometimes I make faces at babies.

Sometimes I open doors.

Sometimes I call the cops.

Sometimes I listen.

Sometimes I wink.

Sometimes I make French Toast.

Sometimes I need to call you.

Sometimes I wonder where this road is going.

Sometimes I pet the cat.

Sometimes I clam up.

Sometimes I escape.

Sometimes I understand.

Sometimes I order a quad shot over ice.

Sometimes I pick flowers.

Sometimes I explore the woods.

Sometimes I avoid you.

Sometimes I see but do not perceive.

Sometimes I forget the SD card.

Sometimes I’m humble.

Sometimes I wish.

Sometimes I sigh.

Sometimes I say “yep yep”

Sometimes I eat out.

Sometimes I worry.

Sometimes I draw.

Sometimes I am right handed.

Sometimes I drink one percent.

Sometimes I get angry.

Sometimes I threaten to feed people quarters – and tell them they’ll like it.

Sometimes I drink the whole glass without stopping for air.

Sometimes I write in books.

Sometimes I dog-ear pages.

Sometimes I forget I made tea.

Sometimes I pretend to be asleep.

Sometimes I can be a “Me-Monster”

Sometimes I squeeze from the middle.

Sometimes I write messages in the mustard before I spread it.

Sometimes I have to throw away everything in my fridge and start over.

Sometimes I have to push start your car.

Sometimes I forget

 

 

and then I remember.

Sometimes I can’t wake up from my dreams.

Sometimes I cheat at Rook.

Sometimes I get swallowed up in a project.

Sometimes I get lost.

Sometimes I want to get lost.

Sometimes I get up early and watch the sunrise.

Sometimes I plan an adventure and go.

Sometimes I go.

Sometimes I spell things wrong.

Sometimes I bite my nails.

Sometimes I bend down and look under rocks.

Sometimes I like being alone.

Sometimes I go shopping just to be around people.

Sometimes I take pictures.

Sometimes I talk to strangers.

Sometimes I wish I could do more.

Sometimes I think about moving to England.

Sometimes I want to buy coffee for a stranger.

Sometimes I want to bear all your troubles away.

Sometimes I eat beets and then think I’m dying the next morning.

Sometimes I forget your name.

Sometimes I pick scabs.

Sometimes I build forts in my living room.

Sometimes I hum with a strident forcefulness.

Sometimes I hear more than you realize.

Sometimes I am ticklish.

Sometimes I sleep on the floor, just to make sure I still can.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes I say everything but what I’m trying to say.

παράκλητος

 

Here – I want you here.  Be here.  HERE.

 

It’s starting to make sense – I’m starting to see.  And it’s exciting – painful – good – hard – difficult – joyous – and long, and deep, and late.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,  who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

2nd Corinthians 1:3-4

The word for comfort here (parakaleō) literally means to “come along side” – I don’t know if you’ve ever had the opportunity to look someone in the eyes, and listen to their heart. 

To hear and understand and listen and know.

 

To share the comfort – and to point towards the source of that comfort.

 

The source? The one who comes alongside? The paraklētos? Well that’s easy – that’s Jesus.

 

And here’s something I love – an emphasis that gets lost in the translation from greek the fact that all of our afflictions (plural) are swallowed up by the comfort (singular) with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  That same comfort is sufficient, no more than sufficient – it exceeds, far beyond all our afflictions – that one comfort.

 

And while your thinking about that – think about this. Comfort shared is comfort relived.  I can’t unpack and share the comfort I’ve received without being reminded of God’s comfort. Try to telling a moving story, without being moved.  The more you share this spring, the more it flows.  Like widening a culvert, or deepening a canal. 

 

Stay up late – listen, share.  Come alongside. Share the comfort you’ve received.  There is only one demand comfort makes of you – to be acknowledged and shared – and this is a joy.

Crusted with Barnacles

 

There are reminders still . . . like drops of oil that float to the surface.  Upward they rise, slowly leaking out the hull of ship, long sunken – a memory which still has the power to haunt you.

They break on the surface – spreading out – leaving a rainbow colored sheen on the water – a reminder of what once happened here. 

 

Don’t confuse buried and forgotten with processed and completed.  As relics from that wreck wash up on shore do not throw them back into the sea – the sea does not hold it’s secrets forever – no, it disgorges them – sometimes in storms, sometimes in gales, sometimes on washed up tangled with seaweed, crusted with barnacles – and smelling odious.  No, rather take those relics you find – relics you cannot bear to have near you and take them to the Lord, He trades grace for relics.  He trades generously.

 

 

 

Generously indeed.

 

And the more you bring in trade, the more relics you’ll start to see, and the more you’ll start to bring.  Soon in your eagerness you’ll start digging around, you’ll starting hunting for relics seeing what you’ll be able to find.

 

 

 

 

 

God is faithful – faithful indeed.

Stand in the gap

 

{Monosyllabic guttural utterance, expressing surrender, peace, weariness, resignation, acceptance, and contentment}

The long words are easy – it’s the short words – the words that actually have meaning, which are harder.  Words that require understanding, understanding to compile, and to arrange.

Would it be a better world if words were adequate – if words could sufficiently express all that we felt, and knew.  What would we gain?  What would we loose?  Would we understand each other better?  Would we understand ourselves better? 

 

What would happen to those things which stand in the gap of understanding?

 

What would happen to music?  What would happen to art?  To theater, storytelling, and coffeehouses?  Maybe communication is complicated because we are complicated, and that which we are trying to understand is complicated, and even more complicated than we suspect – maybe there are things which cannot be broken into syllables.  Things vaster, deeper, truer, grander, more awful, more wonderful, more beautiful, more terrible than we can tell.

 

 

Look a sunrise – can you tell it’s whole story?  Look a rain drop – do you know it’s tale?

 

 

Now look at your parents – your siblings – your spouse.  Can you explain them?

 

 

 

Now look at yourself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now get in your car and go for a drive – don’t worry about the words . . . words will fail you. Thank goodness we can hear beyond the words of our friends and loved ones – that we can hear their hearts, their hopes, and their dreams. 

 

Don’t rely on words.  Rely on time – shared experiences, shared trials, shared meals, shared laughter and smiles, shared tears and brokenness – you want to know and be known? It is in this ground which that plant grows. 

 

And the words? Well they just stand in the gap . . .

Lookout Duty

 

(Written on Friday September 25th 2010)

Tonight I’m squeezing down under a dusty stairwell to get a shot that I’ll only be able to attempt once.  He can only surprise her once, she doesn’t realize that he had the ring smuggled to him weeks ago – he’s talked to her father, she thinks that he’s leaving on Sunday to do that. I have one chance – one chance to capture this for the both of them.  I’ve adjusted the flood lights, I’ve walked thru the steps with him, I’ve put discrete bits of tape on the floor – there is a structural beam which could be a problem – He had me make a music mix to run in the background as well. 

So I’m sitting here, at a table with a white table cloth, flowers, and a ring – on a Friday night.  Listening to the most romantic music mix I could make - Ella, Nina, Louie, Billie, Dean, Frank, Nora, Michael, Madeline, Ingrid, Holly, and Ray are all keeping me company to night. 

I’m on lookout duty – for the next 2 hours.

Earlier I went to the pub downstairs to get something to eat – my first time sitting at a bar – by myself – on a Friday night. 

 

 

Interesting . . . . in the space of two minutes, I managed to alienate the bartender, and have a not quite drunk, not quite sober fellow tell me that I was “very big”

So this is my Friday night – waiting for text that will tell me to dim the lights and get into position.

I’ll hunker down, take off my shoe and my boot to better slide around silently – and hopefully I’ll snag a photo that will bring them smiles for the rest of their lives together . . .

 

 

 

 

 

~ ~ ~

 

Snippets from an Unrelated Project

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~     ~     ~

And Another Very Unrelated Shoot

 

 

(Written today)

I’m tired – it’s late – so, so much. 

 

 

 

I look forward to rest.

 

 

 

There is a scene I like in a Mark Twain story that I love – a scene where our hero has been swept away, out to sea off the coast of New York, rescued by a passing ship and ends up working for his passage across the Atlantic.  He ends up in London with only the cloths on his back.  And there is a scene in this tale – a small scene which does little to progress the story, but reveals much of the character of our hero.

He sit’s on a bench in the park to take stock of his situation.

 

Here when I read this story is where I smile, here is a lesson that has served me well.  This young man – swept out to sea, leaving behind a life in America, and no money for a return ticket. 

Taking stock, he lists out all of his challenges with a cool and level head, and whenever there is one that is beyond him, one that is out of his control he tells himself to “let it go”.