Why have coffee past seven? Because it makes you crazy.

Because if I said all the things that there seem to be going on in my heart at any given time, I'd always be in tears. Because I think and think and think on my thoughts and why I think certain things and how and why certain things effect me and I think until my mind is racing. But sometimes it stops. Sometimes there are brief moments of clarity and I think that there is a purpose to all of the thinking.
Something about loving everyone.
Something about being open to everyone.
Something about being honest about my faults.
Something about being gracious with myself and my apparent special needs.
Something about not being quiet about the unique way I work.
About not being ashamed.
Something about that light flickering inside me.
Something about the big thing that is happening from the outside of the now institutionalized church.
Something about taking away its' glory.
Something about the hostility it breeds when it fails to meet the physical needs of the needy.
The emotional needs of the cast outs.
Something about the fault of ignoring the arts.
Something about love.
Something about honesty.
Something about the travesty that is being a beacon of light and a pillar of righteousness when one is a leader in the church.
Something about being above the falling.
Something about ignoring the frailty of the faulty human chosen to have His loved poured out in a clay vessel.
Something about failing to be quiet to listen.
To Him.
To others.
Something about respect.
Something about the failure of stewardship over this place we live.
Something about quiet.
Something about being broken for others.
Something about me not being able to be broken for others.
Something about being light.
Something about regaining the freedom once again that He gave so lavishly through the cross.
Something about something bigger than the smallness of one persons' vision.
Something about being so very human.
Something about respecting the writings of other very human humans.
Something about finding myself.
And finding that I am small.
Finding that I am silly.
So so silly.
Some thinking on the things men and women in power ignorantly spoke to quench who my small little me was.
Some thinking on the poison I spewed on others when I refused to think for myself.
Thinking on the irony of education and my lack.
Thinking on quiet.
The failed art of conversation.
The failed beauty of sitting alone.
Of listening for still small voice.
Of the travesty of strain man's vision can place on sacrament of marriage.
On the bullheaded foolishness loneliness sins to.
On how I have limits in my humanity.
On how the past is alive all at once with the present all too often in my reminiscences.
On how a perfect life, perfect marriage, perfect wisdom don't exist.
They are lies.
On contentment without bitterness.
And the peace through patience.
Something about being honest creating a usable clay vessel.
Vessel to be filled to be used, cracked, and broken and usedcrackedandbroken.
Broken often.
Often to be sorry and to wrought change.
Honesty the conduit to change.
Changing struggles to honesty to freedom from poison laced truth.
That I'd not be a poison.
That I'd not be a wall.
That I'd not be a soldier, but a listener and lover.
A talker only respectfully, but on the page as free bold vagabond.
On page fighting past fear.
On page free to free boisterous and please-be-quiet-you-talk-too-much carefree silly child again free again thinking in quiet me.
If only in incomplete fleeting doughy in the middle not finished hot dishes of fragments of thoughts.

and the na...cy and the ch....ea and the me....an and the me and the then and the now

And married at twenty.
And baby at twenty one.
And another in twenty one months.
And another two years later.
Maybe that's when her oneness was completed.
Six, maybe seven years after vows.



After hours.
In the irrelevant darkness spread between bedroom walls
Cockeyed passers by disregarding voiced pain
voiced agony
voiced loneliness
Meddlesome naysayers and bandage quips
overachieving in laws and unattainable standards
whose standards?
Mediocre marriage between mediocre bedsheets
sagging now unrecognizable milk producing nurturer

spread open wide, dear submissive
open to act and do and be and act until quality feeling fills the sheets
Fills the void
the lie of the better
the lie of the soapbox

irrelevant naysayer held reverently above impractical practicality
now gray
now white
now gray
now white

boxed in
in boxed house
manufactured to house life and smiles and cooking and eating and love making

seclusion breeds opportunity

opportunity to question
opportunity to run
run far
run far
to the backwards had been
revolting not now been
dear submissive tempted now to run
run from the faith
run from the gray now white now gray now white

now disqualified with quips of knowing better than thou
better than the brokenness
better than the now
why ask how
dear submissive
dear seclusive
elusive reclusive diabolical questioner of the faith
questioner of the emphatic

realistically seeing the reality of the being in the madness never seeing

but the brow and the beating
and the meeting of the quipping and whipping mental furor into mad fury
fury at self
fury at self
at elusive submissive
elusive submissive at high cost of life

snatched away laughter
hope of respectability
hope of in-loving kindness
in love-ability
ability
utility

utilitarian though you seem to not be the backhanded equalizer suppressing madness temper

Tempted to cope
tempted to flee backwards to inexplicable ridiculous radical

hold me down longer
loving sad view
hold me down harder

run from the now white now gray
make fun with the freedom of the boxed in box maker
laughter taker
for small money maker

eunuch drone worker
enabling free for frees sake
for sayings sake
for others knowing sake

high calling to poverty ignoring true need unfulfilling unequally maker
marriage breaker
oneness breaker
promise breaker
fail
fail
fail

Worry, Apprehension, Anxiety, and Faith

 How much is actually under our control? Job had life happen to him. He couldn't control the tragedies that took his family, fortune and health away.

		"Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house; and a messenger came to Job and said, "The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them,
		"when the Sabeans raided them and took them away—indeed they have killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you!"
		While he was still speaking, another also came and said, "The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them; and I alone have escaped to tell you!"
		While he was still speaking, another also came and said, "The Chaldeans formed three bands, raided the camels and took them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you!"
		While he was still speaking, another also came and said, "Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house,
		"and suddenly a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead; and I alone have escaped to tell you!"" Job 1:13-19 (NKJV)

As Job sat at home messengers ran to him bringing bad news times three. I imagine Job's heart growing faint, beads of sweat covering his brow, his palms clammy and sweaty as the second messenger opened his mouth to share even more bad news. By the time the third messenger came with his story to report, Job would've wanted to wake up from a horrible nightmare. Last year was a nightmare. (It has now been years since this post was started. Not sure how many years, but at least two.)
It began with me in a dark, thick, debilitating depression. A cloud over my mind and heart that held me under. I fought with my emotions, or lack thereof, to somewhat function. I became a machine. I produced dinners, swept floors, wiped runny noses and played house with my husband. But my mind was lost and cloudy. I couldn't hold back tears at all hours of the day. I couldn't laugh or smile at the irony of everyday life as I love to do. I didn't feel trapped, I was trapped. And the cage, the hole, the cloud draped over me grew thicker, heavier and darker. I couldn't see any hope. No hope. Without hope I took matters in my own hands. 
At the crisis center they called it a trial run. The crisis center where the first small pink pills were administered under watchful eye. The morning that day began as any other. I was left alone with my younger children. In my bedroom I did it, the children busy in another part of our shabby mobile home playing with who knows what. They missed it. They didn't see anything, but me walking around the house later sobbing as I went on with my chores. I had called my husband and told him he needed to be home with me and he came. I still babysat as I did every Thursday at the time. Then I called for help. Help came and escorted me to the crisis center. I got help.
My trial run led to a regimen of medication everyday ad infinitim. Incremental increases of sweet relief  More and more it took to balance out the bad bad imbalance of chemicals, emotions, feelings, loss, hopelessness. And consume willingly and hungrily I did. Hungry for my cure. Hungry for my humanity in the sea of dying to self I was surrounded in. I had bought into it. Those lies shouted so loudly by the sheep. Those lies told to me and others of the weak faith; of those with mental illness. Weak faith of those on antidepressants. That was me. Vocal about my 'healing.' Vocal about my liberation from the weak pills that enslaved. What use is salvation? The baptism of the Holy Spirit? The life lived in holiness, refraining from sin? What good is the witness to those lost souls? Will the salvation preached liberate the enslaved mind? Will the prayer moving away from dependence on men move to depend on faith to heal? Faith to feel? Faith to motivate? Validate? All that it should. All that it should to make a broken soul whole. 
But those lies mixed in with the truth. Those lies mixed in with the love. Saying o how we love you. O how we are so proud of you. But they lie. They disapprove. They grow much faster. They love much purer. They are the better. They push the small to their place of smallness. 
Go get a band aid if you must, but a band aid you'll have until you truly give ALL of your little self to The Lord. Push to make little of my smallness. Not enough, dear one. Not enough, little sheep. Not enough prayer time. Not enough submission to husband. Not enough holiness. Not enough smiles. Not enough worship music. Not enough cleaning. Not enough doing of good for the church. The church. The self sustaining organism. Sustained on the sacrifices of the few. The sacrifices of the few to feed, nourish, protect, teach, isolate, cater to, the holier than the rest. The holier than the most. The holier because of the poverty. The holier because of the dependence on the food stamps. The medicaid. The generosity of others. Never say no to your children when they ask of you. But how to do such a thing when there is no means? No means to save. No means to give more than the sacrifice of the all. All the life. The sacrifice of all the life for the catering to the few. Say yes to your kids and push away the outside world of the many. Say to the outside world that this sacrificial life of poverty is the one they should envy. Desire. You wanna live this life? Run away. Run away fast. Hard. Push away from the circles of unreason.  The justifying of the feeding of the ever consuming organism. It can't help the many. It can't reach the physically hurting. Can't do the true work of the church for the feeding of itself. But the depression.
The depression that starved. The depression that wore down to suicide. Suicide when there is no other option to the life un lived around me. That life that was full of life and creating life and nourishing life without life being breathed into the small me. Imagine the lonliness of there being no escape. No escape from the confines of what should be called life. When life is the elusive one. When life is your enemy. When life is a lonely place where the should be whispers of reassurance are demands for holiness. Demands for more sacrifice. Times in prayer. In the Word. Stopping living to escape the not getting better non living. 
O naive Christian. Misunderstood. No amount of prayer, servitude, submission, faith could pull one so ill as me from the depths of sticky depression fingers. Your cure found not in a stronger belief, but in a greater  a greater faith in the knowledge and wisdom of men. Contradictory? No, wise. Wise to succumb to the wisdom of medicine. Of thousands of years or study. Of medication that is a miracle healing. Though a healing brought on patiently through months of inactivity. Months of it not working. Months of strange adjustments and fatigue and thirst and who knows what else. Sacrifice. I sacrificed my save face for free thinking  for free feeling and emotion and happiness. The ability to feel these things and not just act them out. Act them out like I had learned to do. 
My remedy, sweet remedy, remorse over the years I denied myself my healing in those tiny pills. That exhaustion. That work. That exclusion. Oh, the strange things I said and did in the name of a faith that betrayed me. Trade in the tainted for the pure. That religiosity for the depth of truth He brings. 
As I said loved my Savior, it was the acceptance of the people I longed to love. If I loved them by living the life they said was best for me then surely I'd get better, right? Surely the more I pleased them the more my life would reflect the love being poured into me. The life that they said would happen.
It was a cage. It was a chain. It was a prison.
Resolved. Resolved, but unsettling tale to tell. Unsettling. Upsetting. Scary. Sad. Not years wasted, but years in refinement to think as a thinker free of trained thoughts thinks. In thinking as a thinker thus free to worship as a freeman. A free woman. A loosed from bonds thinker. A truth worshiper in truth. Dictated holiness never for the better than to judge. 
O, but the self incriminating self ever ready to pull down and pull apart the accomplishments of the self.
yes, the me .
The built on years of mental battles with mental self. Would you be so free? Would you be so free to tell of the loss and the sacrifice? Stand on the ground that is solid and solid your feet and stable you'll be in the eyes of the Important. Disregarding the all important eyes.