beating drums make beating hearts feel alive, and that energy is all i need, really.
oh lord, around your throne, that's a crazy big thought i can't even comprehend.
because talking about mlk and then not actually practicing what you're preaching must be the silliest thing ever;
perhaps that happened so we could see the contrast
because
are my hands clean?
and i was not made to sit
in front of a computer screen all day, it sort of crushes my soul.
the way that things pull me in and i'm invested and being invested means that if things fail, you've wasted all you've put into it. that should be okay. i want that to be okay. but just a little bit of me just wants to sit back and not have to worry about it. oh lord.
so i can do the dishes, but i can't get much of anything else right. so much for living like there's a resurrection. so much for like i want to.
are my hands clean?

you find me in the night
oh, let me tell you
you hold me in the night
let me tell you 
the sun will rise
i am lovesick
the sun will rise
no other love is destined
i will return
for my heart
to my first love
come on, ravish my heart
i will return
oh, let me tell you
to the one who loves me
let me tell you. 

like a deer pants, like a deer pants, so my soul...

i want to learn how to be in love with you.

had a wonderful weekend road trip to boston. one of the best six-hour long conversations i've had in a long time, the green of spring blossoms, stretching after being in a car for so long, the best veggie burger i've ever tasted and baaahsten accents, steveo and mare bear reunion, how much i love that guy. getting to know old faces a bit better, reminiscing, reminiscing - remember the time? getting silly and singing africa, freestyling and falling, beautiful sunshine and breezy weather that can cure any ailment, ponds and swans and the way branches bend. a holocaust memorial so beautiful, seeing baby seals for free, tasty cannolis, home made moroccan feast and some of the best food i've ever had, bellys full of mint tea, prayers in espanol, communal food coma induced naps through movies, more beautiful weather, blossoms and more blossoms, the warmth of your friend's childhood house, windy roads and long drives set to music.

so wonderful, thankful, so blessed. so very blessed.

everything else is sort of feeling like a whirlwind right now. feels like playing monster with a two and four year old, chasing around and around the house, running with feet so fast, around corners and through furniture. and suddenly we all meet, laughing and screaming and out of breath, i catch them, one in each arm, around their chests. timeout! i'll say, and we'll stand there together. take a deep breath! i'll say. and we all stop panting for a moment and inhale deeply, filling ourselves, quiet and still. we let it out slowly and then someone shouts go! and we go again, running and chasing and not stopping. but i need that moment to come, i need to be caught, to be commanded. time out! take a deep breath! to stand in stillness and quiet. just for a moment.

continuing the months-long process of de-cluttering my life, i came upon many nostalgic inducing things this evening going through junk in my room. times pass and things change and for some reason, it leaves me unsettled sometimes. silliest things like directions, library reciepts. lots of letters. remember when you said those things that are no longer applicable? words frozen in time. i have the tendancy to want to remember every little thing, even if it's not a pleasing memory. realizing that some things are good to forget, some things aren't worth tangible reminders. memory may fail, and perhaps that's not so bad.

not to mention the way i went back in time last night. so the story goes, but it won't get me down. i still know i'm going somewhere. and forward in time, not backward. realizing some things aren't good to forget.

put your ear close and hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come.

i missed church yesterday, palm sunday. it bothered me, more than it should have perhaps, but got me thinking about this season in general and why it feels so important to me. i think about growing up catholic, about somber, solemn churches, stations of the cross in the rain, with triumphal entries and whips and crowns of thorn and darkness. images flicker through my head - doing stations of the cross every friday through lent in grade school. a snapshot scene from a movie i must've seen as a child - it's the part where pilate is asking the crowds who he should release, and they're all shouting 'barrabas! barrabas!' and there's mary, screaming at the top of her lungs, crying, 'jesus! jesus!'. or the quietness of the church on good friday, silence so thick that it could swallow you whole. heavy like fog, like struggling to breathe, like weights on your shoulders. even as a kid, you knew it wasn't the time to eat your cheerios loudly, or play on the kneelers or color in your coloring book. you didn't know why, but it was serious, it was a funeral. year after year, the same heaviness grows in the air for forty days, culminating into this one week. this one week that changed everything.

i wasn't one of those kids who got it. it took me years to know god. growing up i merely went through the motions, not because i didn't have a longing for god, but because i simply didn't know that longing existed. but even so. even so, holy week is so prominent in my mind, for its heaviness, its uncomfortability - as it should be. can you imagine that last week? so intense, the climax of christ's life - riding in on a donkey, the crowds, the excitement of it all. the disciples must have felt so cool, so popular, walking in behind jesus. there must have been intimate moments, even though they didn't know they only had a few days left, jesus knew - there must have been a closeness during those last days. jesus washing their feet, celebrating passover with them. and finally the garden, the dark of that night, the chaos, confusion, terror. and so on the story goes. i didn't get it then, but i recognize it now - i was participating in something sacred all those years. something holy - a holy story, a holy mourning, truly grieving the death of christ. nevermind the resurrection - because in those moments, the catholics got it. it's almost like they choose to forget that christ rose - they forget what's coming on sunday. rather, we're the disciples, peter, john, matthew. we're the weeping women, we're mary and joseph, and our worlds have just crumbled around us. we're standing amidst the debris, mouths open, hands at our sides - dumbfounded, confused, broken, numb. our jesus has died - and we don't know about the resurrection yet. our minds have just been scourged with horrible scene after scene - arrested in the garden, beaten by the guards, questioned by pilate, more beating, more questions, the heavy cross, the dusty road, nails, tears, brokenness, death. i can't actually say i know what that would feel like - what it would feel like to stand by as your entire world crumbled around you. but i've had some awful times, mornings you wake up and for a few seconds, forget that everything is hell. and then you remember and it's a stomach dropping moment, having to remember it all over again, trick yourself into thinking maybe all the bad stuff isn't real. i bet it felt a lot like that. for two days, it felt like that.

and so although i now live most of my life in the middle, not quite catholic, not quite anything with labels - holy week. holy week, i want the dark church. i want the heaviness in the air, the frightening silence, the feeling of chaos. i long for those traditions. i can't quite explain why. it just feels right to me. i want to walk that story, to live it, know it. i want to grieve. because yes, christ rose, but for two days, he didn't. and for two days, those followers knew what it would feel like if he never had. and although it's good again, although it gets better than ever before, i doubt those followers ever forgot what those two days felt like. and that's a part of our story. it's a part of our story that i don't want to forget either. because what's resurrection without death?

the weather's nice, and out of hibernation brings back those high soaring birds, majestic and regal. they're flying to remind me: up and up and up. because i have a bad habit of turning my telescope into a microscope.

like a bowl of oranges.