It is strangely peaceful
To talk about death
Sitting beneath the Colorado sky
Watching the bats
And the three white candles
Flickering in the dark

It was the last time I wrote in my journal,
I think, the day I saw you crying. It was dusk
And you were wearing that green
Linen dress with the pleats that makes you look like a lily,
Pale skin, dark eyes, and all. The skylight
Shone down on you like a halo.

You looked so small sitting there, a halo
Of wild curls surrounding your face; my journal
Suddenly wasn’t important. The skylight
Darkened as I sat beside you. Dusk
Was moving on, though we sat still, lily
Pale and smelling of things that are green.

You told me that my eyes were so green
Something might start growing in them. The halo
Of light caught in your curls, fragile as a lily,
Made your tears beautiful. I would journal
About them years later, in another notebook. The dusk
Swallowed us there, beneath the skylight.

Your name in the dusk never came through the skylight,
Though I thought of you as “Lily,” wrapped in green.
There was a halo of stillness around us, you and I and my journal.

Energy pulses through the tangled mess
Of thoughts and bodies, communicating
Between them with no regard for time, space,
Or matter. The crowd moves, and the crowd feels.

How is it that one is just one,
But one and one more in this place
Make so much more than two?
I gasp in air and my head reels,

My mind no longer just my own.
Mob mentality? Is that what they call this?
The stark emotions and faceless anger
That cry to be witnessed: surely expression heals.

“Crucify him! Crucify him!” May God bless
The crowd. We are the human race.

I was on Pinterest the other day (so wonderful!) and, I think for the first time, finally pinned something on my pinboard called “Dream Home.” I’m aware that it’s a little early to think about that, but it’s fun to contemplate the kinds of things I’ll want in my home and what I’ll want it to be like.

I want a piano. I’ll start with the piano I have now, but eventually, I want a baby grand and a big, airy room to put it on. I want just enough free time to be able to play it a little every day and fill the house with music. I want to be in a place where, when my friends come over, their little kids can run and reach up and play nonsense on the keys.

I also want a library. It doesn’t have to come in the house; I can take care of this part. It just has to be a room or part of a room with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with books, all of which my husband or I have either read or plan to read. There will be some cozy places to read and some old-fashioned lamps throwing warm light. Maybe there will beautiful book quotes on the walls. The books might be organized in alphabetical order by author, or they might be ordered haphazardly to facilitate the serendipitous stumbling upon of long-forgotten books.

My house should be open enough that smells from the kitchen can spread throughout the house and that sunlight and moonlight permeate everything. It should be large enough that I can have dinner parties and get-togethers and holidays with friends and families. It will have a yard large enough for playing in.

The most important part, or at least a symbol of the most important part, is that it must have a cozy, clean, well-furnished guest room. One of my spiritual gifts is hospitality. I love entertaining guests. I want to have a home where people know that guests are not only welcome, but treasured. I want my house to be a safe and welcoming place for friends, travelers, and even strangers. I want to have an open door and a home full of warmth, laughter, love, and acceptance. I want my house to be the place where people gather, the place where people feel safe and loved.

“Do one thing every day that scares you.” -Eleanor Roosevelt

College is a time to try new things, as we’ve been told over and over. It’s a time to discover who you are and who you want to be. It’s a time you are surrounded by people you’d never otherwise meet and get crazy opportunities that you may never have again.

This Eleanor Roosevelt quote has been on my mind a lot lately. I’ve done a lot of things that scare me in the past year, but it’s funny how that every new one is a new challenge. Some of them are big—I moved 1500 miles across the country to a place with only one person I knew, who I also knew I wouldn’t see a lot. Some of them, though, aren’t so big. Maybe they wouldn’t seem to fit this idea to other people. Things like asking someone who kind of intimidates me to get lunch.

Something I discover more and more about myself, though, is that I thrive on this. I thrive on taking (positive) risks and doing things that put me out of my comfort zone. Don’t get me wrong, it’s scary at first. But I do it anyway. Sometimes things go well and sometimes they don’t, but at least I’ve tried. Somebody else said that it’s the risks you don’t take that you regret.

In some ways, my life right now is just sort of one big risk. I’m flinging myself into the deep end of pretty much everything, but I’d rather live that way than do everything halfway. I don’t know what my one thing will be today. But it’s a new day. Another opportunity will come along.

One thing that I’ve been doing for Lent is forcing myself to get up at eight o’ clock every weekday, even though my earliest classes aren’t until ten and noon. I’ve been doing this for a number of reasons, one of which is that I’ve felt convicted that it’s unacceptable that I don’t consistently and consciously spend time with God every day. Having more time in the morning is part of how I’m trying to fix that.

I bought a couple of books online before Lent about spiritual disciplines, and I read a chapter in each of them last night and this morning about the importance of not only withdrawing to pray, but withdrawing in silence and solitude. If at all possible, this silence should be external as well as internal.

It’s so easy to pray whenever it strikes me to whine to God about something in my life or something I need, and then to just leave it at that. Trying to just quietly worship and adore God for a few minutes was way harder than I expected, which made me feel like something was wrong.

And if that’s hard, then something is wrong. I guess that’s obvious: we live in a fallen world, and one way that manifests itself, in fact, the biggest way it’s manifested, is in the brokenness of our relationship with God.

I’ve always been a very busy person, busy in a full way, but being busy to the point of not being able to stop to breathe isn’t currently my problem. My problem right now is knowing how to direct those moments of rest so that I can get the best kind of rest, the kind of rest that draws me closer to God.

I’m taking baby steps. Right now, I’m trying to take a little while every morning to be quiet, to meditate on Scripture, and to worship. It’s hard, but something I’m learning is that sometimes, loving God and being obedient isn’t “feeling it,” it’s having discipline even when you can’t feel it. It’s choosing to love, trust, and serve God even when His presence doesn’t feel near. It’s praying and reading the Bible consistently even when it’s hard to make it a priority. Sure, there’s something to be said for doing those things with the right motivations. But honestly, I think doing those things will help change your motivations. Choosing to chase after God even when you don’t “feel like it” isn’t going to be in vain.

That’s what I’m learning, and that’s what I’m trying desperately to act on. I want to learn to quiet my mind and heart, but not silence them: to fill them with God’s word and love and promises.

“He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.’” Psalm 46:10

Sometimes, I forget that I don’t look at life the same way that most people do. Today in my poetry class, my professor was talking about a famous 20th century poet (whose name I don’t remember) who was very well-liked by critics, but not always so popular with readers. The only real reason was that his poetry was famous for being dark. An interviewer once asked him why that was.

The poet told a story about how he had once talked to a priest about what the priest thought of human nature, specifically what the priest had learned by listening to so many confessions over the years. The priest told him that people are so much more unhappy than you might think they are. He also said that humanity is so broken, and so is our world. The poet relayed that he wanted to stay true to that.

But, he also said that humanity, essentially, is a bunch of muck that came out of nothing, and soon became aware of itself, picked itself up and began to walk on two legs, began to think and talk and create. And that, he said, is a miracle. He said that he always tried to form his poetry, however it dark it was, against that miracle of a back drop.

My poetry professor finished reading that out of the book he had about the poet, put the book down, and said, “Isn’t that sad?”

I had been smiling. The question surprised me, though it didn’t seem to faze anyone else in the room. No, I thought. It isn’t sad. The fact that humanity is a miracle is sad? That isn’t what he meant, of course. He meant the fact that our only glimmer of hope is that humanity’s existence is an inexplicable miracle is sad. Which, I suppose, would be, if you took it at face value.

But here’s where I differ from most people. I both firmly believe that humanity is broken and fallen, our nature is bent and twisted out of the shape that it was meant to be, and that that shape was beautiful and perfect and flawless. So I hold a sort of cognitive dissonance about humanity: on the one hand, we are tragically fallen and flawed. On the other, the nature to which we long to return, the way we were meant to be, is a thing full of beauty, a thing bearing the fingerprints of its Maker. I am both devastated by the tragic state in which humanity finds itself and chronically optimistic about its true nature, the nature it was meant to have, the nature that sometimes manages to peek through all the grime and grit and destruction.

Humanity is a miracle. A God-breathed, blessed miracle. And that, and its cause, has to be the backdrop of everything. Our poetry may be sad, dark, broken, but it sits upon the promise of redemption and restoration. And that, I think, isn’t sad at all.

The rain falls softly from the spangled sky
And leaves a sheen of starlight on the ground
Beneath me. Far away, a siren calls
And adds its hollow crying to the tears
That drench my skin and quench my soul. Nearby,
The city lights all sparkle through the dark
And join the stars to frolic in the rivers.
I sit beside a bridge, its steel so strong
Against my back, and feel the heartbeat of
This city. My city. I’m home at last.

The sign illuminated in pale fluorescent light
reads “Elite Laundry,”
the letter “e” swirling ornately
and “Laundry” lying in simple small caps.

The windows are large and empty
save for a large vase of flowers
behind each pane and paper signs
taped neatly to the glass:
“sheets,” “table cloths,” “bath towels.”

The dark wood of the front door gleams
as does the metal receiving bin
with the lone handle and the etched wording,
not quite legible in these dark shadows.
Through the glass on the door
stacks of clean laundry
are visible, but no people.

It’s too late to be out
in this part of town.