Rough Morning

Jehovah Rapha: The God Who Heals.

II Corinthians 12:9-10

"And he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'... That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

"Because of my dad's death, I understand the gospel now in a way I never did before." -My Youth Ministry teacher, this morning.

Because of my mom's cancer, I understand the gospel now in a way I never did before.
Because of my mom's cancer, I understand God's love for me more than I have ever understood before.

I may still be struggling with the trauma of that hole in my past, and the way it impacted my 11 year old mind, but still, God is so good.

He really, really loves me.  And my mother.  My father.  My sisters.

Trials are blessings- and even though I'm still healing, and it's been almost eight years and I'm still not over it, God's bringing me through it.

God, please give me the strength to share this story.

Please give me the courage to share your amazing work through this horror in my life.

I feel you touching me with the Holy Spirit at this moment.

Work through me. Thank you for the cancer.  Thank you for healing my mother.

Thank you for always loving me.

I'm sorry that I've let the cancer keep me from being closer to you.

I'm sorry that deep, deep down in the hiddenness and bitterness of my heart, that I've been harboring anger against you.

I'm sorry for my rebellion.

I've tried to accept the cancer- and I finally have, but I'm still running away from accepting that it came from you.  That you allowed this to happen.  That you would ever let my family hurt so much.

I'm sorry I was blind to my anger- my aggression- my blame- my hurt.

I've gone through the years allowing myself to experience you in certain areas of my life- growing in harsh pride to think that I'm in control- and that I can grow closer to you in this area, but keep you away from that area, and definitely not acknowledge your presence at all in the cancer that wracked my mother's sick, small body.

Because how could a God of love and blessing ever bring that to her? To me?

.... How could a human being be so selfish?  How can I possibly be that ungrateful?

I'm sorry for my pride.  I'm sorry that I felt so scathed by you.

I count it all joy.  Everything you give is good, Father.

Forgive me, God, for my sin against you.  Heal me, please.

Turn the darkness into light.  Let the sun rise on my past.  Make me whole again- a new creation under you.

"If grace is an ocean, I am sinking."

"A line can be straight, or a road, but the heart of a human being?"

Do you know why I love my life?

Because as I sit here in my usual spot at Coach House, a fellow student looks at me, puzzled and asks, "Is that homework?" She motions to the 6 books splayed all over the table, the laptop on my lap and the earnest look on my face.  To which I lovingly get to reply, "Not at all.  This is just my life."

Yes.  This is my life.  Catcher, Eat Pray Love, Pilgrim At Tinker Creek, Bell Jar, Streetcar, Writing Down the Bones...

I only wish I also had Anna Karenina and Ariel with me, also.

It's a day for falling in love again with the books who first fell in love with me.

It's a day for dreaming of poetry lines to turn into tattoos.

It's a day for indulging the inner Stella Kowalski by immersing myself in my battleworn copy of A Streetcar Named Desire. I wish I could say I don't relate to Stella at all.  But I do.  Deeply.  All women do, in my opinion.  Stanley Kowalski is the ultimate misogynist, and thousands of women all over the world would sign up in a heartbeat to stay devoted to him forever, because his sensuous charm and ruggedness outweigh his arrogance and sexism in every area.  Sad, but true. Therein lies the true folly of women.

It's a day to continue in my dreamy delusions of a future romance with my own personal Holden Caulfield. (Because of my love for this character, I'm convinced that nobody I know is actually going to like the guys that I end up bringing home. What can I say? I like them bookish, misunderstood, multidimensional and highly intelligent. ;)

It's a day to be guided by the experiences and lessons learned and taught by Natalie Goldberg, Elizabeth Gilbert and Annie Dillard.  Be it in the arena of writing, truth-seeking, or insect stalking.

It's a day for finding and underlining my favorite quotes in The Bell Jar.  Ones just like this:

          "From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked.  One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.
          I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

It's a day for rejoicing in the simple fact that I just got a job as a Haystack Interpreter for the Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce, and I will be staying in my beloved hometown all summer long.

Hallelujah, amen and amen.

Fall in love with your favorite book today, lovers.

Spend some time loving your libraries.

All the good words and healthy hours of reading in the world,

Xx,
Hannah

Pinterest Finds

I have succumbed.

Judge me not.

Here are a few of my favorite Pinterest finds thus far:

Most of these are from two boards of mine entitled "Summer Lovin'" and "Love. Give. Purify. Reflect. Realise."

Just a few things that I  love more than I am comfortable admitting.

Happy Pinning, Lovers.

<3

Words of Love

Preaching  (Bear with me for a moment to allow myself an exhortation):

You are all beautiful people.  I am pleased, honored and blessed to offer these words to you.  I know them to be of the utmost truth, because you are all alive, and were created in the image of The Most Beautiful.

Please realize your worth, today,  and please continue forward, sharing with someone else their worth.

This world is in a dire need of validation.  People are looking for someone to follow.  People are seeking a way to feel complete.  People are searching for truth-  and while we may not be able to give them those things, we can give each other the gift of understanding.  The gift of compassion.

Self- Actualization is under-rated and under-shared.  People need people, even those of us who are introverted, and try belligerently to deny the fact that we need anybody else- we do desperately need you.  We need each other.

Never stop needing someone else, lovers.  I've had to learn a difficult lesson in my life, and I urge you to realize this truth now before you have to learn it the hard way like I did.  It's shameful and painful to try to deny, so please just accept this and love it for the beauty it possesses: needing people is not now, and never, ever will be a weakness.

Our co-dependence is our strength.  The human race is designed to be united.  Give thanks for that. 

Sermon over.  I digress.

Morning Reflections at Sleepy Monk

I sit.

Wood oaken table-  I lean heavily and rest my arms, my limbs- they melt onto the solid surface.

They rest, blanketed by a faded flannel shirt, with a pillow in the form of a book of poems, written about Martha's Vineyard.

I smile.  I'd like to go there someday.

"Death and a wilderness of dreams
Pursue my waking-
I have no poem for you this morning
Only surprise at friendship and farewell
The smoky trajectories of stars
Echo such music."

I sip.

An encompassing cup full of hot earl grey tea.

Lavender Bergamot is the soundtrack to my dreams- the scent of my memories.

I munch.

The most heavenly visitation incarnated into pastry- the bacon blue cheese scone.

It is for flavors like these alone that I carry through life.

I sit and I breathe and I close my eyes and I imagine Tulips and Desire and Sugarcane and I'm lost in a hazy reflection of moments gone by:

Moments of ocean, and moss.

Antique china and fresh oranges.

Harbors and paninis.

Fog and lilies-of-the-valley.

The clouds outside lift- the air heavy and thick with salt- and arid with daffodils.

I cannot tarry here long, my small coffee shop lover, the day pulls me forward with plans and goals and errands and business that will, no doubt, take a toll on my soul today.

But the Almighty is merciful- the universe is kind today.

For in the midst of my hustle and bustle day, I have received a blessed moment of peace-

And I am surrounded by the divine glow of love.

Her Infinite Variety

Oh Lovers.  I wish I could describe to you the way I feel today.

In order to describe how I feel, I'd need to organize my thoughts, and I can't.

I can't organize my thoughts because there are too many of them, they're too aggressive, they're scattered by the millions and they're beautiful and twitterpated and luminous and I'm so excited by their vibrancy that I've actually got butterflies in my stomache and my toes are tingling. Tingling!!!

 It's a day that is just brimming with inspiration.  The kind that makes me sassy and mischievous. I take hold of sagacity by the horns and I say "You are mine!"

There is sunshine and cold, Spring wind.

The entire Making Mirrors album is on repeat- the above tune an excellent example of where I am today.

There is a fire burning in my soul!

I am feisty and feminist and irresistible and full of gumption today- There will be writing, there will be good-natured aggression and argumentation, there may not be submission, but there will be laughter, and by God, there will be dancing.

The wheels in my mind are rampant- creating friction and sparks and heat which illuminate the cool damp of a psyche that has rested too long in dormancy.

• Multidimensionality
• Misogyny
• Shakespeare
• Argumentative Notions on the Theologies of Eschatology
• Victoria's Secret Pure Seduction Lotion
• Ocean Eyes
• Romance and Romance Killers
• Annie Dillard- Ani DiFranco- Elizabeth Gilbert- Alanis Morissette-
• "She will never have a Federal Husband so drop the pamphlets, write her poetry and take her for midnight walks on the beach instead."
• I JUST WANT TO BE VALIDATED
• Character Development: Sexy Conservationalist Nerdy Girl Artist With Messy Hair and Canvas Shoes Looking For Intertidal Protection and Creative Expression
• Controversy
• L'arte d'arrangiarsi

So you see, lovers- there is extreme passion today.

There is thirst, desire, need, raw and provocative.

There is a free form of conscious thought- there is poetry and imagery and metaphors and there is music.

There is love.  There is commitment- and yet, there is also a part of me that runs pell-mell away from any sort of commitment today.

My commitment is to be noncommittal for the next few hours.

And so here I go.  I venture out into the glorious day outside- notebook in hand, pencil perched precariously in the middle of my messy updone hair- I'm ready to fall in love with inspiration.


"Age cannot wither her; nor custom stale
Her infinite variety. Other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies."
-Shakespeare-Antony and Cleopatra- [2.2.234-237.]

"In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic excellence is incorruptible.  Pleasure cannot be bargained down." - Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love


Wishing you all of these feelings and more,

Xx,
Hannah

A List

It's 5:56 PM in the afternoon on a Wednesday.

I have 2 hours of free time before I have a movie date with several fabulous friends.

The college way of list-making:

• Laundry
• Put the sheets that I washed a few days ago back on my bed
• Pick up all of my worldly possessions from off of the floor
• SHAVE MY LEGS!!!  (Yes, I do always get this excited about shaving.)
• Paint my toenails
• Listen to Wonderwall REALLY INSANELY LOUD
• Attempt to eat a bowl of cheerios and then remember I'm out of milk and throw my bowl across the room in frustration
• Kill some rogue ants
• Distract myself with the curious business of eavesdropping on hall conversations
• Think of more stuff to put on this list
• Maybe get some real writing done  (Not likely.)

And in the words of Olivia Newton John:  let's get physical.

But not like that. 

Xx,

Hannah