Emmanuel

The name Emmanuel is striking to me. The idea of God dwelling with us and becoming His creation is beautiful in form and action.

Perfection submitted to imperfection.

God chose that which He formed and created with His own hands to nurture, raise and love His son, a perfect being. He trusted His creation to the point of releasing His son to us.

I’m beginning to see the birth and life of Jesus embodying a beautiful picture of a transparent God in absolute perfection choosing to be vulnerable. Choosing to be needy. Choosing to be naked. Choosing to be raised, instructed, and nurtured by very imperfect individuals.

And ultimately He chose to be hated, broken, and killed by the very creation He made and then submitted himself to.

It makes me wonder if true love, true perfection then is oftentimes a state of helplessness and dependence. Perhaps perfection is more about dependence rather than independence. And not only dependence on a God who is perfect, but also dependence on the people He made who are imperfect.

God Himself made an active choice to need the strength of another being by releasing His son to walk this earth and commune with His creation.

I want to love like that.

I want to be brave like that.

I want to understand that maybe true bravery is really trusting. And maybe trusting really comes from the deepest place of humility within. And maybe humility comes from understanding the beauty of grace.

And maybe grace is wildly intricate yet deeply simple.

Emmanuel.

Diamond

love is a broken thing
trying to be whole
or is love a whole thing
trying to be broken

it seems I feel both within

the wholeness is solid and fierce
outside of my being
surrounding me
yet deeply inside
my core
the diamond

the brokenness is only within
a million little pieces
orbiting around the core
dancing so close and so tightly
they almost seem to be the core
chameleons

love is quiet
solid

brokeness is piercing
suffocating

I learn the language of tears
aching
heaving

I learn the language of chameleons
haunting
consuming

to know the diamond

pottery pics

I just wanted to share a few new pitures of my work! Enjoy

Strange Little Aliens

Sometimes I look at my dreadlocks and think how funny they are. There are red ones, purple ones, copper, orange, and brown ones. I feel like I've just stepped unto a set of Sesame Street and I'm one of the furry little muppets with fuzzy antennas of color flopping here and there singing about the word "alien," while dancing with a ruler.

Sometimes my little fuzzy alien antennas don't smell so good, as I wash them only once a month. But they have a very rich, musky smell that is actually rather enjoyable. Not sure how they conduct this odor, but it's hardly offensive, really. They've actaully recieved comlipents on their smell, be-lieve it or not. And I don't think the people were just saying it to be polite, really. And I think compliments promote the little aliens' fragrance-conducting activity, really.

I try and compliment them at least five times a day. Once in upon waking, because they've been silent all night long and tend to get a little lonely by the time the morning comes along. Once at breakfast, because it's my favorite meal and I tend to compliment everything at that time. Once when I'm pulling my dreads back in a bob to ready myself for a long day in a dirty pottery studio, because they are sooo easy to put back without the help of any kind of hair pins or clips. And twice at night to prepare them for the long silence of sleep.

By this point in reading this, you probably think I'm obsessed with my dreads, but not really too much. I just want these little alien tangles of hair to know just how thankful I am for their continued support of strange things, fuzzy, colored, messy, frangrant, stinky or just simply strange. My hats off to you! (Even though I can't really fit hats on my head anyways these days.)