overalls in namibia

today i put on my old, patched-up overalls and smiled. i used to wear those old friends everyday while on african soil, making pottery and wipping the red clay on their fading denim. everytime i put them on i think of namibia.

i went around barefoot all day and layed down in the grass. it smelled like summer. green grass, wet soil and lilacs. the sky was so blue and clear. the leaves on the branches above were a thousand little green flags clapping together and laughing. green and blue mixed with a little red makes deep purple. that was the color of my soul. rest, quietness and purging merged within.

namibia is a desert. but within that desert one can find an oasis. and on the oasis is the color of red mixed with blue, mixed with green. it rains sometimes there. when it does, the flowers bloom quickly and then fade quickly. hardly anyone sees the flowers that bloom in the desert. but they still bloom. they still show their pretty faces and smile very brightly towards the heavens. and then they fall asleep again.

kind of like old patch-up denim overalls.

dorothy and the red wagon

I was thinking about Dorothy today. She was trying to reach the Emerald City. But all she really wanted was to reach home. I wonder if I’m Dorothy. I wonder if I’m trying to reach a place that’s green and sparkly and pretty when all along all I really want is to reach home.

A friend told me today that my dreads are wild and crazy and colorful and that they look like the way her insides feel. And I wondered why I wear my heart on the outside of me.

Last night I dreamt of a massive, churning, violent tornado coming straight towards the place where I lived and I knew that if I asked God to keep it from devouring us, He would change it’s course. So I asked, I actually screamed the request. The tornado snarled it’s way towards us and in the very last minute it darted to the left and only took a small nip out of the side of the home. Prayer is a very mysterious thing. I wonder if it’s the language of change. Or maybe it’s the language of love.

Once I was given a leadership role over eleven young women. They would often come to me and ask for prayer. I often cried afterwards because I was asking God to work within them the very things I wanted to ask God to work within me. One day, while in tears I explained this to my leader. He told me about the red wagon. Say there was a little girl who knew that her little sister wanted a red wagon very much. And so the little girl goes to her father with some money she's saved up and tells him that she wants to use the money to buy a red wagon for her little sister. All the while though, this same little girl very much wants a red wagon herself. Would the father, seeing the little girl's desire for her little sister and the tears brimming in her sweet eyes not also buy a wagon for her?

Prayer is like coming home. And coming home is like love. And love is worth it…every time.