Missing branches

I think perhaps we're all like trees, and some of us are mighty oaks and others temperamental maples; bristly pines or the social butterfly birches. Our shapes are different...some of us, like the oaks, born more resilient to the elements of the earth, to unexpected storms that threaten to transform us in ways we may not like. I'm a jack pine, I think - I grew up fast and skinny in a lot of ways, thin in places that ended up mattering later on, bent by the winds of my own secret life.

I've been myself at times, sometimes bravely, sometimes barely. Even recently, coming out at work and to my children freed me from another layer of shame that has blanketed me since I can remember emotion. Yet, however dear the new re-envisioned relationships of today, loss of daily intimacy in our most basic humanness - sleep, drool, sex, snoring, unconscious vulnerability - this opens up a deep channel of longing of such an intensity it twists us into a vortex of greed or need, never sure which. Reality is skewed by the pull of that need, as if it's only along for the ride, like a security blanket trailing on the ground behind a child bound for mama. 

Stonehenge

I used to see God just like this. Me, God, two inexorable features locked tightly in a molded sculpture of perfection. This is what I thought God wanted to do in my life. Bend me and shape me, the iron rod, the unforgiving stone of a life, to erode me and form me into something different than I am. After all, it's exactly what I deserve. If He is my constant companion, and sees my defeats and torment, surely He is the disciplinarian, the head honcho, the boss you duck to hide from at work:

Why does it feel like night today?

Something in here's not right today

Why am I so uptight today?

Paranoia's all I got left

I don't know what stressed me first

Or how the pressure was fed

But I know just what it feels like

To have a voice in the back of my head

It's like a face that I hold inside

A face that awakes when I close my eyes

A face watches every time I lie

A face that laughs every time I fall

And watches everything

So I know that when it's time to sink or swim

That the face inside is hearing me

Right underneath my skin

I know I've got a face in me

Points out all my mistakes to me

You've got a face on the inside too and

Your paranoia's probably worse

~Papercut, Linkin Park~

And to that God counters with the sweet, strong courageous voice from the pulpit that reads to me from Psalm 45. I shake while worshiping, penance for years thinking of God as an authoritarian parent I drew back from. Jesus, Lover of my soul? What He pursues is me, the real me? Not to break me, but to love me? This scandalous love affair between Creator and created seems like something we keep under wraps, don't speak about too much in public, for fear of coming across a bit odd. But, like breath in, breath out, intimacy with Him grows, magnificent, holy, supernatural and as natural as that reflex to breath in and out. 

Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear:
forget your people and your father's house,
and the king will desire your beauty.
Since he is your lord, bow to him.
The people of Tyre will seek your favor with gifts,
the richest of the people.


All glorious is the princess in her chamber, 
with robes interwoven with gold.
In many-colored robes she is led to the king,
with her virgin companions following behind her.
With joy and gladness they are led along
as they enter the palace of the king.


In place of your fathers shall be your sons;
you will make them princes in all the earth.
I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations;
therefore nations will praise you forever and ever.
~Psalm 45:10-17~

My gratitude list, excerpted from #649-656~
650. Starting the day with a positive thought for future
652. Matching tattoo with Melanie!
654. Peace in the Bachs home
656. Three little girls with matching pixie haircuts