wild melody

"life doesn't discriminate between the sinners & the saints, it takes and it takes and it takes. we keep living anyway--we rise & we fall & we break and we make our mistakes; and if there's a reason I'm still alive when so many have died, than I'm willing to wait for it."  this song, oddly enough gives me hope. (the whole musical has become something of a personal anthem but that's a bizarre twisting path deep into my heart and mind that i'm unable--unwilling to take others down at the moment). it's true, life is indiscriminately harsh (with breaks of sunshine and rest). God directly alters at times, yes. but more often He lets the long long leash of natural law & free will play out. as He works within the laws of natural science He created rather than bending them; just so in all of life. He redeems more than He rescues. He's not at odds with the patterns of life. He created it, and when the fall altered it He chose a quie...

You delight in showing mercy delight it's not a duty, or a chore; you're not angry or annoyed that i need your mercy more than the earth needs rain. you are not exacting, frustrated, judgmental. i live under this burden of exact cause and effect. this belief that every action can only add up to it's deserving consequence. that any good or forward motion must be earned and fought for with the absolute best you can give; but even then don't get your hopes up...because your best isn't always enough. there is no entitlement, life owes you nothing and fairness only comes into play when you screw up. punishments and consequences of mistakes always pay out--even though the rewards and fruit for hard work, diligence and effort don't. but that's not life with you. it's a perspective i've been partly given and partly created. You are   g r a c i o u s.  i'm supposed to be free! not only from sin; but from this burden of fear & failure meaning t...

the courage of stars... how light carries on  how rare & beautiful it truly is  that we exist  i'd give anything to hear, you say it one more time the universe was made just to be seen by my eyes  -saturn from space II, Atlas project by sleeping at last   (( if only i could couch my thoughts & ideas & emotions in such a vehicle as this. grateful for right-brained artists whose hearts beat out into words. so the left-brainers like me can say "yes! that's my heart, thank you for giving it wings." ))

Kyev, 2013 if i could bottle it up  found a video tonight from 2012 of driving through Kyev in the middle of the night on a 10 hour trip to camp. lizzy & i were the only Americans at the time...background of mingled Russian & Ukrainian, the city lights blurring past, stupid american pop songs on the radio ("call me maybe"--we looked at each other & died laughing at what they would say if they understood it). lily & lizzy were talking about some deep philosophy: how people's souls have depths-- some are lakes, others oceans; i zoned away to absorb the moment. i have so many precious moments stored up in my heart. swimming in the river with abi & lily in the early morning, lizzy & lily & i singing on the dock by the old house, kolya & his guitar on a blanket with julia under the stars on the soccer field, watching the faces of children explode as they're praised. i wish i could share those moments with others. share the polaroi...

" Come in and trade your tears All worry and ease your fears Your burden is not unknown Don't run friend you're not alone For all confined come be set free For all the blind that long to see Come and receive the perfect relief  Come and believe He bore your grief Rise up as the war has ceased No bondage you have been released Come all you weak and contrite He'll strengthen and clothe you in white" Relief--Wolves at the Gate [ I am not the first ] whispered it's way into my mind along with the pressure to let go, to rest. I'm not the first to be here, in this seemingly never ending winter-desert.   I was crushed under the weight of all the people i have lost. as if memory were a blanket made of steel wool suffocating my heart. it's been a long time since I've felt so desperate for my grandmothers' prayers & laughter. my grandfather's steady safety, great-grandma's delighted treasuring, Aunt ...

The Lone Bellow - "Watch Over Us" Unplugged from Michael Leiato on Vimeo . ^^this band for me embodies things that i doubt they have any idea of: that beauty can be born from struggle. the truth that hard fighting doesn't leave a pretty face behind it, that some sorrows scar & forever alter our hearts. something powerful happens when they sing. it's as if the songs are crafted no longer with words & notes but instead with honesty, blood, sweat, pain. a weakness refusing to shatter; hope refusing to surrender. it bleeds into the music and creates a great exchange: what overflows onto the listeners is a beautiful courage, a fierce grace, a real and messy hope. it breathes the gospel without one bible verse ever being stated. maybe it's just what deep souls sound like when they allow themselves to spill over with the rawness of everything they have. maybe it's so rare because few people engage their sufferings and let it deepen them. or maybe so man...

**all examples have been combined, changed, and editted so as to accurately reflect real-life situations; but none of them represent any one person's story because HIPPA is real.** today's theme song brought to you by the charts and faces of my first clinical setting of the new semester:  pediatric psychiatric crisis ward . grateful for the opportunity to be in this setting, not many students are. grateful for awesome nurses and a facility doing their best to help children that the rest of society views as a lost cause. glad i was able to interact with these children. there is a level of insight in observing & conversing that cannot be gained from just reading a chart. reading between the lines is easier when you are reading eyes. but i've been thinking ever since, it can't be a coincidence that every. single. child. had an unstable or non-existent family background. the majority of these kids? not violent towards anybody but themselves. sometimes medic...

is all we are to you just near lost causes? do you see the things that are happening? or is the compounded cries of the suffering so heavy that you turned away your face from us? have you given up on your plan of redemption? is there even a way to restore things this broken? is there anything that can heal a mind and heart so shattered they are not living, not even surviving; only existing because the medical profession took a pledge to do no harm and is therefore committed to keeping one alive? what are we to do when the mind is sick, when it cannot be healed by medicine or therapy? didn't you promise to be our healer? didn't you die and rise and take on our demons to set us free from them? // hope is believing in things unseen // the Lord is near to the brokenhearted & He restores the broken // He is making all things new // even the creation groans in waiting for restoration to appear // over those in great darkness, a light has dawned // I came to set the capt...

(Nuvole Bianchi by Ludovico Einaudi) I have a minor obsession with the classical composer Ludovico Enaudi. If famous Italian pianists came to my state, I would pay a lot of money to see him. He writes brilliance & depth & beauty. Certain albums are study music, other albums help me battle insomnia. Certain songs ("Melodia Africana III", "Divenire", "I Giorni") are songs I put on when I desperately need to be still, when it's a struggle to stop and breathe. Others ("Fly", "Una Mattina") make my imagination come alive. I wonder what did he see when he wrote them? Are there stories, colors, moments that inspired them? I see fantastic things when I listen to them, they transport me to my own Narnia. My favorite will always be Nuvole Bianchi. It's the first song I ever heard of his, years ago (which prompted me to find his music asap) It was played by a fellow student at my sister's piano recital. The entire room...

two theme songs today. one is the way i feel i've been acting towards God. and the other is how i feel He actually is towards me. horrendous theology implications aside... first one: ooohh so me!! i live functionally as if God is my part-time authority. i'm a part-time lover, running to Him when i'm in need and wandering away when i see something else i want. i've never been a full time man. sooo often i think "i've been faithful and God hasn't come through" and i stop. quit. give up. um. word to the girl, you've never STUCK IT OUT! the definition of faithful means *not* giving up when it gets rough. when it looks pointless. i'm willing to admit i'm spiritual Hosea's wife; that's not a new realization. but that my character itself is unfaithful? that something deep in me is a giver-upper? mmm. not me! i'm supposed to be the loyal one, the faithful one. i'm that girl who still thinks about people who walked out of my life i...

"I got a {girl in the war} paul, the |only thing I know to do| // is turn up the music & pray that she makes it _through_" "listen, you know those days when you get the mean reds?" "the mean reds; you mean the blues?" "no. T he blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad that's all. the mean reds are horrible. suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of..." it's not that there's nothing going on in my head or heart. there just aren't words for it. or I'm sure there are. kinda. somewhere there are letters floating around that could do...I just don't how to find them & arrange them properly to form the exact words I need to match what's inside. so instead. I listen to an awful lot of music & read other people's words that resonate with what mine should be. & wait. 

cold is the night without you here just your absence ringing in my ears hard is the heart that feels no fear without the bad, the good disappears long is the road that leads me home and longer still when I walk alone bitter is the thought of all that time spent searching for something I'll never find take this burden away from me and bury it before it buries me many are the days I've wanted to cease lay myself down and find some relief heavy is the head that gets no sleep we carry our lives around in our memories take away this apathy  and bury it before it buries me { steady is the hand that's come to terms with the lessons it has had to learn I've seen the things that I must do but Lord, this road is meant for two so I am waiting here for You } take my hand and set me free take my burdens and bury them deep take my burden away from me and bury it  before it buries  me {today's theme song_ cold is the night: oh hellos. Idk if they wrote it ...

                                                                    hello, my old heart                                                                    how have you been?  are you still there inside my chest?  I've been so worried  you've been so still  barely beating at all  oh, don't leave me here alone  don't tell me that we've grown for having loved a little while  oh, I don't want to be alone  I want to find a home and I want to share it with you  hello, my old heart  it's been so long  since I've given you away  and every day I add another stone  ...

dear rend collective experiment, i think it was love at first listen. partly because it was my favorite hymn ya'll rewrote. partly because let's be honest, i've been obsessed with Ireland & my irish heritage since age 5 and its incurable after visitng the island at 21. mostly though, its the way you draw my heart to see Christ. your music is a tool He uses. like putting a filter over my camera lens, one that causes God's beauty to sharpen in focus & the flashy cheapness of the world's pleasure to blur.  i love the way you speak what my heart feels. i love the fresh words you use--they're not big or new words. simple, honest words; the kind i use to speak about my relationship with God that i rarely hear in songs. our language is so tired in the church, while our story is quite the opposite! for example  keep me near : "rescue me in weakness of mind...You are everything that is beautiful, You are all that i want to see in me; create in me a hear...

where oh where to begin. i apologize in advance for the condensed rambling about to spew forth. i've wanted to write about 2012 and this song for months, actually. long before the new year. differing threads of connected thought have been tangling and aligning themselves in my head but i've had no time to write them. and i still don't. so in betwixt fixing mistakes already made in the first week of class (screw technology why can't i just use pencil & paper like the old days?!) i'm throwing a little mess here so i don't drown. usually i run out of words but these days, with no time to write and not truly conversing with anyone i have more thoughts-words in my head/heart than i am used too. i've also been a little bit... hesitant. vulnerability has not been my thing as of late. i've been reverting back to let's-protect-ourself-and-life-is-a.ok-but-not-amazing-as-it-could-be. its hard to see beauty when Christ is not center. ther...

so much I could (& will) write about where Gods brought me in a year etc. but tonight I just want to say He is beautiful. number one .01. reason that my life can be! I'm so grateful for a God who delights, who is happy, who is not just good but perfectly Holy & Sovereign. grateful for His work in friends hearts & lives. grateful for the ever patient forgiveness of my family. grateful for target clearance & $4 sky blue backpacks replacing the torn brother cast-off. grateful for the past taxes I paid that I'm getting back via school money. grateful for education even when I disagree w my profs. grateful for an imagination that can spark curiosity in the boringnest classes. grateful for physical therapists grateful for bicep tendons (please heal quickly little guy!) grateful for littles grateful for theme songs; today was desert soul by the rend collective. (they're Irish! folksy! love Jesus! what's not to love?)

I have theme songs. if 2012 had a theme song, I'd have to pick two by the Avetts: in the curve & tear down the house. I could have shipwrecked my life this year, & at times I truly thought I had. or circumstances had for me. but God is faithful. "He inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord. Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust." {ps 40.1-4a} {inthecurve} how I love this song. never thought I'd "get it" like I do now. in a way that if I use words to explain, it will do no good. this was my year. so perfectly describes the months of feb-may. it will not be the theme of this year. I'm grateful to have also "walked from ashes with just a fee scratches..." "I've never taken this curve Dr...

"In the mid-16th century Francis Xavier (1506–1552), a Catholic missionary, wrote to Father Perez of Malacca (today part of Indonesia) about the perils of his mission to China. He said, 'The danger of all dangers would be to lose trust and confidence in the mercy of God. . . To distrust him would be a far more terrible thing than any physical evil which all the enemies of God put together could inflict on us, for without God’s permission neither the devils nor their human ministers could hinder us in the slightest degree.' The greatest danger a missionary faces is to distrust the mercy of God. If that danger is avoided, then all other dangers lose their sting. God makes every dagger a scepter in our hand. As J.W. Alexander says, “Each instant of present labor is to be graciously repaid with a million ages of glory.” Christ escaped the danger of distrust. Therefore God has highly exalted him!" piper. help my unbelief. it grows strong the more My thought patt...

"You belong among the wildflowers You belong in a boat out at sea Sail away, kill off the hours You belong somewhere you feel free Run away, find you a lover Go away somewhere bright and new..." I hear ya petty. that's exactly where I belong...

I'm a desperado, but i'm gonna break my rusty cage and run...any where the wind blows, on the train to San Antone. i'll be a burning ring of fire hotter than a pepper sprout. i'll get rhythm when i get the blues, i'll meet a boy named sue and you will never hear me say "this is the worst trip since i have been born." i'll walk the line to make you mine. and like a bridge over troubled water, i'll lay me down in the streets of Lorado...cause there's something in a sunday that makes a body feel alone...but i'll still love you when you're down and out, even in a field made of stone; i'll smile away the thunder if you love this heart of mine... i love johnny. just in case you didn't know...