Miles Away

Miles away.
A completly different culture.
Hardly comparable to the usual day.
Glades, green hills cut out of the fertile ground. Beautiful smiles. Dark eyes and skin contrasting with bright colors. The breeze breaths radiant air into the lungs of this stranger. Experiencing the poverty, the peace, the love. It radiates from these poor people. But is poor the right word? Poor in wealth, maybe, but that is hardly enough ground to blanket them with such a description. Lack of materials creates little disturbance in the riches of family.
Complete and utter devotion to those of the same blood.
Riches of culture.
Alive and focused on community and care. Color and taste. Commitment, expression, and music. And music not only made from instruments and noise, but of laughter floating, ever present, from the joy-filled soul of a child.
Riches of future.
The determined mother who slaves at a river to provide clean clothes for her children. And as the dirty suds ripple away on their journey downstream, so does her fear that she cannot provide. She is rich with purpose. Rich with desire to give a future and hope to her most prized possesion.
How can poor be used to describe such a complete culture? There is something missing from their lives, true. Something no human should ever go without. The comfort of an easy lifestyle, and even the necessities of life they are often lacking. But that is why we are here. To provide, to give a thriving people what they deserve. To bring them Christ's love, something they are never without. To look down upon this society would only expose lack of understanding; for these dark and dirt streaked faces are the mirror image of Christ. This community is what He desires for His people. We must only look past the grime to find open hearts willing to give it all.

Written November 23 in Guatemala

Whispers

The world screams. Thrashing, screeching my name. So often I forget the harsh cacophony of sound until I'm suffocating in it. And when I am aware of the chaos, unable to breathe deeply, unable to breathe at all, I can find no words to protest. They scream. Stretching my heart and tearing the light within. Then, when I feel conciousness slipping away, a whisper awakens every sense. Engulfing the blackness that threatens to steal joy. Threatens to steal peace. Threatens to steal hope. To even begin to describe the feeling seems in vain. The blood rushing through my live veins, the breeze breathing into my lungs, the taste of the night sweeter than any human hand's creation. This is when I am utterly aware and entirely consumed at your existance. Every cell of my being is made alive by the whisper of this unfathomable Yaweh. To be so complete, so free. These moments come to few, yet the longing for them constantly pulls on the strings of my mind and heart. For when I am held in the hollow of your scarred palm, I realize the extent of why I am here.

Duality

The dulaity of the mind's consuming thoughts. It's always you. Even the falling of a leaf somehow leads my restless mind down a dirt road of conversations in the past, smiles, the memory of yesterday. My continually failing attempts to focus on the higher ground leave me wandering contently in the valley below, wandering with your image. My plea, sent heavenward in the still moments, often leave my lips incomplete, lost to the distractions of my human desires. Unconciously, I sweep through the dust, pondering intentions, pondering what is to come, pondering why I became so completely convinced. The duality. The fight for my thought's attention. Is there room? Can both share a place behind my closed lids? Surely you would never require my mind in full. Yet, subconciously, unwillingly... I know.

maybe

they often say "you don't know what you have until you've lost it"

maybe we know what we've had all along, but we refuse to see too much good, because then we become vulnerable.

maybe we chose to pick out other peoples faults when we're really just desperate to change our own.

i know what i have. i have amazing girls. family. my Father. i have love. joy. hope. and i pray that i'll never lose that. because i know what i have, and i know losing it would be horrible.

but maybe i've lost something else too. something that i knew was always a good thing, but i'd convinced myself could be bad. that thing that needed to change in my life. and if it changed, i would have to change too. but maybe it had nothing to do with that thing, maybe all i needed was the drive, the will, and the guts to get over myself and do what i needed to do spiritually. maybe i could have held on alittle longer, fought alittle harder.

maybe, just maybe, i want you back.

but maybe what i want and what i need are completly different.

maybe what i want and what YOU need are completly different.

because maybe it's never been about you. maybe it's always been about me. i know what you need. yet i know what i want.

so now i'm left with a choice. knowing what i had, and still letting you go. still losing you.

but maybe my choice is bearable, because maybe this time, i choose you.


*please let me know when YOU have read this.

dare to discover

I am discovering some things about myself lately and i think i need to address them.
1. i have a longing to be unique and individual, mysterious and unreadable. i want to be different.
2. i need deep and meaningful conversation to occur in order to feel intimate with someone.
3. i allow myself to be easily persuaded or influenced by peoples opinions or ideas about matters of personal importance, even against my will
4. when i discover something about myself, i like to share it with people close to me, and i want them to understand.
explanation:
1. i want to BE different. not just act different, think different, or seem different. i want to BE different, unique, origional. i don't want to be another easy shallow girl, i want to have goals and motives and philosophies and theories about love and God and personal relationships. i want to think for myself, stand on my own two feet.
2. meaningless or shallow conversation doesn't bother me, i like to get to know people and their interests and daily activities, but in order to feel intimacy or personal connection with someone, i need to be able to communicate and feel like they are interested in what i have to say on a deeper level. i want to share what is on my heart, i want to share where i am spiritually and want to know the desires and the spiritual life of the people that i care about most, and when i feel like i can't do that then i pull myself away, i feel like i'm wasting my time if i'm not growing because of a relationship with a person.
3. its not that i care or worry alot about what people think of me or my opinions, but i easily adopt people's opinions of issues in my life if i don't know where i personally stand, or if i'm confused or in need of a concrete answer. people will make an argument for something and i find myself turning their ideas in my head over and over and applying their concepts to real issues. this can be a good and bad thing, i've discovered.
4. i want to share things that i discover about myself with people that are the closest to me, becase i want those people to understand me better, to know what i'm going through and help me process the things that are new to me. i like to take things that i discover about myself and share them to discover if other people have realized these things about me through observation, if they know me well enough to already figure out quarks that i am newly processing.
ok. i'm done.

Speechless

There are moments in ones life where one is entirely speechless. not just a temporary stunning, but one is left with absolutly nothing to say.

I, for one, have never had a problem with words.

So why is it that I'm here. At 2:46 in the morning with nothing to say to you. It seems that I've gone from one emotional extreme to another, and now half of me is left on one end, and the other half is completly seperated.

Anger, dissapiontment, hurt, distrust, miscommunication, lonliness, confusion, love, forgivness, hollowness, cold, frustration, humiliation, acceptance, care, embarrasment. How can one go through every one of these, even if only for a second, and know what to say.

I'm sorry for the loss of words. I'm sorry for my incapability to express what I feel, or what I am trying to feel. I'm sorry for caring so much.

And yet.

I'm still speechless.

Boston

So I am in Boston right now. I haven't been here long at all, but for some reason I feel quite a personal connection with this lovely city. I've only been downtown, but i absolutly love what i've seen. Quiant, tall, and welcoming, Boston is a nice place to be, to think.

I, of course, flew my way over here to Boston (by myself, oo and ah please) and this of course left more thinking time. (Mainly becuase i finished my book way early...) the trip started out alittle rocky with some unexpected and appreciated confrontational departing words. This sort of shocked me, considering the person, but nonetheless.

So this began my inner turmoil, which i should be having alot of considering my top two personality bases, and i established a yearning in my heart. This is the longing to be loved and cherished, so much that all my personal doubts and self-inflicted wounds would be healed or shared. but i don't think i need it down here, from someone on earth. God is the only way i can really experience a life brimming with love. completing love. life can be so complicated in such an innocent way, and this makes it difficult to really be at peace or at war with myself. so maybe i'm in between... lukewarm anyone? bad. now that i've realized my current need for something more, i'm going to search. a song once said...

"i think i'll go to boston. i think that i was tired. i think i need a new town, to leave this all behind. i think i need a sunrise, i'm tired of a sunset..."

so, boston... here i am.

"not even the rain has such small hands"

"A poem is something that penatrates for an instant into the unconcsious."
-Robert Bly

somewhere i have never travelled

somewhere i have never travelled,
gladly beyond any experience,
your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me,
i and my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closesand opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands

-E.E. Cummings

current

With the changing of the weather comes a changing of heart for Hannah.

This past weekend, I attended Anti freeze with the Summit, and there were many things revealed to me that i have missed these last few years. it had been far to long since i felt the spirit of God moving in me, and i guess i didn't realize how much i missed it. maybe it was the fact that i'm so caught up in myself. so entirly absorbed in personal gain, personal happiness, personal success. but i FELT Him. he TOUCHED me. he CHANGED me.

"you're all i want.
you're all i need.
you're everything.
Lord you're everything"

for 2 hours we sang, for 2 hours God met with me personally and i realized that he is everything, that i owe him everything. entirely loved, passionatly persued, and wanted. that's what i felt, and that's what He wants from me. i've been so stagnant for so long, and this weekend God's hand started a current and it's amazing how good that fresh, living water feels. I still have a long way to go, but a spark has been ignited in my ever tired spirit, and i feel like i've been exposed, and now there's no turning back, no going against the flow.

"You are the strength, that keeps me walking.
You are the hope, that keeps me trusting.
You are the light to my soul.
You are my purpose...you're everything."

joyless

so, now that i posted about things that make me happy, i would like to take the time to say that i am not currently happy. i don't even know why. which is dumb. i can think of quite a few reasons why i should be, and i KNOW i should be content. actually, i lied. i do know why i'm upset and mad. i suppose i need to work it out, but sometimes its easier to pout about it. i'm so tired of trying, of wanting something to work the way i want it to so badly. i need an easy button. and while i'm at it, i can push it and it will make it easier not to be so complainitive. there is no easy button, God says it's not going to be easy. but i suppose he can make it easier. that's comforting.
in church today, lundy talked about the renewing of your mind. i want to renew my mind.
now, look down, and read the last post again. about happy things.
i'm not bipolar. i promise.

joy

Some things in life bring absolute joy.

Things that make me happy:
1. sunshine
2. big fields where you can see lots of clouds
3. sweet tea with lemon
4. memorized bible verses
5. tingle feeling at someone special's touch
6. butterflies
7. playing in rain
8. singing from my heart
9. hearing God
10. listening to my family laugh
11. sand when its warm on my toes
12. barefeet in the summer
13. books
14. recieving a letter
15. feeling beautiful, inside and out
16. acting out of unselfishness

love. to. live.

your. fault.

ok. i'm fuming, so i apologize to all males ahead of time. what is your deal. so i got this swim suit right? my parents have had this rule forever that i'm not aloud to wear a bikini becuase i need to be modest, help guys out, remain a respected member of society, ect, ect, ect. ok. fine. i can deal, i find an occasional cute swim suit that covers and yay. so this year, mom lets me go out on a limb and i bought a swim suit that was not a bikini but was not a tankini. mom and dad disapprove, its cute, adorable actually. and what i would consider completly modest for obvious reasons. but no, not modest enough for guys. "they won't control themselves hannah, you can't wear that!" OK GUYS GET A GRIP. why? why why why God? why can't guys just control themselves so that girls won't have to suffer from wearing unflattering, uncute bathing suits, or any clothes for that matter. yes, this is selfish, i'm just frustrated becuase what i would consider perfectly fine isn't. i just wish that guys would just stop, but they can't, and i have to except that. and i have to return my swimsuit. yes, males, it's your fault.
i will probably delete this later. so if you get to read it, you're lucky. comment, i want to know opinions.

sorry boys.

Gray

Some days happiness is a novel idea,
A fading margin just beyond grasp.
Sunrise with day anew,
Yet I live it like the last.
A tiny flame longing,
For a fire to flare,
Yet this flickering hope,
blows out in despair.
Stark Gray.
Not Black.
Not White.
Gray, morbid, dull, trite.
Luke Warm.
Not hot.
Not cold.
Luke warm, simple, unchanging, old.
A seed without light,
Unable to grow.
Sand grain in a desert,
doomed only to blow.
Blow.
Blow wherever wind may please.
Blow in a dry shell of subjection.
Blow across cracked earth in a breeze.
Blow.
There's no hope of obtaining direction .
Some days happiness is a novel idea,
A fading margin just beyond grasp.
Drowning, reaching heavenward still.
Below the surface, snuffed out with a gasp.

Written
5 january 2007

resolution

so it's 2007. i suppose i'm supposed to have some increadible goals for this next year, but quite frankly i often forget to even attempt my listed goals. i usually end up completing at least a few, so we'll see...
1. Become consistant with my devotionals and prayer life
2. make a new friend
3. gain wisdom through my parents instruction (listen to my parents : /
4. paint a mural
5. spend time investing in jacob and ella's lives
6. go cow tipping
7. surf
8. take a secret road trip when i turn 16
9. grow closer to my girls
10. take a medical mission trip
so there ya have it. 2007. here i come.