Be young, be wild
go forth, make trouble
bring about the turning of the world
in a minute's time. laugh at the light
springing through the coated trees
sway with the wind and hum to its tune
whisper to the running water
as it rushes past the crooks of your knees
ask hard questions, say yes to impossible
the great and uncertain, the vast and the terrible
flashing its teeth bidding you come closer
like a wolf in some grandmother's cloak.
slay the awful beast who stands in your path
where milk and  honey trenches pour out themselves
to every river and stream
golden and bone white, beckoning just out reach.

keep the simple, simple.
don't let clear water get muddled.
dig a new well and let fresh life spring up from old ground
till the land and let the smell of fresh earth
get into your soul. Roll in the dirt and kick up the leaves.
If your gut says go, go while you can
Trust not in fear, heed not in man.
Speak little, say much, and don't waste your breath
apologizing for your existence.
The world is a jealous, bone-crushing,
breathtaking place. Beautiful and bewitching,
miserable and fearsome, take deep breaths
open your eyes wide, and walk on the water
where feet have never dared tread.
Be forever all the things that you treasured in your heart
And protect it with your life, that mad innocence
That colorful world of every hue
and let pain make the colors evermore brilliant
Like jewels scattered and sparkling in the noon day sun.
Like fireworks in the midnight sky.

And if you ever ask of yourself
whether you really, truly can
let possibility grow in your belly
let it stir up great hunger
and as the whisper turns to howl
like a fierce and mighty wind
chant the yes within you
and let it burst forth like explosions of life
from the immeasurable depths of your soul
never being corked or capped again.
It is stitched into the fibers of your being
large, capital letters with adamant punctuation
YES, by God, Y-E-S!

Nothing and All

I have seen you in the black night of my morning’s cup
Caught the fragrance of your smile in its rising breath
Heard your voice in the crashing rain against the roof and ground
The way the sound covers everything, roaring about me in my little cave
Hidden there I feel the shelter of your skin
Knowing nothing and all is safe.

You are that cave, that rain, within and without
You consume all my visions and tiny toy days
All my thoughts and appetites diverge to you.

You are those thoughts, that hunger and thirst.

I found you in the rough edges, in the smooth places
Where the caterpillar drags its many feet
Drudging the hill and valley of petals and leaves
You are the wanderer, you are the feast.

I saw you in the fields as they grew
Watched them as I watched you
Chartering the ins and outs of days
Led by the morning star, eyes fixed on its light

My chest puffed up with some strange pride,
In the quiet of those mornings where I met you,
Rushing by, I thought I heard you whisper
You stood tall among the wheat there
Calling out to me by name

The day of harvest came and I wept,
These fields where I met you now ripped open and laid bare
Like someone blind had come to cut the lion’s mane
And in the heat of the summer made haste

But I found you in the barren fields,
The messy shorn of their brown and gold
I felt you in my weeping turned knowing
Like the warmth of the sun in its rising first light
Come to shake the calm and cool of the eastern sky.

My heart and soul devoured by the piercing sound of your stare
When the violin sings or the morning birds cry
I can feel your heart beating in the turning of the earth

When lightning dances, caged among the tangled evening clouds
Strewn about the heavens for those who mind to look or dare to stop and be
Them that, either in the bravery or foolishness of their hearts,
Uttered that they might have ears to hear and eyes to see.

You are in the fabric of pillows, the dust that clings to windows
The parallels of universes, the expanse of time and space.
You are the glimmer in the wondering child’s eyes
And the last breath that escapes a man before he dies
Nothing and all is sacred, nothing and all is safe.

That I Might Know You

I wonder with appreciation for my fellow man.
Swollen with humility, my breath taken in awe.
A heart so full it might burst within my chest
This soul cannot take much more, it seems, these eyes are my betrayers
gluttons, they have feasted on a thousand stories
and binged on the burdens of the human heart.

The woman who dances without fear of scorn
Like someone crazed she flies across the floor
Light and free, I marvel at her very being.
As her husband lies sick at home with confidence of her return
All her stories gathered, collected carefully like treasure for the sake of a promise made
embellished to lighten the burden of what is, and what is yet to be.
she will meet with him to spin her yarn, flowing like tonic to her lover
like a cool wash cloth over a fevered head.
and they will be held by one another at this numbered day's end.

The man who stands upon a wooden stage and sings to me
His endless tales of exuberant joy and of suffocating woe
I swim a hundred seas on the message he conveys
Floating and drowning with each song he croons
As he has crooned to me and countless others before
Giving pieces of himself as if his heart and soul were of infinite provision
A spring of life that should never run dry.
And whether I dance like a fool or sit dumbfounded
Ears and heart open to all that this man may bring
He will fill me up with his love and his hate, with his joy and sorrow.
And I will leave at its end, overwhelmed by the exchange.
Money rationed to glimpse at the heart of a man
which he fashions and flashes for me on his sleeve.

Wondering all the while at how hollow or full his life may be
All the long nights and long roads with so little joy for the light of morning
Does he grow to hate the rising sun? Does he cringe at its color and light?
What beauty does he know? Does life offer a fresh brilliance
Or is it covered with dirt and dust like the soles of his shoes
Does he grow weary of wandering,
does he lose the conviction of his confession?
The way I feel I might be so inclined to do.

The curious husband asking a question left unanswered and feeling negated
by the woman who sits distracted,  transfixed by the infant across the room
intoxicated and aching by the wonders of new life, starved with longing
to wrap the child up in her arms and possess the fleeting sweetness of such innocence
To pocket or package it, that she might know such pure joy for always.
Do they see the hearts of one another? Lost to the will and visions of their own minds
Prisoners to the wayward direction of their own thoughts.
And I am hushed by their beauty,  as she slips a lazy arm around his shoulder
The casual and painful honesty of such long-time love.

The man in the car in front of me, who drives wanton and slow
Who seems to have no care for what lies before or behind him
He is of perfect contentment in the solitude of his confinement.
And I, in my rushing youth, am quick to prod my anger like a red hot iron
Mowing down whatever comes to my plow, like a bull on the streets of Pamplona
To let nothing slow my racing heart down, not even the thunderous voice of God
would cause such a busied body to lay and rest.

And yet this man is my brother. His age, his race is of no consequence.
He is one who tends his garden and walks upright with his fellow man.
Does he curse the pace of life, or the confounded youth who sets it?
He has seen this back road a million times over.
Its trees and fields as familiar as the freckled skin on the backs of his hands.
Seen the sun rise and finds his peace in its fidelity.
He is to me like the soil of the earth—constant and rich in his steadfastness.
Stay slow, sweet man, there is wisdom to the set of your pace.

These are not my stories to keep, but if I could I'd kiss all the world on the cheek
Let the age of time and space shake like dust from my feet
Our souls string together like clumsy beads on a string
We ebb and flow into the arms of one another
like a flood of falling water that rushes from river out to sea.
All separate droplets with no distinction, forming this beautiful mass
That has sacred width and breadth, yet strength with no measure
I and my brothers, my sisters and me.

You are infinitely more powerful than you can conceive. Who you are and who you were meant to be are invaluable; not because of anything that you have done or chosen to do, but because of who you belong to, because of who made you. You are invaluable to the maker of heaven and earth, the one who was there before time began and will be there to see it end, and will go on being forever after. In the middle of such a temporary world, it is easy to look as far as the eye can see and say, "This is all there is for me."

But I ask of you, is all the world so flat as this, to only go so far as your failing sight can see? The minute we are born, our flesh and bones begin to age, moving toward decay; the whole world goes on with or without us. The ache you feel all of your life, the searing pain in your heart, is a great hunger of the soul, knowing that there is more to this world, more to your short life and its purpose, than to exist only as far as your eyes can see before you. You were made for wishing, dreaming, to be filled with hunger and desire; you were made for doing, creating, becoming. You were made for great and marvelous things. Do what you must to remind yourself of your purpose, because there is a fog that comes to set-- over your eyes, your life, your heart. The fog threatens to settle over every area of our lives, a heavy, gray stupor that seems to exist only to keep you docked; never sailing, doing, becoming, only empty wishing. The fog and empty wishing can kill a dreamer from the inside out, slow and painful like some kind of poison or cancer that comes creeping in.

All of us were meant for dreaming-- and doing. Empty wishing takes the wind out of the sails. If it is yours for dreaming, if you were entrusted with it and it speaks loudly, boldly, all the while clanging and clamoring inside of you, then figure out what must come of it in order to make it be. No one thinks, dreams, begins or becomes like you do. It does not matter what everyone else is doing, only when you will begin-- when you will say yes to that terrifying, larger-than-life, greatness of a thing that you call your dream, your passion.. it is whatever makes you hungry and thirsty for truth, for more life, to share it with people no matter the cost.

Modify it if you must, but don't water it down, to keep your dreams tied to the docks of yesterday's harbors. Just begin, no matter how long the process-- there is a world full of crushed spirits and empty dreams... and even if your dream does not construct or play out as you envisioned it would.. they never do. Dreams are constantly changing, adjusting to the dreamer... dreams are the kinds of things that grow as you do, that adapt to the dreamer... but they don't get any smaller, or seem less impossible, do they. That's the greatness of dreams, they're bigger than we can imagine-- and that is how you know that they are not of yourself. You can dream of big things in your cage of a body, but it is the up and doing that takes much more than yourself. And you have that, but you must trust the One who gives strength to the dreamer, who made that heart and soul and smiled on it before it was even formed in the womb. The author of dreamers, and doing.

How can it be so heavy? How can one, knowing who you are and sensing the fullness of who you were meant to be, be so easily crippled by fear and burdened by sorrow?

What strong spirits fill such fragile bodies. I have never felt so alien, so meant for something else. The pain and annoyance of my frailty empowers as much as it tempts me to lie down, distracted, and leave living the daily being of life to someone else. Not so unlike a thorn in the paw of a lion, I feel fierce enough in soul and strength to go about raging through the darkness looking for something to relieve and fulfill, but I am in enough agony to long for simpering in a dark corner to somehow be enough.

But only so much simpering for so long... only so much darkness for so long. I was never one to wallow for forever.


My dear God,

I am not afraid to be angry, or in anguish-- it does not terrify me to feel. I do not like dealing with my humanity, but it forces me to face my desperate need for you, and to acknowledge your desperate acceptance of me. It is so ugly to be so raw, like a giant wound walking about-- continually healing and being made whole, but forever in process. I, however, did not know I could feel so much-- such a complex range of emotions. I knew I could feel deeply, but I did not know the width of the depth. It was to the point today to have feelings but no words, only knowing the intangible reality of what it is to want to be loved and in community but finding yourself in repeated retreat.


You are working it out in me. Please don't stop bringing this brokenness into the perfect light of redemption. In my weakness you are strong... not that you suddenly become some Herculean figure to rescue me, but that your strength becomes more real to me, and through that reality faith, and through faith access to the presence of that strength. Then, without warning, I have invited you in and welcomed you as my strength. You were the stronger all the while, but you are a God who gives us the POWER to choose... to embrace weakness to gain true strength-- and ultimately, to be made whole.


Pessimism, Optimism, Realistic? There's You, that's what I know, I want to see with Your eyes, however painful to love so fully... It's You that keeps me soft, but help to keep me whole in the softness, without being crushed.


You didn't say it wasn't a great burden, you simply said that it was light... if only because I'm not carrying it alone, if only because You call me to surrender it to yourself, to share it with others.

My sweet Lord, I'm no martyr in this... I don't pretend to be. I'm not Joan of Arc, no Saint Patrick, no virgin queen... but God help me to be more like You, with a quiet jealous love that doesn't curse the thing it admires, though the love is often unrequited.

The Power to Choose.

Five months from now I will be what marketing calls a "Post-Graduate Professional", though it does not feel like it. I have been spending the summer months preparing to put myself out there for prospects, my possible future employers. The future is a mystery as thrilling as it is terrifying, and I'm preparing for impact.

Recently I have been faced with "putting myself out there" via social media, a tool that is growing in usefulness and, seemingly, necessity; Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, the works; you name it, I've probably had some form of it. I downsized my social contact through internet to practically zilch at the beginning of the summer with one goal in mind: to simplify my life and see myself for who, or what, I truly was, not who I was projecting myself to be. My goal has always been to make sure that the two parallel, but any good business lady/gentleman knows that you dress to impress.. if you are smart you will always try to present yourself in the best light (consider the old saying "think before you speak", or the more recent version of the phrase, "think before you tweet"). Social media often glorifies the inane, unfortunately, and what power it could have is often forfeited to the glamor of the insignificant, the "beside the point" opinions and thoughts, with little proactivity. So I deactivated, unsubscribed, and logged out for a while; what I found was what I always find when I de-clutter my life--a greater sense of purpose for, and satisfaction in, the present moment. There was less comparison and clutter, with a little more focus and resolve.

As I continued to make strides in my progress toward having a more completed portfolio, I began to reconnect to the world wide web.  Instagram first, next came Facebook, then Behance, followed by LinkedIn.  Last to make its grand return was Twitter-- the straw that, by all appearances, broke the camel's back.

I haven't had Twitter in years, and only had that while I was without Facebook; it was more connected to the people who mattered, and less committed to the chaos of baby pictures and social overloads that come with Facebook. 160 characters was concise and just what I needed to stay in the loop on the everyday in the lives of those I could only be close to in spirit. It worked then, so I assumed it would work now; "What's the harm?" I pondered, "Surely the coupons on design materials will outweigh any minor social consequences."

Unfortunately, looking at my feed for twitter was the flooding of the dam.  It was sheer chaos following companies that were constantly tweeting, re-tweeting, or being tweeted at. I intentionally choose not to watch the news because of its doomsday outlook. I stay connected to what goes on in the world enough without having to hear about the latest killing, bombing, or parental negligence.  However, being in the twittersphere felt like my very own personal newscaster; way too much information about way too many things, all at once in a single space.  Still, I carried on, thinking it was a useful tool for thrusting myself into the design world.. not shrinking back, but promoting myself with confidence. Who doesn't want to succeed? Yet, no matter how I tried, I couldn't seem to settle into the idea of one more avenue for social media.

Last night, I had a dream that I was in a ballroom-sized bathroom. It was as extravagant in accessories as it was in size, and I knew I had come to this place for one purpose: to take one of the most satisfying showers of my life. Though as I looked around, the room began to fill with people, strangers and friends alike, as if I were hosting a formal event. They were not there to see me, but merely there for the act of someone showering.

The buzzing and bustling of chattering, moving bodies was almost numbing as I looked around the room, finding the walls lined with large windows, exposing what should be a severely private room to the outside world. As I ran across the room to shut them I asked my mother why they were all open for such a private room, especially when they were so difficult to close due to their size; to my question she complacently replied, "I guess I hadn't thought about it."

I spent the rest of the dream running to and fro, trying to shut windows and get rid of people, attempting to formulate how I would maintain my privacy and still have this cleansing, satisfying shower. The sadness of it all was I finally awoke, feeling slightly flustered and never having actually experienced said shower in the dream. The strong visual of the dream impressed me so that I sat thinking on it for a long time; the words "gains his life only to lose it" repeatedly came to mind, words I knew to be a verse somewhere in Matthew, a book of the Bible.

The dream finally made sense, and feelings that I couldn't quite put my finger on became very real, visual, and spiritually articulated. As I thought about the verse in Matthew, I began to ask myself, "At what cost to your soul would you put yourself out there? What is the value of your sanity, your quality of life? What price are you willing to pay for the sake of "succeeding", and what does that even mean?" Then I looked up the verse, and found this:

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.
What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can man give in exchange for his soul?

-Matthew 16:26-27, NIV

The shower was a symbol of many things, but mainly it represented all that I considered to be truly satisfying and valuable, the things I hold dear in the deepest, most private places of my heart. The room was a symbol of the glamor and appeal of being able to have so many avenues for success, but the people were a visual representation for the literal reality of what happens with social media: putting your inner most being on display in a way that is almost like a sideshow circus as opposed to being an avenue for success. It's like putting "your pearls before swine", another idea that Jesus discusses in the gospels.

And as I sat there, realizing the significance of this dream, I understood that there may be a not so far off day when I can use Twitter effectively-- but that day is not today. And though some people find their successes being pioneers of online social circles, I do not have to choose, in my case, to spread my heart and soul so thin by proselytizing myself as a commodity. I am not a thing to be sold, and my work-- in its own right, through selective venues, should speak for itself.


This is not to bash social media, I think it's great-- and so does my career of choice. Graphic designers have to be involved in and informed on the latest and greatest in social media. No matter how you feel about it, it is the utmost in communication and marketing these days, and it is a beast that cannot be tamed or ignored. The point is, however, that we still have the power to choose; to choose the outlet, and to pick what we allow the world to see at our own discretion. We do not have to choose everything or give everything away.. but if you do, consider at what cost you are doing so.

Quick tongue, do you not know

how ferocious, how brilliant a light can shine?

Do you only desire the heat of the glow

And what its light affords you alone?

Lazy love, do your bones not ache? 

From illing and stillness all the live long day

From groaning and wishing but never

up and doing... tell me, bitter child,

does your fear not pain you so?

It hurts to watch, and still I know

the Kingdom is like a treasure buried in a field

that a man would sell his weight in worth to obtain.

Yet here your bones do idle sit,

And, undusted, there they shall remain.