tonight i am thinking about the role that expression plays in our human experience. how joy is effusive and cannot be borne alone lest it lose its luster and become unbearable because when another enters to share that joy, the experience is somehow sweeter, richer, and more complete. when a couple shares about the delight they feel in carrying the other person's heart, because to them this delight is weightless and precious - sometimes to be protected in secrecy but other times to be celebrated in public. or when the weight of life drags at our heels, pulls at our shoulders, lingers on our sallow faces - and all that is within is cry out "who will have compassion? who will suffer with me?" because this too, becomes sweeter, richer, and more complete when shared. the common factor of these two illustrations is in the act of entering into the sacred space of sharing. it's in the presence of others that we are able to unabashedly bare our unprotected souls and together experience depth beyond our individual sensory capacities. we enrich one another in the safety of relationships marked by tender and fierce, nurturing love.
it reminds me of the way that delighting in God is likened to a having joy like a fountain: it is pleasant, exciting, bright, overflowing, moving, public, exuberant. or like a candle that ought not to be hidden shamefully under a bushel in a dark room. in a similar way, i cannot help but give public and effusive praise about my siblings. we are each other's skeletal support; we hold each others' hearts and read each others' minds. we taste each others' pain as our own, we hear what has yet to be uncovered and expressed, we speak in a verbal language made of downright stupidity but understand all things nonverbal and unedited. idk how it happens, it's kind of magical lol
tonight i can give praise in a way i have been incapable of for the past many months; and because i asked for joy i have received it tonight in the space of my relationships with my sister and brother. they are my anchors when my other spaces are temporarily on hiatus, temporarily unsafe, temporarily distant, temporarily under construction. my written tongue, so dry and thirsty, has been refreshed in the fountain tonight. "come to me," he says, "all who are weary and heavy laden, and i will give you rest. do not labor for what i have taken away; i will give you Me when i take away. i will shower upon you gifts because i want to, but i am your living water and you need nothing else."
he gives to encourage life, he takes to prepare for life, he provides to nurture life. he is life! these past few months he has heightened my sense of emptiness, the space that was once occupied by relationships he has temporarily put on hold. this is a space i trust he will fill in abundance with newness, rebirth, intimacy, fecundity. i am certain that the dimensions and content of my heart's landscape and layered architecture is undergoing some kind of pivotal activity. what will it look like? who will it hold? how much will it be able to hold? what beauty has been unearthed and what frightful things must still be uprooted and destroyed? what things have been built, are being built, are being torn down, reconstructed?
he gives to encourage life, he takes to prepare for life, he provides to nurture life. he is life! these past few months he has heightened my sense of emptiness, the space that was once occupied by relationships he has temporarily put on hold. this is a space i trust he will fill in abundance with newness, rebirth, intimacy, fecundity. i am certain that the dimensions and content of my heart's landscape and layered architecture is undergoing some kind of pivotal activity. what will it look like? who will it hold? how much will it be able to hold? what beauty has been unearthed and what frightful things must still be uprooted and destroyed? what things have been built, are being built, are being torn down, reconstructed?
sidenotes;
also e has been a place of safety and rest and is so precious to me :)
