“Eliza Jean,
You do not sound like yourself. Your message to our mutual friend is alive with humor and healing. But to me you write brief and sad lines that linger with the cadences a young woman who has Christ but nothing else. And so, with the post-midnight sky my quiet state of mind, I'm writing you back with this message:
The trees are shadows
holding up my personal sky
asleep with low clouds
velvet black on black.
Stars are memories
like flowers and sunshine
and white clouds on
blue sky canvas.
Tonight
night is night.
And in this peace
in this place that is
my own and home
the children are running.
They call it air walking.
With no city lights
to show the way
they find their own
by running into the darkness
at full speed laughing
arms wide like flying
marveled by the truth
that this night is
their night
their world
their everything.
Somewhere, in this reality that embraces and lifts them, there is my love for them, there is Christ, and there is you. The influence you have on their lives is mysterious. They know your words, your creations, your bravery. They will grow up knowing their impassioned path because even now, in the absolute blackness, they are walking, running, flying on it.”
And I wake up to your words. I wake up.
Leap. You know what you do well. Now leap. Take your gift to the next level, to the next place. Don't look. Leap.
I am so tired of everyone doing the bare minimum. If there is a word count, it is met with none to spare. If there is a deadline, there is the hustle at the eleventh hour. I am interested in air runners.
There is a extreme nature to this path of mine. It attracts an interesting following. But everyone who *fantasizes* about being an immortal or a missionary (or a big rock star) doesn't necessarily want to *be* any of those. And even more so, very, very few of them want to *work* to become anything.
The whole idea of bleeding for your path is argued as anti-Christian.
Denominations preaching permission to be lazy: If it's hard, it's not from God. Unless it makes you happy happy joy joy all the freaking time, it's not from God. If you have to fight for it, work for it, bleed, cry and reach for it.. leap into the blackness with your arms outstretched for it... be crucified....
I pick up the newspaper. You subscribe. You believe that labels and politics are part of why we're on this planet. You have a t-shirt that reads: If you aren't angry, you aren't paying attention. I am tired of, “What good does it do me to get angry.” I am tired of, “Well, I see their point of view.” Only an idiot couldn't see their point of view! That's not the point! A lot of life-changing, world-changing ideas have come from being angry. And trust me, baby, ideas from anger are far better than the ideas that come from fear.
Get angry now and you won't have to be afraid later on.
You have circled a personal ad in cherry chapstick. The scent of it lingers and the sheen still catches the pale dawn light. The ad reads:
Saw U dancing @ The Jinx. RU Angel?
The ad below it reads:
Me, you, zipties, daddy's car. Text me.
You slap a carton of orange juice down on the table, prop your elbow on your bare knee and don't bother to straighten down your (my!) black and white boxers. “They know you've arrived, Angel.”
And I stand up. And I go to the window of this new home and throw it open wide. I walk out onto the patio and breathe deep and slow in the brightening light.
Yeah, it's time. Time for them to know I...
Time for the world to know that we have arrived.
EJ
