I haven’t written much of late. I guess I tell myself I am sorting things out. But sorting for me is writing… so it’s not that. Searching for forward motion had become a perpetual pursuit, but suddenly I have hit a big pile of feather pillows and am floating on clouds of contentment and peace. You give me roots yet allow me to fly… not too far, but far enough. I prayed for you, and the angels brought you here…

First snow day... He didn't want it to end :)

To understand another,
The greatest obstacle we face,
Is our own perspective.

Reverberations

Where that love exists in many colors and depths
It sinks like perfume into the crevasses of my soul.
The sweet smell anoints my face
Like wine, an elixir on my lips
My thoughts are drunk with the warmth of you
And my head seeks its peace upon your chest
Can you hear my heart beat faster
When your soft words caress my ear?
What truth is this you speak
Upon the night wind and morning breathe
That seeks my soul and finds it yearning
For every moment… every word…
I hunger for your presence
My love… my Hebrew man.

Unexpected

Wrapped in golden linen,
Guarded against the world;
I reached out for a moment
And was caught up in the breeze.
A gentle hand that clasped mine firm;
A deep strong smooth voice that whispers.
The clear calm smell of summer rain,
And the undulations of ocean tides
Are not sweeter in this moment
Than falling into the warm sun.
Watching autumn leaves
flutter like heartbeats
And each moment
I fall a little more
Into you.

I wrote this piece after dreaming it about 2 years ago when I was pregnant with my son. I have kept it hidden away because I did not understand the meaning of it. This week a very dear Hebrew man showed me new meaning in what I had written. It is a humbling experience to be shown the true sense of something that I wrote. Indeed I do believe the veil is beginning to lift... and my ears are beginning to hear. You are cherished among friends my Hebrew man... may YAH bless you greatly and continue to restore the years the locusts have eaten...

THE CATHEDRAL

Every brick was placed in the Father’s name. The masons worked long days mixing mortar by hand and setting the large gray stones in place to build the cathedral by hand. Opulent and majestic it has stood for nearly 1000 years; built strong with faith, and the best that the time could provide. I’ve been inside this stone house of God. The inside is filled with candles, and pictures of battles fought in the name of religion. Above the alter hangs a life size replica of the Christ himself, hung on a cross, thorns on his head, spear in his side, blood pouring from his wounds. His head leans to one side; his eyes are closed in death. People come in to look, but rarely stay any length of time. The services are like empty rituals; repetitive words, a priest in white cloth swings a lantern of burning incense over those few that gather in the pews for Sunday morning. The symbols displayed do not equal life. Inside this church is death… life exists outside its doors. Around the church are the houses of people who busily go about their daily chores. They hang laundry out to dry, feed animals, weed gardens, wash steps, sweep the walkway, seed the fields, and tend the graves. The cathedral rises above them, and they continue their work in the shadows of its magnificence.

From my outlook far above the village on a hill, I look down at the activities of the warm summer afternoon below. The enormous cathedral, its stones now covered in moss, stands alone, high above the other buildings, like the backdrop to some gothic movie. Images of gargoyles landing atop the roof and perching there, race through my head. I feel the deadness of the place; the coldness of the symbols; the absence of faith… the absence of God. Years ago, God was taken from these people, taken by a man who gave them death in return. Sometimes I think I see a small glimmer of hope in the hearts of the people, but in most… I see only the bare emptiness that replaces that which was once so vibrant and true.

Clouds begin to roll in around the steeple, and the sky begins to darken. The bells of the cathedral begin to sound a warning… gong, gong, gong… they ring over and over. The bells warn of the impending storm… a way to communicate to all within its earshot that they should be quick to pack up. People below me scurry to take in the washing off the line, to pen up animals in the yard; they scurry around finishing the tasks of the day before the impeding storm. Slowly, one by one, the people disappear indoors; doors and shutters are closed, and the village is quiet. The day seems dreary, and oddly silent after the bustle of morning activities. The clouds have now completely covered the sun, and the day is dark as night. Standing here on hill, observing the village below, I can see rain begin to fall in the village a few kilometers away. A flash of lightening suddenly brightens the clouds above and the ensuing thunder deafens my ears. The cathedral bells continue to sound… gong, gong, gong.

As I turn to make my own way indoors, I am suddenly blinded by darkness and my ears are covered. Fear grips my heart. Sulfur fills my nose. When I can see again, I am standing on top of the cathedral, my body is exposed and my belly is swollen with a child. My arms are held out straight from my sides and I cannot move. I am cold, standing there naked in the dark; in the rain. The lightening and thunder have intensified and the rain is pouring down my body. It has soaked my hair and I am unable to wipe it away. “OH GOD!!!” I scream, “What is happening to me?” I see an angel standing beside me…

Out of the dark night a beast flies at me, his gruesome face is carved deep with lines; his eyes are burning fire; his yellow teeth are bared. He flies directly into my face. I open my mouth to scream but nothing comes out. He comes so close that his sulfurous breath fills my mouth. The angel lifts its staff and the demon is knocked away. My heart is pounding and I am thankful that this creature is standing next to me to protect me. From behind I feel a claw press deep into my flesh… cutting a wide gash across my naked back. I feel the warm blood pour out and the cold talons grip at my skin. As the angel turns to fend him off, another catches him from the side. The tail of the demon swats wildly at the angel and again the angel fends him off with his staff. Suddenly the skies are filled with the dark bodies of flying creatures. The air is filled with the stench of their bodies and their cries and screams are deafening. The demons are flying into my face, at my body from all directions; they are clawing their way across the roof towards my feet. My cheek is seared to the core as a sharp tail cuts deep into my flesh. I turn my head to watch the angel… Its white glow is scarred by the claws of the enemies… The demons have scratched him as much as they have scratched me. The angels face is worn with deep scars, his eyes show that his strength is waning. My body is bruised, scratched and bleeding and yet I still cannot move. The attacks continue, until there is nothing left inside me.

Then from somewhere in front of me, from under the cathedral emerges the huge scaly head of a dragon. His eyes are full of furry, and out of his mouth and nose spews the fire of hell… I open my mouth to scream, but nothing comes out. I try to get away, but I can not move. My blood runs cold with fear… my spine feels as though it will separate from my body, and I will be ripped apart. I try to pray, but the baby inside me screams so loudly that I cannot hear the answers. I try to call out, but my voice is not heard. I am alone. The angel beside me tries his best to stand in front of me… to protect the child. But what is one angel against the vast power of the dark Lord? What power do I have now? Everything inside me screams for freedom… screams out to God… but his voice, I cannot hear.

From somewhere out there, in the deep dark sky there comes a voice whose deep echoes shake the very earth… I hear the words… “Where is your warrior now?” I don’t know who said them…. But the words are soon picked up by the demons, who echo in taunting tones… “Where is he now? Where’s the warrior?” The air is filled with maniacal laughing… I hung my head down…. I could not hear the voice of God, I could not feel his presence… and my warrior… was nowhere to be found. I feel deceived… like I believed something that wasn’t true. I believed him to be the warrior… I prayed for him, as a warrior… where is he????? I call into question everything that I have heard from the Father until now. Was I imagining it? Could it be that the truth was skewed? That I just did not see it? I scream out to God to give me answers… but my ears are blocked and I cannot hear his replies. My eyes are covered and I cannot see the truth. I need my warrior to call out to him for me… to tell me what he hears… WHERE IS HE??? The screams continue... the taunting continues... "Where is your warrior now?", the maniacal laughing continues... I want to scream out... "HE'S COMING..." but I don't know where he is, I don't know for sure... I'm lost... or he is.

May your unfailing love come to me, O YAH,

Your salvation according to your promise;

then I will answer the one who taunts me,

for I trust in your word.

Psalm 119:41-42

The seed... this is the first paragraph... the inspiration for things that I hope will grow to more.
It has yet no title... the characters are merely sketches, and the plot is ever twisting in my head... and yet I believe that for all the theatre that has played before my eyes over the last couple of years, there deserves a tribute be paid, to the truth... to the players... and to the undying faith that fairy tales really do exist... and my warrior has never changed. For that I merely chose to look upon the false countenance and believe him to be the right man thereby missing the point... and the plan... and the bus... and very nearly my mind. And all the while, my warrior stood, awaiting the moment when I would have the veil taken from my eyes to see... but indeed... on with the story...

The truth is a wicked thing; a two sided sword that never sleeps. The harshness of truth ruins lives, speaks words that should never be spoken, and gives the illusion of relief to those who commit acts of unfaithfulness. The truth does not tell stories. As I sit here curled next to the fire that rages on the hearth against the bitter cold of the winter wind whistling outside my window, I find myself not searching for truth, but trying to forget it. I try to forget the acid heavy in my throat as I listened to a woman take a sword and cut the very heart out of my chest, lay it beating in the ashes to be burnt with the fiery embers and return it to me as charred remains of a life that could have been. It is not the truth I want to remember now, it is the dark tale coaxed from my imagination. The fire sparked by a series of horrible, life changing, tragic events that spurred forth a story worth telling. For a storyteller does not live by telling the truth, but by the regaling of a tale that captures a spirit and holds it deep within the treasure chest of time itself.

They say it is not good practice to write novels with characters based on real people because made up characters can not sue you and because inevitably, real people seem boring on paper. I think these people that say this, have never met the people in my life. It seems to me that for my friends benefit, I should write this stuff down so that they can at least grab a coffee or some popcorn. It has also occurred to me that in order for these people to sue me, they would have to prove their own guilt…

The sad part, I think, is that these people actually live their lives like they are characters in some B-list psychological thriller. It seems that such people are so busy living fake lives, that they never realize the thrill of the truth. They waste time making drama in their lives, and fail to appreciate the simple pleasures that come from appreciating what they already have.

He's figured out that music makes the soul dance... and the bum wiggle.

Sisters... what's a brother to do?

She tells me they are the most beautiful shoes she has ever seen.

A Legacy of Black and White

There is a series of stories I began to read to my girls when they were four.
They are silly little stories that leave you rolling on the floor laughing every time you read them.
They capture the attention of the mischievious small child inside all of us.
When L learned to read, in Grade one... we would read them together...
She read, and I filled in the words she didn't know
By the end of the year, she could read them all herself.
She's almost 12 now... and she still reads those stories.
And here we are, after a year of stressful beginnings in a new school with a new language...
Finally, in a story she has read from beginning to end a hundred times
She realized that French is not the source of the pain
And somewhere inside her a tiny piece snapped in place
That turned an attitude of inadequacy
To one of confidence...
And Lord I pray it continues...
For all our sakes.

Isn't it true of all of us though... that when we least know how to go forward, we need to start by looking back?

And Thank you God for Barbara Park... and Junie B Jones...

The silence is eerie.
The complete absence of sound.
Running feet and chattering voices are quietly tucked in their beds.
Not even a clock ticks in the background to mark the passage of time.
Perhaps as I sit here not noticing the time pass, it has really chosen to stand still.
I am like a child who wonders why people can see her when she covers her eyes.
A woman who lets minutes run through her fingers like sand on the beach.
One day I’ll count the minutes I have left.
Today it seems a luxury to swim in a pool of time not knowing it’s depth.
Let it not be said, that I wasted time…
But that I had time to waste, and spent it instead.
The clock cannot be fooled or cheated
For Cinderella, the chime always sounds too early

Identity. You are born with it; you can change it; you can create a new one; you can have yours stolen. It is a right and a privilege… something that is unique. But some days I feel like my identity fits as well as a cardboard box. When you look at me, you can not see who I am… the curves of my body or the presence of spirit. You see what you want to see… but you don’t see me. And so I created Arwen… the dreamer… the writer… my twin, and yet so different from me. She finds beauty in tragedy, spins tales to ease pain that emanates from deep scares. She scares me, and challenges me, and begs to not be kept silent… but Elissa quiets her voice. Elissa makes writing hard… but Arwen… her words float across paper before they are even thought… Arwen is the writer… Elissa is just complicated.

I spent a couple of weeks in East Germany as a teenager, and found the experience to be enlightening in a way I never expected. For all the deprivation I expected to see, there was light and clarity in the relationships I encountered, and I found myself taking a deep look at my own life as a result. I met a girl named Diana, whose goal in life was to become president of her own communist state. Strange, you may say... but I understand her motivation. She felt that in the absence of capitalism, people were more free to love each other without the pressures that we equate to this "modern" world of ours. In that place I learned that money is an empty motivator, and that true riches are found in rich relationships with people... this lesson has been carved deeply on my soul... it is something I am continually searching for.

I wrote this over a year ago... March 19th 2006 to be exact. In a different time and place... yet when I found it today, folded neatly and shoved into a particular page in my bible, it still spoke volumes to me. The page in which it was folded, also bore these words... "The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it." Proverbs 10:22. To me it is about recognizing the difference between the things we want for ourselves, and the things that God wants for us. My understanding of what I wrote is deeper somehow, after having walked through the last year... I have changed my understanding of the house the Lord wants to build. So deep a care and concern has no man but that God would have it for his children, each and every one. Here's the passage I wrote:

In Search of Inspiration.

An architect takes the time to design the building with care. He draws each corner, each wall, each support beam, each foundational block with accuracy and attention to detail. The builder chooses the location carefully, knowing that if he builds the building on sinking sand, all his effort will be for naught because the building will fall.

"Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practise is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practise is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the wind blew and beat against that house, and if fell with a great crash." Matthew 7:24-27

There is a point in the construction of a house where the house in extremely vulnerable. When the walls are put up, they are braced, but the house is then vulnerable to storms until the roof is in place to hold everything together. When I was a child, I remember going out with my grandfather (who also built houses) on a Saturday morning after a storm hit. The strength of the storm was unprecidented and completely unexpected. He had a house that was at this vulnerable stage in construction and when we looked at it, he was horrified. The walls, each carefully constructed according to the plan, had fallen over and cracked against each other. the wood was splintered and had been thrown in all directions. Only the foundation, made of concrete and dug into the earth had survived the wild winds...

The bricks of our foundation were set into place out of the fullness and grace of God. When the form of our house began to appear it was truly unique to all others around it... a thing of beauty that filled our hearts. But, not yet finished when the storm approached, it had no roof to hold out the rain, no doors to hold back the wind. When the strength of the storm became too much, the house fell... leaving only the stones of the foundation in tact. The wooden beams cracked and fell, the pieces lay scattered all about. But then, instead of standing back to assess the damage done to this beautiful thing that we created together, in frustration, we grabbed at the pieces of the fallen house, and began ripping it down with our own hands. And in doing so, we have ripped each other down as well.

"The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down." Proverbs 14:1

So now, the storm is calm, and here I stand before a house whose intended beauty is still evident in the stones of the foundation. And I am looking at this destruction that between the storm and our hands has been devastating. The builders are discouraged, tired, frustrated, wanting to turn around and walk away... after all the effort that this took to come this far, their treasure, their handiwork, is utterly destroyed.

But still, the Architect's dream... is for the house to be completed, to have paint on the walls, and show the beauty of His creation, to stand and honour Him, to again be a place of fullness and grace. To start again... with pieces of the old, to create something new.

73 days.

This one Takes the Prize

I sat next to another mom yesterday as I was watching my kids at their activities... this mom had a baby who was about 3 months old. After exchanging conversation over growth rates, shoe sizes and eating habits as most mothers do, her daughter started to fuss, and she began to nurse her. My son was trying to climb up in her lap while the baby was nursing, and I kept moving him away. Finally he made it known that he wanted to nurse too... at which point I see the other woman's eyebrows go up. I could read it all over her face; the realization that yes indeed, he was really mine. Perhaps the assumption was strong enough this time to not warrant the requisit question about adoption. In any case, when my son started to crawl around on the floor again, she turned to her husband and said... "Doesn't he look like a miniture soandso (enter name here)" Then she turned to me and said, "He looks exactly like this guy we know, (enter name here); is that his dad?" Ok... so, not to point out the obvious here, but there are a lot of black men in North America!!!! The one black man that you know is not my son's father... I GUARANTEE IT!!!

Annoying little ignorance.

There was a lady standing behind me at Walmart the other day. She was watching me talk to my son, who was getting rather frustrated at having to wait in line while sitting in his stroller. She caught my eye and asked, "Is he yours?"
"Yes," I answered.
She transferred her glance to him again and continued, “He is absolutely beautiful!! Where is he from?”

Obviously this isn’t the first time I’ve had this happen to me… but it has been awhile. His dark skin and curly hair make it obvious to people who are looking that he is not white. However, it seems to me that any person who has been a member of the human race for as long as she has, would have a greater knowledge of genetics. I briefly contemplated telling her he was from heaven, telling her that the stork brought him, or coming up with some other unbelievable story, but instead, I wiped all expression off my face and starred at her… tentatively, I ventured a quiet response… “What do you mean?”

I see no reason why ignorance need be met with an explanation at all. I certainly wasn’t about to launch into an explanation of the birds in the bees to a 50 something year old woman in the middle of Walmart. An apology at this point, would have been profound… but instead she continued…
“OH!!” with big eyes, “You mean he’s YOURS??”
“Yes” I said, wondering to myself why I was still having this conversation.
“OH, I thought you’d adopted him or something.”

I turned around and carried on unloading my groceries.

Thoughts

The path I want to walk is often in the exact opposite direction of the path I choose to walk. Maybe it is symptomatic of my state of heart. It is not for man to determine his steps… merely his direction. I pray for detours, not dead ends.

Never hold a knife, when you should be holding a lamp. Encouragement, love, understanding and forgiveness soften harder hearts than mine, where harsh words and criticism merely slice flesh to the bone. To build is a greater accomplishment than to destroy.

Deal or No Deal

I sometimes find myself watching the television show Deal or No Deal when my brain is tired, and I don’t want to think anymore. I find something intriguing about the premise for the show, and the utter predictability of the outcome. It is a struggle much like the one that each of us enters into the day we are born. Some of us are luckier than others, some of us choose all the right cases, some of us don’t, and still end up ahead. Luck is only as good as the intellect that wields it. Proverbially, it isn’t what you have; it’s what you do with it. It seems to me, that part of the human condition is to continually want more than what we have. Are any of us really content? And if one of us were content, would not the rest of humanity hound them until they too discovered the “ambition” to also want more? We use key words like aspiration, drive, enterprise, desire, dream, purpose, goals, and ambition. We desire to be with someone who “knows what they want” and “has goals and a drive to achieve”. We want the person who “has it all figured out”, who has “their success planned out and is working the plan”.

There comes a time in a person’s life, where they hold in their hands the keys for happiness… where things line up and start to make sense. It is the moment we see after it has passed us by, where hindsight tells us we either made the right decision, or we messed up big time. It is the seed of destruction or of bliss… depending on how we water it. In the TV show, it is the moment when the payout is at its peak, where the contestant decides either to walk away, or continue on. If they continue on, and choose the wrong cases, they could end up with nothing. If they continue on and choose the right ones, they might make more money. But what is most interesting, and telling of a person’s character, are the decisions they make once the wrong stuff starts to happen. Once they realize that they made the wrong decision, their luck has turned and the payouts start to decrease. Some of them carry on, with faith that luck will return, and sometimes it does. Some of them are so focused on the loss, that they stop playing the game. Some people will play the game all the way to the end of the line, throw rationality out the window, and go home with five dollars. But with each and every one of them that play the game past the turning point, there is a moment of realization that flashes across their face. When the knowledge that they went one step too far, hits them like the smell of rotting fish. It may just be money, and it may just be a TV show, but we all know it happens in real life too. When given the opportunity, we make a choice between risking all that we have right now, for what we could have behind door number two. Some of us have the stomach for the risk… others of us cringe at the thought. But aren’t we all motivated by fear? Fear of losing, fear of what others think, fear of being alone, fear of being poor, fear of not being remembered, fear of regret, fear of losing control, ultimately, fear of not having it all.


I guess as I look back at my own journey, I am still left wondering if there was a point that I should have stopped looking for something better. Can one ever really stop searching? Or are we destined to be confined within the bars of discontentment for the entirety of our human existence? Is it inevitable that we destroy the good in our lives, to constantly go one step further than what’s good for us? Or is there a point at which we can truly realize, this is really as good as it’s going to get. Perhaps there is always the risk of missing out. I believe that we will never truly know what is around the next corner, but happiness isn’t something that befalls us by accident. It is a choice. At the very core of humanity, there is choice… freewill as it’s sometimes called. We have the choice to be happy with what we have, or to wage our bets, at the risk of losing all that we hold in our hands. Perhaps the winners in life are not those that risk it all to get what they want, but those that have a modest portion of life’s blessings and choose to be excessively happy and thankful for what they have. Perhaps it is all in our perspective.

Mared’s warning

A wizard’s words that carry wide
And Tallows flee their homes to hide
An air of magic rides the wave
With beauty from the forest grave.

What new expanse of story wove
Among the whispers of a mermaid’s cove
A fantasy doth wind its way,
From night into the bright of day.

A tarish tale of a sorcerer’s wand
That slips beneath the misty pond
A village marked by shifting walls
where maidens to their knights doth call.

Yet everything is not as it seems
The Tallows left by eve to dream
Doth wake in fear as through the night
The tale is cracked with a flash of light.

Mared appears amongst the dew
An Argod, called the race of few
The light of myst, the spirit wise
Immortal warrior, in disguise.

Death doth swarm amongst the trees
And warriors fall in morbid seas
Brutality from the sword of the knight;
A raging anger that fuels the fight.

At last the battle over hell is won
The darkness descends to cover the sun
And all who entered the gates of doom
Have in hells fire found their room

The Tallows cringe from the dark lord’s power
His minions flee from the tallest tower
And all that’s left of the Tallows dreams
Is the dark blood flowing through the streams.
© 2007 Arwen North