11/29/14

The Soil, Her dog, and She

silence, nothing but the crunching of our footsteps and the sound cold air makes as it passes by you hurrying to where it needs to be next. The city skyline behind us the resting soil before us. How rare and beautiful it truly is that we exist. I try as much as I can to hold this moment. To fold this night neatly and keep it in my pocket. But the very reason that makes it so beautiful is the very reason it must end. Nothing lasts forever. Love must be free. I stop and we stand there in the mixture of soil and rocks worn to show the path many before us have taken. I take a deep breath and look at her.

God it's been a year. I never thought I'd see her again. Here she is beside me her arm wrapped through mine in the cold. She's beautiful. I've been to Paris, Rome, Victoria Falls, Wicklow Mountains, NYC, Pacific, Atlantic, I've looked towards the stars, I've watched a seed sprout life, there is nothing on this planet like her and the beauty she holds through my lens.

I try to walk as slowly as possible but the night is slipping away. This could be the last time I ever look into her eyes or listen to her dream. We get back to her car and I'm not ready yet I set her on the trunk of her car and try as hard as I can to keep this moment. Jesus how I love her. Her laugh, her smile, her mind, her heart, she gets it.
She gets me.
To be understood. That's home to me. She feels like home.

we pull up to her house and we are sitting in her car like a year hasn't past. We are sitting in her car talking, laughing, singing the Avett brothers, existing. She, me, and the dog between us. Perfect night. How rare and beautiful it was. I want every night to be like that night but the beauty of it, the truth and reality of it is that I can't get what I want. I have to release my grip hold my hands open.

A year had past and I am exactly where I was. Is time cyclical? I am thankful for this night I wasn't expecting to ever have another with her. Life is grace. I don't know if I will die today, I don't know if she will. I don't know if I'll ever see her again but in that moment. In that time we simply existed together and it was enough.

How rare and beautiful it truly is, that we exist.

The Avett Brothers - Salvation Song

11/26/14

I woke up from the same dream:
Falling backwards, falling backwards
Until it turned me inside out.

Now I live a waking life
Of looking backwards, looking backwards;
A model citizen of doubt.

Still I’m pinned under the weight
Of what I believed would keep me safe.
So show me where my armor ends,
Show me where my skin begins.
Like a final puzzle piece
It all makes perfect sense to me…
The heaviness that I hold in my heart belongs to gravity.
The heaviness that I hold in my heart’s been crushing me.

I’ve been worried all my life,
A nervous wreck most of the time.
I’ve always been afraid of heights,
Of falling backwards, falling backwards.
I’ve been worried all my life.

Until one day I had enough
Of this exercise of trust.
I leaned in and let it hurt,
Let my body feel the dirt.
When I break pattern, I break ground.
I rebuild when I break down.
I wake up more awake than I’ve ever been before.

Sleeping at Last - Pluto

11/22/14

The Fear of Love

I come to the fear of love
as I have often come,
to what must be desired
and to what must be done.

Only love can quiet the fear
of love, and only love can save
from diminishment the love
that we must lose to have.

We stand as in an open field,
blossom, leaf, and stem,
rooted and shaken in our day,
heads nodding in the wind.
-Wendell Berry

Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

11/19/14

How a pizza joint only open one day, doesn’t advertise and doesn’t list prices has been around for two years http://t.co/g1pLXOPY3F

— Weekend Edition (@NPRWeekend) October 27, 2014

A photo posted by Adam🌱 (@zmorris93) on Apr 4, 2014 at 4:45am PDT

Lord Huron - Ends of the Earth

11/15/14

On the feast of St. Nicholas in 1273, Aquinas was celebrating Mass when he received a revelation that so affected him that he wrote and dictated no more, leaving his great work the Summa Theologiae unfinished. To Brother Reginald’s, his secretary and friend, expostulations he replied, "The end of my labors has come. All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me." When later asked by Reginald to return to writing, Aquinas said, "I can write no more. I have seen things that make my writings like straw." Aquinas died three months later while on his way to the ecumenical council of Lyons.

Sleeping at Last - Saturn

11/12/14

The fact is that the awakening we seek may depend on the depth and richness of our own uncertainty.

Help, O Lord - Ordinary Time

11/08/14

Parish Farming Internship 2014

May

July

September

November

Lived Project

The Steel Wheels - Dance Me Around the Room

11/05/14

...They snatch
what they can carry and fly
into the trees. They flirt out
with tail or beak and waste
more sometimes than they eat.
And the man, knowing
the price of seed, wishes
they would take more care.
But they understand only
what is free, and he
can give only as they
will take. Thus they have
enlightened him. He buys
the seed to make it free.

...There will be
a resurrection of the wild.
Already it stands in wait
at the pasture fences.
It is rising up
in the waste places of the cities.
When the fools of the capitals
have devoured each other
in righteousness,
and the machines have eaten
the rest of us, then
there will be the second coming
of the trees. They will come
straggling over the fences
slowly, but soon enough.
The highway will sound
with the feet of the wild herds,
returning. Beaver will ascend
the streams as the trees
close over them.
The wolf and the panther
will find their old ways
through the nights. Water
and air will flow clear.
Certain calamities
will have passed.
and certain pleasures.
The wind will do without
corners. How difficult
to think of it: miles and miles
and no window.
-Wendell Berry

Run River North - Foxbeard

11/02/14

Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same.

I don't know if what I did was the right thing.
I didn't ask for this.
I didn't seek this out.
Would silence be the better choice?

Martin Luther King never seemed to think so.

But who am I?

Who am I to pick up stones?
Who am I to point fingers?

The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.

Am I supposed to judge?
Do I have the right to make such decisions?
Can I see the heart of men?

You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?

What right do I have to throw stones?

I am better than no man.
I am cleaner than no man.

my sins have stained my record with equal portions as the very man I saw.

Oh what guilt is this?
What have I done?
What price have I paid?
Did I do the right thing?

The right thing...what the fuck is the right thing?

I feel like a coward.
I feel like a hypocrite.
I feel shame.

What is the loving thing to do?
to let my brother experience the consequences of his actions?
Or to show mercy and keep my mouth shut?

My heart is heavy.
Of all the bible studies
All the small groups
All the books
All the sermons
Here I am, and no one has taught me how to handle this.

God I didn't ask for this.
Give me peace Jesus.
Give me courage.

Run River North - Monsters Calling Home