I’m trying to remember where the phrase ‘walk across the room’ first came into my world. It might have been my previous pastor, but I’m never quite sure. In any case, walking across the room is something I’m learning how to do this year. My tendency in relationship is to tap-out whenever pain enters the equation. Which, guess what? Means that I don’t last long in any relationship. Something I’ve been trying to do more of this summer is walk across the room. See the girl you really don’t want to like, and then DON’T be the girl you know you don’t like, and be the first one to speak, the one to make your way through the swarm of people, say hi to her, hug her neck, tell her she’s beautiful.
Walk across the room and speak to someone you can see is hurting. Walk across the room and just make sure that you and your best friend are really okay.
Someone walked across the room for me tonight. Three someone’s [all from the same beautiful family] at different times [& in different ways] walked across the room for me tonight, just to be sure I was okay and to make sure I knew I was loved.
This happens to be one of those seasons where God feels far. I drove home tonight and wanted God to be in my tears, in the rain on the windshield or in the song on the radio. But He wasn’t in any of those places. Not tonight, at least. Tonight, though, God was in the hug of a sister, the caring questions of a friend, & in the prayer of a leader. I don’t usually hear God’s voice through the love of others [I have issues, I'm working on them] but tonight, God was the hug & the hand & the prayer. He is near and “He sutures our wounds with the silver threads of community.” [[ann voskamp]]
—edited to add something TOTALLY WORTH IT.
this will change your life, & it reminds me of the last section of what i just wrote:
Started a new journal a few weeks ago. It’s moving a lot slower than others I’ve worked in because it’s my first altered book! I’ve had this book on my shelf for a few years, just waiting to be turned into something. It’s a children’s language-arts book from the 70s. Some of the original illustrations are totally trippy. The hard part of the book [and the reason for the slow movement] is working with the original illustrations.
This last one is my favorite. The house is the original illustration, the left hand spread is mine. This little book is such an adventure!
The prayer for health, healing and wholeness is maybe the most powerful I’ve ever prayed. The first time the words slipped from my lips, pressing urgently against the roof of my mouth before tumbling out into the ocean air, I almost lost my breath. Hot tears fell from my eyes and I believed for the first time ever that a whole heart, a healing, was what God has always wanted for me, and I was just now discovering it.
I’ve never been a huge friend of the ocean. I don’t dislike the ocean, but I don’t need it the way my mom needs it. But praying by the ocean last night I fully understood the pull the ocean has on people. There’s an idea in literature [and, I guess, in psychology] that the ocean represents life because we are born into water, developed in water and learned to breath first in water before we are born into air. There is a supposed pull on our primal souls towards water. Praying by the ocean, I understood, for the first time ever, why the heroine in The Awakening ends her story by walking into the ocean. There is some sense that our primal soul receives redemption from immersion in the salty waters.
The ocean can’t heal me, though. And don’t worry, I’m not planning on walking out into it to find redemption. There’s just this insane itch to be made complete that I don’t know will ever be fully satisfied. If you grew up in church, you learned the concept that inside every person there is a God-shaped vacuum that can only be filled by God [and the bad kids try to fill it with sex & drugs & drama]. I’m learning now that there is a a vacuum inside that craves God, yes, but also craves intimacy, community, heaven, a life work and rest. God isn’t enough. He built me to need Him, but not Him alone. I’m broken in intimacy, in community, in a life work, and in rest. And Heaven can’t come close enough.
[but here's the truth [[and in truth comes healing]] God is faithful when I am not. Love is measured in sacrifice. blessed are those who mourn, for they are comforted by the shalom healing peace & presence of God.]
Strip away everything about yourself; every title you’ve ever claimed, anything you’ve ever been named, any gift you have, any thing you do. Take it all down until you’re nothing but skin & bone & breathing -
You [skin&bone&breathing] are created in the image of the God of this Universe [and not only that], created by and for God [the God of this Universe].
[and not only that] You were redeemed and loved by the God of this Universe. Skin & bone & breathing [and having to do nothing more or less than be more or less THAT] have value just for being that. His love gives you value; He created you because He loved you. Nothing you can do can take that away.
The value and worth of a person is intrinsic; nothing can be done or said to raise it, lower it, or take it away. Praying that truth would be breathed into my heart and lungs today. [but i'm learning that the lessons i'd most like to learn through pretty things and abstract poetry are the lessons God would most like to burn into my heart so they leave lasting memories and scars]
Weddings are such a trip to shoot. Stressed parents, blissed-out couples, crazy relatives and always, always, one rogue flower-girl or ring-bearer.
And I love that there really is no such thing as a less-than-beautiful bride. It’s not the dress or hair or makeup. Loving and being loved makes you beautiful.
vacation is wonderful, but i’m seriously ready to return to my world. balance is everything, but there’s something about calendars and words and people and work that keep me sane.
Just thought I’d share this happiness – a short promo piece for Water’s Edge that I had the privilege of producing & shooting & editing [I usually have an awesome team of people shooting + directing + editing, but it was one of those odd summer weeks when everyone but me and Tiff were out of town. so I grabbed the camera to see if we could make this happen!] I’m a little in love with it – both the people who needed to approve it had tears in their eyes when they saw it. Love getting to produce some beauty in the midst of our usually high-paced, high-energy world at W|E. Plus the music … my someday-boyfriend Sufjan has an amazing album that I’m in love with, and I shamelessly pulled this clip from the BQE soundtrack!
Edited to add: I love that everything about this piece is handmade. Everyone who saw us shooting this [photo of the set up below] mentioned that we could easily duplicate this look digitally. We got flack for the fact that you can see the water actually moving during the shoot. I love the handmade effort though [down to our homemade can light and our completely made-from-scratch set up [[we shot this on the kitchen counter of the break room at church]]]
For the eight of you that read this blog {hi mom!}, this is a little revisiting of a blog post I had written a few weeks ago. I’m rehashing it for two reasons; one, I’m using this post as an entry into a contest to win a trip to the Live A Better Story Seminar with Don Miller {hi Don!}, and two, it fits so well with the entry I just wrote about what I’m learning about Hope. I remembered a verse that I love from Job – having Hope will give you courage. Just consider this a re-ordering of the way I should have learned these things.
The words “fierce warrior” were used to describe me this week. I was also greeted warmly as a brave woman by a dear friend. I wrestle hard with the things in my heart that often keep me from being brave. There’s fear in there, and insecurities, and lies I’ve believed about my value, about my place in the world. Its hard to swing your sword when you’re worried that making the wrong move might leave you rejected and unloved. Crazy to say it out loud, but somewhere in my heart, I believe some of those things. I’m fighting the lies, and fighting them hard, but I’m still surprised when someone speaks the word “brave” and “katie” in the same sentence.
The photo above is of my favorite summer sundress – last week, it also became my favorite swim suit. After the annual worship team party at the Morgan’s farm, a group of us stayed to dance and chill. I’m not much of a party person – large groups of people send me into a quite, observant place instead of a chatty, pleasant, fun place. I stayed after, anyway, and was dragged on to the dance floor. Hot and sweaty and danced out, a group of my friends jumped into the pool fully clothed. Not at ALL my thing, so I moved to the side. Katie called me over, and offered to get me some clothes from the house to swim in. I declined, again feeling like jumping in the pool [swinging my sword] might thrust me into a dangerous unknown. I started to say something about having inhibitions, about not being brave [Dustin pushed into my heart with words, saying he knew it was in me to jump in with my long dress]. The words “inhibitions” didn’t get all the way out of my mouth before Katie pulled me in – shoes, sweater, dress and all. The instant I broke the surface of the water, something broke through the surface of my heart. Honestly, I’ve been kind of messed up ever since [in the best of ways].
I have a friend who talks about your giftings in life as being your superhero cape – the very things that help you fly can also get twisted around backwards and hinder you the most. Another friend took an opportunity a few weeks ago to speak about how I tend to view life – lots and lots of thinking, very little heart & guts. My need to sort and classify means I have great perception into people and situations. It makes me a sharp leader and a good friend. But it can make me a sticky, slow artist; there are moments in creating that you have to leave everything that’s in your head and leap with your heart. I could probably count the number of times I’ve done that in my life on one hand.
Fierce warrior: I’m still laughing at those words. Fierce warriors don’t do math with relationships [I'm the queen of that, just so you know. It's an art as well as a skill. Sigh]. Fierce warriors run, with abandon, swords swinging, hearts ablaze, into the roar; into the enemy’s territory. I want that. I love that I have a floor-length floral sundress to remind me of what that feels like now.
That’s what I want my story to be about; about a courageous warrior who bravely and brazenly brings truth and beauty into the world. I’m moving towards the work I want to do with my life and told a friend what I know to be true: the world really doesn’t need another filmmaker or producer. But the world does need more beauty, and truth, and kindness. The world does need more courageous artists putting those things on the table. The world does need another producer who brings her fully-engaged heart to the table. So that’s it – I want to own my own production studio. I want to compel the world towards Truth using beauty & kindness. That’s the first time I’ve written that in public, actually. I have no idea how to do it, if I should do it, or where, or when, or what, but that’s it. That’s what I want.
I’m still figuring parts of these things out [like the part about Hope, the part about relationships, the part about conflict and overcoming obstacles]. I’d like to think that the Live A Better Story Seminar will help me sort out what comes next for me. Maybe, like Hope, encountering and engaging with whatever is right in front of me is the best way to work these things out. It’s time, though, to up the stakes.
Hope can be a slippery thing; an elusive emotion as well as a sturdy promise. It’s hard to hold on to sometimes. It’s hard to grow, hard to cultivate. It’s not like a weed, that seeks out it’s own nutrition and grows no matter how hard you try to kill it. Hope has to be cared for, looked-out for, watched, held, talked to.
Or maybe Hope is really not that elusive; maybe it just looks different than I always expect it to look. Maybe Hope is time moving forward, the sun rising and setting. Maybe Hope is the bitter dregs of coffee at the bottom of the cup, that I still wait for and want to taste, if just to remind myself that I can taste. Maybe Hope is doing the dishes.
Maybe Hope isn’t hard to grow, either. Maybe Hope is waiting for my heart, the ground it’s waiting to sink its roots into, to be soft and pliable. Maybe Hope isn’t the one who needs to be cared for, looked-out for, watched, held or talked to; maybe my heart is. I guess gardening and farming works that way; you care for the soil more than you care for the plants there. You prune and weed and plant and harvest, but the real work [the working-out-your-salvation-with-fear-and-trembling work] is found in preparing the soil. Maybe I should leave farming parables to farmers.
I don’t have any art parables about Hope. I just know that I’m finding that it’s different than I thought. Hope for me this week has looked like: showing up to the page [writing and writing and writing], a tear-stained book of Psalms under my pillow, coffee on the porch every morning, getting dressed, putting on make up, sitting across the table from a true friend, driving, walking and doing the next thing.
Maybe that’s the only thing I know and understand as truth about Hope; doing the next thing. For some, doing the next thing is a non-choice. For me, it’s a statement of Hope and about Hope; even if Hope is invisible, or feels so small in the expanse of my heart, I am only able to do the next thing because I have faith that the invisible Hope, or the small Hope, is still Hope; is still beautiful and life-giving and breathtaking, even when I don’t feel it.
