Random

I wonder

/ Jaimie / 1 Comment

I wonder if there is a haven for lost poems deep in the recesses of time…some magical place of calm & noise all jumbled together to form meaning.

I wonder if there’s a mystery to the soul that will never be solved until we meet our maker and then in His light, all will become clear, like a translucent breath given form and substance beyond its particles.

I wonder if there are places where two & two add up to three.  You know…like me & you & we.

I wonder

I wonder at wonderful and it’s subjectivity, how the universals collide with perspective to form the moment when “it is good”

I wonder what happens to our dreams when we wake

I wonder what the substance of a prayer looks like from heaven and if mine have created something of beauty or a blob of selfish ambition. I pray the former. Still I wonder

I wonder about today, if I’ve lived it well or if it’s joined the overflowing tombs of the wasted.

I wonder if God allows “the wasted” to resurface in the mind & heart of those who are quick to hear.

I wonder if I can join that number & revive the moments of truth I’ve squandered.

I wonder if I should stop writing now, if maybe I’m digging too deep and will be found buried tomorrow beneath the pebbles of thought that pile to gravel in my head.

I wonder if this makes sense at all.

Some things I may never know…still I wonder.

A Day Without Zombies

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I haven’t written much this week, which is unusual for me. I haven’t been able to. It’s not the ideas or inspirations haven’t come. It’s not that the words haven’t rolled through my brain singing “Crazy Train” while plummeting frantically to the caverns of lost thought below. It’s really been a joint effort between life and confusion, each one vying for my time, sucking at my mind with their imbibing tentacles. They long for me. They long to steal away the moments of vision and clarity as they once did. I’m not easily shaken. Not anymore.

This week I’ve realized how truly blessed I’ve become. That seems a strange thought in the midst of the situation that presented itself which I cannot share with you, but trust me, it was a doozy! I realized that I’ve come to a place where problems (real problems) are rare. That is such a miracle since I once lived a life in which problems (real mind blowing, “how much more can I possibly take” problems) were the norm.

Then you sink to uncomfortable numb. Feelings stop so survival can take over. Your heart beats, you breathe but laboriously in an effort to dim the panic. Breathe in, breathe out. Hide the heart another day until maybe it just disappears. Who needs emotion anyway? My place in life is among the zombies, walking dead with no heart (excerpt from poem called Zombie I wrote in 2009)

Now those days have passed and I am alive. No longer the zombie I wrote about in old poems. I am fully awake. I am free.

So this week, though life hit hard, I find myself thankful. I’m not thankful for the circumstances. I’m not thankful for the pain. But I’m thankful that I’ve entered the realm of the living. I’m thankful that I merely have a problem instead of my entire life being fraught with a myriad of problems. I’m thankful that I am confident in the God whose brought me through so much before and will bring my family through this situation with good in store. I’m thankful that no weapon formed against me or my family can ever prosper or succeed. My confidence is in a BIG God.

I’m grateful for the promise of tomorrow, a future and a hope. I’ve always believed and held tightly to that promise. But now, I’m thankful for the promise of TODAY…knowing that God is with me. The creator of the universe holds my hand and loves me deeply, passionately, and furiously. I am overwhelmed by the wonder of it. I am captured by the enormity of its effects. It leaves me breathless. 

Today I am fully alive. 

 

Sunset

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What do you even call the color where all the shades & hues of the spectrum collide and meet  in the middle of the sunset? It corresponds with the nature of soul and spirit itself, a mixed kaleidoscope of beauty; inspiring, inviting, connecting to the core of me. It slides and fades; brightens and deepens in mere seconds. It’s just like your voice, a constant of brilliance, a myriad of excellence, a conglomerate of majesty before me. It breathes in and out freedom and wonder, intimacy and radiance. You sing and I am new.

The waiting world holds its breath now eagerly anticipating that moment… that flash when you speak. Explosions of color emanate from your mouth. You breathe and we live. Then when the fire of your glory touches the earth, light transcends shadow. Meaning surpasses the coming night. The promise of morning looms heavy in the salty air.

Brilliance becomes you. Color and light grasp in vain to describe you. You are vast.

Speak Lord, I am listening.

Color meets Sea

Collision

Good Morning

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The sun is higher in the sky now. The grass is glistening like a crystal blanket covered by the dew brought to sustain it. The birds sing their cheerful melodies. In harmony with one another, they dance across the sky to their own serenade.

The squirrels are always busy. They find their joy in the simplicity of the scurry. They race back and forth awaiting the prize of a morsel nestled somewhere in the dirt like a long sought after treasure…the scurrying pirates of the yard. ARRGH!

The trees barely move at the gentle prodding of the wind.

The wind is apparently exhausted after the storms of the past few days and is taking the morning off. It has carried away with it all of the clouds, leaving the sky a pale shade of vibrant blue with no obstructions left to block its exhibition.

The morning is alive all around me as I sit at my window with my coffee.  All I can do is smile.

Prayer of Peace

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I always thought of peace in the still, the calm of the water as it sits like glass; so pure you feel like it could hold you. Maybe there’s peace there. But as I sit here listening to the babbling of the brook, the trickling as the water flows gently over rock, white tops bouncing playfully as creek meets stream, I see a peace I’ve never known.

Maybe that’s just another way your peace passes our understanding. We expect peace in the still when noise is dimmed to silence, when movement fades to freeze. Yet greater peace is found in the chaos. It’s in the way the water goes whichever way you send it, the way the speed increases as the path narrows. Yet the whole time it’s guided by the boundaries you’ve set in place. The banks were built to hold it, the boulder sent to divert it, the tree limb sprouting aimlessly out of rock like a mystic, misplaced giant. 

There’s a comfort there in the noise, the splash, the motion. There’s an alcove ahead where the water rests, if only for a minute. It pools with the other drops around it lazily descending toward the next narrow place where it will flow further down the mountain. There’s a safety in knowing that you guide the mountain. You hold the stream. You bring the melody I sing to the sway of the trees you created. You’ve given us this moment. You’re romancing me.

As I leave this place and find myself back in the clamor and commotion of life, let this moment sustain me. Let me remember that you are holding me.

Without the noise, there’d be no music. Without the movement, we’d be stagnant. Without the narrow, we’d never be sharpened and grow.

You are my peace.

Jaimie Dandridge

Don’t hold back

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In the cushioned seat of the local church rests untold, often abandoned potential. There is a wealth of songs unsung, plays unwritten, sermons untaught. We sit idly by awaiting permission to move or for that illusive “door to open” with a myriad of excuses; “I’m seeking direction” or “I’m not sure what God’s will for my life is”.  I can tell you. God’s will is for you to be who He created you to be.  Allow what He placed inside of you to shine.  Let His life live through you. Create, thrive, sing, build, clean, dance, add, answer phones, drive. Do whatever it is that you do for Him and unto Him. Allow Him to occupy and move in every part of who you are. Most of all, don’t be afraid! He wouldn’t have placed something in you if He didn’t intend for you to use it.  Don’t hold back.

1 Corinthians 7:20 “Let each one remain in the same calling in which he was called.”  

Colossians 3:23 “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men”

Inspired by the Comforter

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On it goes, life. The procession of the here and now. The often rote existense of waking, eating, working, moments of laughter, hugs, love, friendship, rest, lather, rinse, repeat. Like brown lines traced in stone we walk on.

Then comes the divine. Blueish bursts of something more to interupt the cortege, motion subtly shifting the monotony to flux. The fierce passion of the living soul and spirit to bring meaning and purpose…to alter the course of sameness and banal to a place of destiny.

Fight against the ordinary dear traveler. Find your adventure in the heart of God and RUN.

Jaimie