HOW LOVELY THE COLD RAIN FEELS ON MY SKIN

{Listen: Jónsi, Tornado} & {Look: Carl Zoch Photography}

A Wednesday in Autumn, I had a vision. I found it yesterday on a forgotten page of my soft teal journal. I had written it as a prayer after reading Ann Voskamp's book One Thousand Gifts, a book that dares you to live courageously invested in the moment; to be thankful for the little things, the gifts given {eucharisteo}. My vision:

Imagine, a winding trail, gravel, parched, brings you through an overarching orchard with droopy boughs, ripe with weight, to a small box-shaped farm-cottage rooted atop a hill. Front door, red and chipped, always swinging open from the many ins and outs of tromping boots. Eight pairs of little boots. A garden in the back, rich greens, fragrant, vines climbing and stairwaying up the quiet gate, wooden and sturdy. A vicious sea in sight, sailboat anchored for moonlight escapades. Rooftop sunsets. Overalls with patched knees. A village to let see. Him, the Farmer working, wrestling with God, wrestling, wild and radiant. Fierce life freed from his caged heart, shared between us. We live, simply. And we live simply. A family living in grace, living poetry, living an exotic adventure.  Is this your heart Lord? Can we do this together, the three of us?

--it is beautiful to me still, though it is interrupted and distant, like one hundred years of sleep lost in a sunken gold mine. Some visions were meant to be released, some to be nurtured. Without trying, they change; can wither into a foreign beauty, can burn to dust, can rebirth from ash, like a Phoenix, can die and leave a home for something else to grow. But what now? Now, between who I was and who I want to be, and now, between all the lines I've written and what I've left unsaid: now what? Now... now, I will lay and dance under the stars till they are swept away, like Gomorrah, I will learn what I can from captivating women, like I did today, I will tell stories, like a cowboy with no teeth and nine lives, I will live with abandon the story He wrote for me, I will stop waiting for others to love me first, and I will sing till these words are branded onto my soul, like breathing scars, beating within my chest:  

Be thou my vision, o Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that thou art
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true word;
I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with thee one.

Be thou my battle shield, sword for the fight;
Be thou my dignity, thou my delight;

Thou my soul’s shelter, thou my high tower:
Raise thou me heavenward, o power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance, now and always:
Thou and thou only, first in my heart,
High King of heaven, my treasure thou art.

High King of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven’s joys, o bright heaven’s sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, o ruler of all.

be thou my vision, 

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