most hopeful
choosing to be most hopeful
Tag Archives: doubt
just right, right now
I have this great desire
to look you square in the eyes
in the way that looks
beyond and through your eyes
to those places where you are
asking questions
raising doubts
blaming yourself
doubting your capacity
questioning your integrity
and holding your own peace hostage
to the ideas that you,
and others for you,
have created about
what you are supposed to be by now
what your past really means about you
how you really should feel about this
what you really should do about that
I want to look you in the eyes
in the way that looks
beyond and through your eyes
to those places that hold the truth
and when you think all’s lost
because the truth is finally known
because you have to admit
that you aren’t who you want to be
that you aren’t who you hope to be
that you aren’t what you think you can be
it’s those moments;
that’s when I want to grab your arms
between your shoulders and your elbows
and shake you like your life depends on it
and shake you like my life depends on it
it’s those moments;
that’s when I want to grab your arms
between your shoulders and your elbows
and look you in the eyes
and beyond your eyes
so you know the truth about who we are is known
and it’s mutual.
And then,
I want to take a deep breath
and pause
and let you know
how incredibly proud God is of you
how incredibly pleased God is with you
how incredibly jealous God is for you, and
how incredibly restless God is because
you are still too afraid to say
the refrain he’s been waiting to hear you say
for quite some time now:
“I am just right. Right now.”
I have this great desire
that you can look yourself in the eyes
and say, “I am just right. Right now.”
djordan
Pine Tree Dr.
the illusion of the one thing
Privileged, I sat and listened to seven different people today, varying in ages and colors and backgrounds and struggles, all sharing the clouds in which they find themselves. I saw myself in them today, all of us looking for the one way of thinking about it or labeling it or diagnosing it that would set them, set me, set all of us free. If that one thing was found, they could get the right medicine or the right outlook or take the right action or make the right choice to fix it all.
“Fixing it all” is of course the goal they hurried in with, and the goal I hurry in most places with. It is, of course, the goal that all of us most often run into the cloudy situations with. Tell me the one thing that will fix all of this.
We scramble and wrestle and our ears turn red and our voices raise and tears fall and our heart rate takes off. Everything in us is trying to churn together to locate, isolate and intervene on that one thing.
Our inevitable not finding it leads to our heartbrokenness, growing frustration and often to our hopelessness.
And there is in the places where we sit quietly, listening to the clock tick, watching the moth walk across the window, feeling that part of our sock that isn’t fitting right, we begin to let go the illusion of the one thing. And we take a breath, and we see that in the middle of the cloudy struggle, there is still a ticking clock. Still across the window a walking moth, still a tangled sock buried deep down in our boot.
And in those moments, we realize the cloudy struggle isn’t all that is true. And there, our hope begins.
djordan
Pine Tree
with our necks on the line
In all the complexities
we hold out hope
that we are thinking
and choosing
and doing well.
but we do not know, of course, if we are.
In all the dramatics
we hold out hope
that we are acting justly
being filled with mercy
and taking steps with humility.
but we fear, of course, that we are not.
Yet even in our unsureness
the tasks wait
the issues wait
the choices wait
injustice waits
cruelty waits
arrogance waits
and we cannot stall
until we feel we are sure enough to move
because work
and lives
and hope is on the line.
So we hold our breath
and step into the unknown
and act and choose and do
our best attempts at
justice and love and mercy
hoping we have chosen well
while willing either way to put our necks on the line
to have acted.
djordan
Pine Tree
most hopeful 