Hello & Goodbye

Hey guys. Due to some things that I dislike about the format and restrictions of the Blogger platform, I have created a new blog of late and have mostly switched over to using that. You can find it here.

Depending on how that plays out, I probably won’t be posting much on this blog anymore – or at all. Tumblr is much freer when it comes to what you can and can’t post from a media perspective. What I mean by that is that my new blog is part bloggy-blog, part moodboard, part reference, and partly a way for me to get content out there that would otherwise rot in the Drafts folder.

I’ve been really grateful for this blog over the past couple years. Looking back on old posts makes me re-remember the things I love about writing for a public setting and what I’ve learned about sharing inspiration and opinions since I first picked up a pencil. I’ve still got a long way to go. This chapter is closing, but I hope you will join me on the next one. The encouragement and feedback I’ve received through Blogger is invaluable. Thank you – to every single person who’s read this blog, commented, shared posts… I don’t think anything could ever have convinced me to stop writing but your kind words made me less afraid to share what I had written with the big world outside. Thank you for that. Here’s to new seasons.

~Margaret

To Whom Shall We Go?

     “Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?”

But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

-John 6:68

     Last week I heard a preacher speak on this verse. He talked about the context of this verse, how the disciples were simple men who had left behind their livelihoods to follow one compelling Man, how this verse speaks to their devotion to Jesus and their utter rejection of comfort and safety as they stepped out boldly into the future with Christ. I saw heads nodding. People took notes. And I wondered, am I the only one who doesn’t see it that way?

     It wasn’t because I didn’t understand it. I get where this speaker was coming from, and I get that Peter’s declaration speaks to his incredible faith in Jesus, I just don’t think that’s what it means. Because when I read this verse, I hear first dejection, then helplessness.

~~~~~~

     Jesus has just been rejected. He has just verified his own identity as the Son of God, the One by whom salvation will come to the nations. And it says, right there in verse 60 of John 6, that many of His disciples go away, confused. “This is a hard saying,” they say, “who can understand it?” I can help you, Jesus cries after them, I am understanding Himself. Come back, please come back, and I will help you to see. But they leave.

     He doesn’t even try to defend His words. “Does this offend you?” He says. He had known from the beginning that there were those who would remain with Him through both confusion and pain, and those who would leave. But I have to imagine the rejection didn’t hurt Him any less. Even now, even in this pivotal moment, He doesn’t make it easy. “If you accept Me you have to accept My words, every last, ludicrous one. My truth and I are not separate. You can’t get to the Father without me. It’s everything or nothing at all.” A gamble. Has there ever been a bigger one?

     Jesus turns to His friends, the men who would later become the Apostles, the ones who would spread the Gospel to the four corners of the earth, and sees that they too do not understand. He waits for a moment, gives them time to think. And then, slowly, he asks them a question. One on which, surely, the world hangs. 

     “Do you want to go away too?” Do you want to leave Me too? Do you doubt Me too? Are you afraid of this confusion too? Jesus had wept for the death of His brother Lazarus. He must have been prepared to weep for His disciples too. Dejection.

     Knowing what we do about the nature of Simon Peter, I don’t imagine it took him very long at all to respond. “Lord…where would we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

     Not, “Where would we go, we have left our careers behind.” Not, “Where would we go, we have ostracized ourselves and committed social suicide.” Not because of what they had left and would never get back. But because of what they had followed. “Where could we go? What else is there?” Helplessness. “There is nothing good except You. There is nothing lasting but You.” Frantically, “Who would tell us the truth if we left You? Who would show us what’s right? What alternative is there? To whom would we go that would love us like You do?” We know that you are the Christ, the son of God, in Whom we live and breathe and find our being.

     Grace.

     I imagine that Jesus was a little overcome by this statement, fearless in its simple faith, so aware of all that it was not saying. He rallies. Smiles at his friends. “Did I not choose you, the twelve?” I chose you. To believe Me. My twelve. “...and one of you is a devil.” Speechless. Helpless. There is no other way. I have made this plan Myself and there is no other way.

     He would not tell them who He spoke of. They looked around at one another and tried not to trust each other, but to no avail. They were too close, too bound up in this great Purpose that had swept them all away.

     Maybe Jesus was tempted to spoil it for them at this point. Maybe the words came to His lips and He had to force them back, That one! He is the one by whom My death will come. I chose him for it. Will you believe me then? When I am dead? Will you still love each other as you do now, so trusting? Will you not become divisive and full of fear? It is a mark of earthly parents that they are helpless in the face of their children’s pain. Imagine knowing you were about to cause it.

But not yet. There is joy and sorrow and a long long road between now and the end. And you believe Me. That is enough for now.


~Margaret

I Don't Have Any Photos of You

I don’t have any pictures of my brother. I went looking for one today, because it’s his birthday and he’s nineteen and on people’s birthdays you’re supposed to type out a lot of already-said words and make sure social media sees them. Especially when it’s your brother.

But my half-hearted plan was foiled today because after a search through albums of less-than-quality phone pictures I discovered that there’s not a single one of my brother there. It makes sense, really. I don’t take many photos of people, preferring to capture my books or my curtains or my trees or the clouds. It’s mostly practical – clouds don’t complain that they look fat or ugly and make you delete the picture. But the photos are really more for some personal sense of aestheticism than preserving memories.

I can’t capture memories through a camera. It’s not my medium. I have nothing more than a casual interest in photography and a healthy appreciation for people who do communicate with a lens. But I can’t do it. I use words.

My brother’s not around a lot. And it’s not his fault and it’s not my fault, it’s just that life has a way of tugging people down different paths and while I’m worrying over my grades he’s worrying over what to do for tomorrow’s breakfast. (sometimes I worry about his breakfast too.) But I’m slowly learning that the world sees spending time with those you love as a luxury and not a necessity. It’s true, our minds starve slower than our bodies do, and using your paycheck to pay your utility bill is probably more important than spending it on a ticket to a movie you’ve already seen.

So, because of the world’s hierarchy of priorities and because of our conflicting interests, I don’t see my brother lots. It’s good sometimes. For the better part of my life I've put him on a pedestal far higher than anyone can reasonably live on. For my own sake I needed some distance, some time, so that I could say things like, “This is a band I found on my own. They’re really good, you should check them out. These are my friends, and they’re not even your castoffs. How’s Moses doing? I miss you.”

And the last bit is true. I miss him. I miss him because I know other people miss him too. Mom still talks about drinking coffee with him in the mornings a lot. But honestly, the moment I see him I remember why he’s gone. He’s his own person and he needs to learn that you can be true to yourself even when you’re surrounded by people who love you and want your best. And all these words well up within me, the ones I’m only able to say today, and I end up saying nothing to him or saying it awkwardly or worse yet, saying things I don’t mean. And the last thing that’s on my mind is taking a picture.

I don’t need a camera to remember you, Mark. You are an iconoclastic soul, and you are the focal point of any room you enter. It’s not the height, it’s not the hair, it’s the way you can remember lines from movies we haven’t watched since we were four and seven. It’s your Doctor Nefario impression. It’s the reason so many songs still belong to you even though millions of other people listen to them every day. It’s why I reach for my Bible when I wake up every morning because when we were kids you would bug me about opening a book before I read it. It’s a million things that could never be caught on film, and there’s really no need for them to be. I have a crappy, selective memory but I remember so many things about you. How I always wanted to make you laugh, because it seemed like I was returning the favor. You bring so much laughter with you wherever you go. And I know that laughter often conceals a broken heart and I can’t change that. But hearts heal and grow and reach out, because love wasn’t meant to be alone. And the best thing ever is when the hearts your heart is reaching out to love you back. 

You’ve got it. You’ve got the best thing ever.

Come visit any time, Brother. I’m still young enough to always have the time. We’ll laugh and we’ll skirt around the elephants in the room and one day we both might just heal from it all. I promise I won’t have to take a picture to remember. My pictures never were much good anyway.

~Margaret  

Happy Birthday

Today is this blog's 2nd birthday. When I clicked that link two years ago today I could have never imagined it would end up like this, with viewers in the dozens and commenters in the twos and threes. I never thought I'd get a chance to say this but..... I'd like to thank the Academy. *sniff* My friends and family.....my mom, *sniff* my sister Faith (you are my rock Faith), and my haters.....*sniff*......for inspiring me to be better......*sniff* I am what you all have made me. *sniff* Thank you all.

~Margaret

The Names of God

Do you ever think about the names of God? I do.

Because though the Almighty God, who supersedes and transcends all of our human wisdom, is too great to be explained in words, we still try. God must have a lot of grace for our foolish determination.

We live out our lives trying to express. Being expressed is one of this generation’s most pressing needs. And so it makes sense that we would try to make our way around the enormity of God by giving Him titles like “Savior” and “Shepard” and “Emmanuel.” John was right in his gospel when he simply called Christ “the Word.” The Word, being the pinnacle of vernacular, the very essence of language as the endeavor to sum up everything we cannot but try to.

What was the last time you were struck by the wonder of God? Do you think about it at all? It is so easy to pass by without stopping to look in. But, come on, God. There is an all-powerful, all-seeing Being who exists in dimensions we cannot even begin to wrap our minds around, who made all and judges all and yet with all this power and perfection we are even on His radar? Crazier still, He loves us, a term which we are told we have not even begun to understand, and He has even offered to fix our blundering mistakes. The existence of God is mind blowing in the most essential sense of the term.

And we confine Him to a good post on Facebook, or an Instagram caption, or a church billboard.

God will blow your mind if you take a second to pay attention. He is enormous.

I would like to point out a feeling that I have not always been able to put into words. We don’t like enormous things. We are afraid of them. Yet instead of hiding from them or putting them in a safe, we drag them out into the open. We are obsessed with sex and science and inspiration, thinking that if we talk about the secret long enough, we will come to understand it.

The very nature of God counteracts this philosophy, offering an alternative in its place. There is insurmountable beauty in accepting something you don’t understand and will never understand. Where does the melody come from when I try to write a song? I have no idea. Does the universe have an end? Both questions are on the same level. God gave us both mysteries with the implicit knowledge that if you try to reveal an answer you are not capable of understanding, you have only ruined the gift. Becoming all-knowing is not something God offers us.

So what about the names of God? Our feeble attempts to label the Un-labelable? Because truthfully, I do not believe that it is all folly, or God would not have used these names Himself. But no one title succeeds in capturing all facets of God’s character. This makes Him different from the sovereigns or leaders of countries or corporations. “King” represents a position, and the man who holds the title cannot be that and something else. But have you ever heard of someone who was called a servant and a king? A lion and a lamb? There is a reason God introduced Himself to Moses as simply “I Am.” He Is. 

Everything.

But of course, God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows that if we don’t have a label for something we will label it ourselves as “fog” and “chaos” and leave it alone. So these names of His, they are gifts, little glimpses of His nature that we get to receive.

The names of God mean different things to me in different situations. When I am feeling worthless, I don’t want to hear about how God is going to smite my enemies, and when I’m happy I don’t particularly need Him to be a comfort. But often I need a Friend. I need the Physician to “stitch my wounds with holy sutures.” I know what it’s like to lie awake in bed at night with tears soaking your pillow and your mind screaming for the Messiah to come and save you. The picture is a familiar one.

Because I know that He is Hope, I rely on Him for my hope. Because I know that He is Good, I trust Him with my future and my potential. Because I know who He is, I expect Him to be who He is.

This is the gift God has given us: His definition. Knowing well that we can never come to fully understand His essence, and yet giving it to us. The identity of this priceless, precious God. And if that doesn’t make you feel like you’ve just been handed the greatest treasure you could ever imagine, well then your imagination is too small.

So why do I say this? What does it matter if we know who God is? On the surface that sounds horribly callous, but after all, if we’ve been given this gift to do nothing with it, it might not be that great of a gift. But I don’t believe that that is what God had in mind when He offered us His names. He expected us to use them.

I read a book lately about the power in a name. It left me thinking, because the writer had given this name the ability to drastically, visibly change things. The parallels to scripture were too strong to ignore, and I found myself thinking, “There is power in the name of Jesus. At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” At His name. There is power in His name. He has put Himself into each of these titles, giving them His own strength. He didn’t just give us His definition.

He gave us Himself.

And this is why I cringe when my fellow Christians seem so unaffected by this revelation. This is why I fight for the awareness and the strength to give the mention of God’s name the respect it is due. This is why I have compassion for those who use God’s name in ignorance, because they are, with every curse, accessing the holy, perfect God, the Imaginer, the Creator, the Sustainer – and they have no idea. We should not be motivated to share the Gospel because it will keep sinners from eternal Hell, but because it will give them pure, unadulterated access to this ultimate Joy, ultimate Everything, forever. Since the birth of humanity God has been drawing us back to Himself.

Perhaps these names are the bridge, rebuilding the one sin burned down. Perhaps they are a key, unlocking a limitless storehouse of goodness and gratification. Perhaps the answer has been right before our eyes all along. The remedy to all our suffering and squalor and sadism.

Perhaps it is in His name.

And thus, Himself.

(Update: I realized that I would be remiss if I didn't mention the post that started this whole train of thought in the first place. Click here to read it.)

~Margaret

"In the depths of my being, I meet my fellow humans..."

Being human.

There's so much more to it than simply waking up every morning; still breathing, still alive.

We were created to be together, with equal souls and a similar purpose.

My faith says that where I end up after this life will be different than where others will, my religion dictates the ways this belief manifests itself here on earth.
But destination aside, there is a common thread running through humanity, binding us together.

I can only point you to the wisdom of those who have understood it better than I:

"In the face of the oppressed I recognize my own face and in the hands of the oppressor I recognize my own hands. Their flesh is my flesh, their blood is my blood, their pain is my pain, their smile is my smile. Their ability to torture is in me, too; their capacity to forgive I find also in myself. There is nothing in me that does not belong to them too; nothing in them that does not belong to me. In my heart I know their yearning for love, and down to my entrails I can feel their cruelty. In another's eyes I see my plea for forgiveness, and in a hardened frown I see my refusal. When someone murders, I know that I too could have done that, and when someone gives birth, I know that I am capable of that as well. In the depths of my being, I meet my fellow humans with whom I share love and hate, life and death." -Henri Nouwen, With Open Hands 

"Soul is the constant commonality." -Jon Foreman

The Brilliance, "Brother"

 Lyrics:

When I look into the face
Of my enemy
I see my brother
I see my brother

When I look into the face
Of my enemy
I see my brother
I see my brother

Forgiveness is the garment 
Of our courage
The power to make the peace
We long to know
Open up our eyes
To see the wounds that bind
All of humankind
May out shutter hearts
Greet the dawn of life
With charity and love

~~~~~~~~~~

Our strength lies in our weakness without each other, our inability to be whole apart from "together."
The understanding that no individual has probed the levels of high or low that another person cannot reach. The idea that we are small in the face of something astronomically big: space, life, God.
We are all in this together.



~Margaret

Gratitude

As you are all aware, music is a big part of my life. So it will come as no surprise to any of you that I found myself on YouTube the other day, watching concert bootlegs.

I was watching a musician. He's been one for a long time, all of his adult life and some besides. A few years into his career, his band had a hit song. They've sung this hit at almost every concert since.

I watched him play this song, the one he's played thousands of times, the one he's experienced so much and probably forgotten a lot about. But the look on his face was sheer joy - a sense of wonder, that after twelve years there were still people wanting to hear this tune he wrote, these words that he penned an oblivion ago. I could tell what was going on in his mind. This amazement, this reminiscing. He was looking back over the decades of tours and long nights in the studio and red-eye flights back home to his family - and finding that it had been worth it. The thought crossed my mind, "Wow, he has so much to be thankful for."

Of course, as soon as I thought it I realized how ridiculous it was. He has a lot to be thankful for? Do I not?

I am convinced that if we see nothing in our lives worth being thankful for, we are not looking.

Life itself is a gift, salvation is the most mind-blowing, incomparable, overlooked gift we could possibly have. With the hope we have as followers of Christ, life could be Hell and it would still be worth living. But God doesn't stop there. He endows us with talents and privileges and blessings - ones that we take disgustingly for granted. I'm not saying it to guilt-trip anyone. I'm saying it because it's true. 

I live in the most opulent country on the planet. I am in the upper 90% of living conditions in the world. I eat three meals a day, have a closet full of clothes, and have access to the world's latest medical and educational care. And yet I still complain when the time change rolls around and I have to get up an hour earlier. I'm not trying to drag myself through the mud. I'm saying it because it's true. 

Last week was a bad one for me. Usually I would have qualms about saying something like that, but I was so extraordinarily down that I can't imagine it wasn't obvious. What made it bad? Guilt, mostly. Fear. Looking to the past and the present and seeing only the negative aspects of my history and my future.

Then I wrote a song. I called it Brown Eyes. It's no hit, but it's mine. It's the story of who I used to be - or more accurately, my desire to be that person again. There is no happy ending to my story thus far. Rather, I believe the joy had been with me all the way, I just haven't been looking for it.

Because that song brought back a flood of memories. Things I haven't thought about in years. I was crying - and it wasn't because the song was particularly good.

You see, that's what music does. It transports you. I've had many ideas about what I want to do with my life. But each time I have seriously considered a vocation, I realized that I could be just as happy doing something else as doing that... that thing, whatever it was. What a world we live in, that we would rather do with our lives, and leave no time for being. I asked myself today, "Could I honestly be happy in a career that doesn't include music?" I'm still answering that question. There is a defiant hope within me that yells, "No, never!"

What does this have to do with gratitude? Everything, depending on how you look at it.

Dissatisfaction says, "Yeah, you've written a song. You've got fifty more from the past year. But you know what? They're not good enough."

But gratitude is so very different. It is contentment, it is joy, it is progress. Gratitude says, "Look how far you've come!" and it finds exhilaration in saying, "Look how far you have yet to go!" Gratitude doesn't ignore the past and it doesn't fear the future. It is the strangest form of nonsensical honesty in this dead and dying world. Honesty. Have we really learned the meaning of the word? Why do we call truth cold and hard? It is the greatest gift we are given, except for love. The truth sets you free.

So I am not going to fear. I am not going to be driven by Guilt, that hideous, immobilizing demon of mine. If God wants me to sing, then I will sing until He takes my voice from me. If He wants me to write, I will write until He Himself takes away my pen or pencil or keyboard - but only Him. I will not listen to any voice that has not been cleansed by His truth, that does not see the world with His gratitude. And when I doubt this resolution I will remind myself. I'm saying it because it's true.

I don't know what's in store for me. As much as I would like to say that this life doesn't count, that our salvation is the only thing that's important and nothing we do here will ever matter in the trajectory of eternity, that's not true. How we live is important. And it is the hardest thing we will ever do.

I want to do it well. I believe God has created me with talents to use for His glory and the good of others. If He wants me to make music then I will make music, in whatever shape, fashion, or venue I can. Not every musician can have a successful career - successful by the world's standards, that is.

But I can still see it in my mind, dreams so vivid and real that they take my breath away. That stage one day, on a tour I've done so often that I've lost count, singing my song for the millionth time. And thinking, Oh God, I have so much to be thankful for. 



~Margaret