Water's Cold I'm Topside
I quite like clarity, I think. I like knowing things and feeling like I know them well. I love feeling like I know what to do with what I know. But I’m not real great at clarity and I’m even worse at surety, but I’m starting to see that I don’t gotta rely on either.
It’s been a fuzzy few. I’ve never been the best thinker and I have a subtle tendency to avoid it when it’s particularly difficult. If I don’t know what to think or how to start, I don’t like to start. It makes praying hard because I think praying well means thinking well and paying attention and caring enough to be as present as you can be. Recently, I’ve been in more than a few places at once. I’ve been stuttering thru prayers and sticking to the things I have tattooed on my heart; If I’m praying, I’m praying about u and u and u and it and it and it and trying to find something else to say and failing and giving up.
I guess I’ve been lazy. I guess it’s been hard to be curious. Hard to wanna learn how to care better and better and deeper and wider and smarter and kinder and more gently. At least, it’s easy to neglect the work it requires. Easy to say you’re focusing on other things when you’re focusing on not focusing on the things you owe the things you love.
I forget too easy. I forget too easy. I’ve been too loved and too blessed and too known to forget about what’s true and wise and gentle and beautiful. All those gentle blessings I forgot about and rediscovered and pieced together into something like faith. The things I’ve seen and the things I’ve gotten to know and spend time with and the people I’ve gotten to love and the stuffs I’ve been allowed to feel all deserve better than that. I forget what a privilege it is to see and know and learn and care. Remind me, please. Hold me accountable for it please.
I don’t think it’s always gotta be good days. I think it’s good things on bad days. True things on scary days. Wise things on dumb days. It’s always there. Always time to think. Always time to remember. Guess you gotta give yourself the right things to remember. Ask for em, at least.
Keep me quiet, keep me quiet. Keep me still. Keep me listening.
I used to love knowing things because it felt good to things. I still do, but I’m seeing the error. I wanna be taught how to know things sacrificially. Gentle knowing. I think that’s cool. I think you gotta be slow to be gentle. I think you gotta know things at their speed. Only way that happens is if you let little pockets of time bloom into opportunities to be gentle. Moments that kill the outside ambition and honor what or who you love enough to know. I wanna do that. It’s not about knowing more. It’s about knowing how to know.
Being gentle means being patient. No taking knowledge that’s supposed to be given. Taking time, creating spaces for quiet, slow exchange of care. If knowledge happens, it’s a blessing, but I don’t think it gets to be the priority. Keep me patient God. Keep me gentle.
Knowledge gently acquired is a gift. The work of knowing is strange because I don’t think knowing is the ultimate goal. I think if knowing is the goal, those gentle spaces get constricted by ambition. They speed up. Heart gets heavy. Racing towards an outcome. Person becomes a goal. It’s gotta be better than that. I gotta do better than that. Keep me quiet, keep me slow O God.
I’ve been trying to learn how God knows me. Whatever way he does, it’s with a lot of patience and a whole lot of gentleness. I’m slow to share, even with God. I’m slow to be known by my own choosing. I don’t love that about myself. But I have been shown such grace, such monumental gentleness, that I do not have the words and I never will. I’ve been sacrificed for. I’ve been known inconveniently and I’ve failed to honor it all the way it deserves to be honored.
I’m trying to rectify that, but it’s tough to know where to start. Maybe it starts by loving good examples in a way that is inconvenient. Learning how to create those gentle spaces. Someone remind me to write about what a gentle space means/looks like. I think I need to do that. Something to aspire towards. Something I’ve been tasked with creating. Gotta know what it might look like yeah?
Forgive the rambling. It’s luv. Thank you.