letters from barabbas

The same wire globe that hung behind my head in the architecture courtyard as I journalled desperately to Him Friday morning has been moved today to the concourse, where I sat quietly this morning allowing Him to speak to me through Ohio. It's propped up and connected to solar panels: rotating free and open and beautiful, no longer stuck silent up against a moldy brick balcony, almost out of sight. It's a symbol of Himself, free to move in mystery through my heart once again. This morning when I opened my eyes, I saw Him staring attentively at the furrow in my brow, smiling in relief as it melted into a sigh of gratitude.

I realized that I love the rain so much because it fills the otherwise empty sky with matter. A dimness that's fuller than sunlight. But I'm learning to see Him in the open sky, too: it's never empty. Curt Harlow speculates that God lives in the gaps between the stars.
Whether or not, I'm more comfortable in the sun than I once was.

Nobody Number One
I'm afraid I've lost the piece of me
I need the most you see
This puzzle is really just about the need
To be somebody
I'm afraid I'm not all that you see
All along the coast of me
I'm camouflaged, a desert mirage
A nobody

But you came so close and I assumed
You were looking
For the piece of yourself that's lost
It is the hiding place inside everybody
And though we love to numb the pain
We come to learn that it's in vain
Pain is our mother
She makes us recognize each other

C'mon now child don't cry
C'mon now child don't cry
Let's give it one more try
C'mon now child don't cry

Sometimes I feel so all alone
Here in this city I call my home
They say, Hey, you're one of us
Funny I should feel so anonymous
But I'm drawn to you
And that still small voice is talking too
And that's the voice that so seldom can get through

You can't put no band-aid on this cancer
Like a twenty-dollar bill
For a topless dancer
You need questions
Forget about the answers
Do you really wanna die this way?

That's the trouble with you and me
We always hit the bottom 'fore we get set free
I'm so far down I'm beginning to breathe

C'mon now child don't cry
C'mon now child don't cry
Let's give it one more try
C'mon now child don't cry
Cuz we're just too young to die

--Over the Rhine, one of my new favorites