Joy In One Palm

I woke to a day holding both light and shadow.
Some call it the cycle of life;
others feel it as joy in one palm, grief in the other.
A candle lit for a birthday—
a beautiful young soul stepping into a milestone—
and, in the same breath, a farewell
to a childhood peer now carried by memory.
Two moments balanced on the same scale,
measuring the weight of being alive.
Life is kind.
Life is beautiful.
Life is merciful.
It does not judge, nor does it discriminate,
and sometimes—perhaps in service of something greater—
it is heartbreakingly brief.
We are given only a handful of days
on this island called Earth.
So why not honor them?
Why not let them shimmer?
Why not live effervescently,
as if each breath matters—because it does.
Celebrate life—
its milestones and missteps,
its adventures and aching headaches,
its quiet blessings disguised as noise.
Remain in grace.
Choose presence over anger.
Choose joy over misery, the conquest of the night.
Choose to dance.
And there we are—
lost in a fog of I don’t know what.

The Sugar in Your Lemonade

They say the water is fresh, but it tastes like lava. Like an orange flame in the sky, torture souls in the ground. It is the water fountain at the edge of the road, cars and people going by, and no one is saying hi. It cries intoxicatingly, bleeding profusely for a clean bed, a beautiful skirt, and a clean underwear, but no one cares. Stinky feet marching through like soldiers in the battlefield, livid daylight testimonials pearcing through the book pages like a salad on the menu, rocks giving it a purpose to live. Shut up, they utter, anguish dribbling in her face we see, dry tears dripping through yesterday’s scars for today’s newspaper is heard on the loud speaker. It bleeds still, I see it, you see it, they see it but no one seem to care as it appears I can’t seem to stop the train from rolling through the mud but He can. So, we wait!

Sometimes, your soul just needs to be fed.

Forgiveness

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Forgiveness is not like peeling an orange on your kitchen counter but more like squeezing one. It is not a two way street where you hitch to catch a cocktail ride with the other person but one, yourself, where you learn to let go of the carousel of aches driving by. It is easy to say, “I forgave you” without cutting the tree from the root but it is by emptying the fruit basket that you learn to dust off the scraps. So, go ahead, take a chance, pick a tree and break free, start going, surround. Otherwise, you will find yourself back where you started, at that kitchen counter peeling off that orange.