Free to embrace the Imperfect and call it an Art.

I came across this poem tonight by William Wordsworth and had to share it. He takes what I’m feeling in my heart and gives beautiful words to it. Nothing makes me happier than reading words from those who have lived before me, and seeing how they were thinking and breathing and feeling the same things that I think and breath and feel. Makes me feel connected to something bigger. Makes me realize my search to understand the great mysteries of humanity and God is not in vain…nor is it alone. We share this journey with countless souls.

Wordsworth’s poem is about the beauty of being childlike and the wisdom in choosing to remain childlike even as we grow older. I love the bit about the child being like a father to the man. I think that is where I am at this year. Even as an adult I have much to learn from the childhood Mandy. As an adult I have much to learn from my own children. I want to learn to find magic and miracles in what have otherwise been come to be known as “ordinary things.” Things like rainbows.

What kind of life would I be living if my heart has learned to stop leaping up? I might be a mature adult, but what does that gain me if my life is mundane and boring and empty and passionless? This year I’m praying for my heart to learn to leap again, as it did as a child. To get my hopes up. To expect and recognize and be smitten by miracles. To let the ordinary once again become extraordinary. To let the ultimate Artist’s creation astound me and woo me ever closer.

What ordinary things make your heart leap up? Be on the lookout.

Enjoy the poem!

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky.
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

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So lately I love the movie Up and I’m intrigued by the story of the Polar Express, but if there is one movie that currently sums up CHILDLIKE to me, it would have to be Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. Line after line after fresh-breath-to-my-soul line. If you’ve seen it, the scene where they dance on the poppy-plastic, that puts tears in my eyes every single time.

So I could write blog post after blog post about lines from this movie, and maybe I will, but I watched the first half of this movie again tonite, and was taken by the part about the “just man.”

Mahoney, Natalie Portman, says to Jason Bateman’s character, that he is a “just man.” She says this because Jason doesn’t believe the toy store is “magical.” Maybe very very cool, but certainly not magical. Afterall it’s “just” a toy store.

I’ll let you in a on a little secret. For as much as I pour out my soul on my blog, there is a lot I don’t share. A lot of thoughts that rattle around in my brain just aren’t a complete enough thought to share yet, or they seem so crazy and far-fetched I need to figure out if I’m even okay with living them. You are probably much the same way. At least I hope you are. Dreaming things, hoping things, wishing for things so deep down inside you that you wonder sometimes, am I even normal?

I have this feeling (and a secret hope) that this is going to be a crazy year. A year where many of those thoughts are going to start getting fleshed out in my head, poured out into my journal and then tested to see if I actually have the guts to share them, or the even harder part, LIVE THEM.

I believe in magical moments that take my breath away. I believe that they are possible even within our messy lives, hence the name of my blog. A beautiful piece of art can be painted even in the messiest of circumstances. I believe and yet, I’ve met a lot of “just men” in my lifetime of 31 years. In fact, I sometimes think I’m outnumbered. Look around as you’re out among people. I mean really, at face value, are there many people who actually physically look like they have a sparkle, a hint that something greater is trying to get out? I certainly don’t have that appearance half the time, though I long for it.

I have my “just-man” moments too, usually when I have surrounded myself with other “just men.” I’ll go to them and ask advice when I’ve thought it wise to get a taste of reality so I could stop foolishly floating off with my head in the clouds. And then I get depressed. I just want to give up. I feel myself deflate, like a worn out balloon. I think, “It’s too bad. It’s just life afterall. Just boring, mundane, messy life.”

But you want to know what sets me straight every time? It’s when I get a taste of God. When I see the remnants of His paint on some distant escaping sunset. It’s when I cuddle up with my kids by the warm glow of Christmas lights magically lighting up their bunk beds. It’s when I read a sentence in a book or hear a measure of music that is orchestrated in just the right order to wake my heart back up. It’s when I read Galatians and am brought to tears by the lavishness God longs to pour out on us. The big, amazing things he is beckoning us into. There are not enough “just men” in this world to drown out God when He gets a hold of my senses. I am lured, I am stirred, I am wooed, I am invited, I am anticipating, I am alive.

When the “just man” is in your own head or when you have encountered him in your life, run back to God and ask Him for a reminder. Wake me up Papa. Send me music. Send me a story. Send me your words. Send me a friend, a photo, a mountain peak, a child’s laugh. Give me something to remind me this is more than “just” life. This is life, to the fullest.

So back to those secret thoughts rattling around in our head, that are simply too crazy and childlike and big and magical to ever be more than “just thoughts.” Could it be that He has planted them there, hoping we will have enough faith to actually believe and do something with them?

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. Ephesians 3:20-21

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Several, if not all, the staff members at LifeChurch are fasting from something this month. While I do not feel it necessary to fast, since Tony is on staff there and I’m not, I have however decided to fast from something…media.

I’ve been journaling a lot about the overwhelming feeling I get as I interact with media. This does not include TV because rarely watch TV as it is. What it does include is social media, blogs and books.

I am not cutting all of these things out of my life completely. I have set up my own guidelines based on what I feel I’m addicted to or what I feel is making me overwhelmed, and I plan to stick to those for at least the month of January. Twitter and Facebook Apps have been removed from my phone. This is largely where I interact with them anyway. I don’t plan on reading anyones updates (sorry my friends) and I only hope to post updates of my own that relate to my blog. I don’t plan on reading blogs unless someone has specifically asked me to check something out for a purpose. I don’t plan on reading non-fiction books (unless they are craft/art books).

Here’s why I am sharing all this…

Because I’ve been overwhelmed. Overwhelmed at seeing the countless updates from hundreds and hundreds of people, many of whom are my friends. Overwhelmed at seeing all the needs, all the hurt, all the causes I could support, all the things in the world to worry about, all the people in the world who need rescuing. I’m overwhelmed at non-fiction books that help me to be a better me. I’m overwhelmed by striving to BE IT ALL. I can’t be it all. I can’t meet everyone’s needs, heal everyone’s hurts or compare myself to everyone’s successes. I have allowed my life to get exceedingly noisy, and I’m struggling to hear my own little voice beneath it all. I feel like God is telling me, “Stop trying to save the world Mandy. I already sent a Savior. You don’t have to feel all this guilt and pressure to do it for me.” What if I could stop feeling like people from all over the world needed me. What if I could have the faith that who they really need is God and that He is actually big enough for them.

I feel like God is asking me, for a time, to make my world smaller. To not be aware of the details of EVERYONE’S lives. To not be aware of the one more thing I need to change in my own life so I can finally “arrive.” To stop looking to everyone else for what I need to be doing and listen to what my heart is telling me.

I think this is part of being CHILDLIKE. Children don’t have access to the thousands of voices we do as adults. They hear but a few. They are able to still hear their own. They don’t spend their time worrying about who they could be helping or who they should be living like. They just do their day and take each moment as it comes. Oh for that simplicity. Oh to not be “in the know.” I’m so tired of being “in the know.”

Maybe I’ll do something weird during this fast like write letters or read fiction or stop staring at my phone every time I get a spare minute. Maybe I’ll have phone conversations or visit in person with friends. Maybe I’ll stop being swallowed up by guilt. Maybe I’ll hear God’s voice more clearly. Maybe I’ll even hear my own.

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