Tree Home

My heart is full yet my body is weak following a weekend, that made up for the lack of sleep with profound questions and experiences, both true and real.  I am sold out for the movement of love and cannot help but dance daily in its wake. Deep conversations have become currency while experience is held as dear as the depth of thought behind it. An overflow of lives abounding in love and joy is eagerly apparent. Smiles accompany serving just as answers accompany our prayers. The year of the Lord's favor is clearly upon this group of believers, doers and dreamers and thus my heart is full.  Full of life. Full of thanks. Full. 

Teens are more aware than I have ever seen. The questions being asked are as intelligent and profound as the answers being sought after. This is a byproduct of so many and so much that have made the roots of this tree of life grow. Leaders devotion to prayer, service and love transcends numbness and ignorance to preach a gospel of invitation, acceptance and rebirth; in a way for the blind to see it and the deaf to hear it. How important a kind smile or encouraging text is from a person who is your biggest fan and loves you for who you are. And to have a group devoted to each other as well as four thousand others, not only rocks the boat of status quo but rains light into a darkness dimmed by the words of the songs they sing and hardened by the products and truths they are sold. In a society bankrupt of the real, these innovators preserver through the awkward and the sacrifices to reveal truth of identification. Truth of reality. Truth of something bigger. True

I am because we are. I am blessed. I am joyful. I am thankful. I am passionate. I am in love. We are. 

Community is built upon the bricks of people's lives and erected through the hammering of conversations and memories made. This home I have found myself in is richly placed on a base strong enough to withstand any storm of circumstance and crisis. By placing belief that relationships create the most suitable concrete for pouring and friendships yield planks both strong and sturdy, a home becomes solidified for a long life of tradition, interaction and life lived in full. Our. The word means more to me now than ever before. To be apart of something bigger, a movement on the tips of toes, a community submerged in the dance of life, an adventure worth telling stories about, a courting of truth…that is why I am here. Because love is here. Because truth is here. Because hope is here. Because God is here.  

Home is the tree house that we have made. All are welcome. All are invited to play. 

Meetings...

I am surrounded by meetings about meetings about money. Conversation splashes in the puddle of its depth while numbness wins the night and begins to recruit the day. Caffeine allows us to do nothing more and technology commands isolation in this quest.

(being aware of my surroundings at a coffee shop)

Mornings like this.

 The sun is lazily creeping into the cloudless sky on a morning plagued by the chills yet bounding in promise. Rays flirts with the courageous leaves still hanging and ignite belief that today is in fact a gift. Headphones block out needless distractions while supplementing my a.m. experience with the fitting soundtrack. Melodies are loaded with slow rhythms. Lyrics seem to hold more than syllables and commas. Natural acoustics go hand-in-hand with mornings like this. Listening moves to hearing as emotions are linked to the brisk awareness that fall is fading fast and winter's chill will soon overtake the resistance. Coffee has logged long hours to solidify its position of comfort, warmth and hug like status. So. On days like this. Their services are requested and reputation is not only solidify but becomes legend. The perfect blend of tradition, familiarity and taste. One sip reminds you that bitterness is as temporary as the passing of the twelfth month and hopelessness is a casual hint that we need each other to get through. 

Wind I cannot see moves the slender trees, whose fall dieting and shedding, leave them open to the flowing force. A dance ensues. Gusts take the lead and branches follow suit. Swaying with perfect lines honed from their rehearsal of years and years. A love story unfolds. I watch and wonder why we are often to busy to realize that this is where it all began. Where love taught us to dream. Where laughter taught us to move. Where life began its pursuit. 

The window through which I look is not entirely clean yet the little imperfections warrant truth. I peer through it as if to gaze into another world. I am inside yet aware that my soul craves to feel the story this window is telling. My soul longs to be apart of a love story. It yearns for partners to dance with and to be thrown into a story worth telling. This window separates me from the outside world but my mind easily connects what I know to be true about the suns waning presence and understands life is lived on the other side of the glass. Life is lived where wind blows, trees dance and songs are sung.