THE PORTLAND PAGES

personality as liberty of paper

[theportlandpages]

Tillamook burn

Existence is so heavy sometimes

like breathing in a cloud of fog instead of a crisp air.

Reality is so heavy sometimes

like faces morphed into me

making my chest crunch and hands sweat.

I know we will all die.

But will i live?

all times fall into this moment.

Hopes, pasts, nows

are here with me in my breath.

I breath them in and blow them on my friends.

[theportlandpages]

Sea turtles and the girl that swooned me

Hey Mama

What did you do to me, mama?

You said that already,

but I hurt as if it was the first time.

Four years too long,

Four years you pondered.

It wasn’t even four years,

I know;

But I also know it feels like today.

Today he asked to give you popcorn;

Today he did not see your pain.

I gave you a hug,

but would I give you more?

Would I let you sleep in my bed?

Or would I make you sleep on the floor?

I won’t give you peanut butter and jelly;

That’s only for five year olds;

I want to crawl up to my mother sometimes too.

Where has yours gone?

She sounds like she has been gone for much

much,

too long.

In some ways,

I see your five year old self

still needing something.

But I don’t think it was the world this time.

I think you are trapped in a deeper mind,

than what is kind.

I saw you listen to me,

Your hope is to be set free.

My hope is the same.

But at the end of the day,

I think I’ll just watch your pain,

think of your name,

but I can’t—I won’t—show you what’s sane.

We can eat vegetables,

you can read bibles,

I can do puzzles,

and we can be friends. 

I’m not your sponsor.

I’m just your friend.

[theportlandpages]

To love does mean to put yourself into the power of the loved one and to become very vulnerable to pain. But it is so happy to love. It is happy to love even if you are not loved in return. There is pain too, certainly, but Love does not think that very significant.

Hinds' Feet on High Places

[theportlandpages]

3 Tricks to Public Speaking for the Faint of Heart

Studies have shown that, on average, people's second greatest fear is death...... the number one fear is public speaking. That means you'd rather be lying in the casket than doing the eulogy. Ba-dum-ch! Thank you, Seinfeld. I tried to tell that jingle on a date: I ended it, instead, with "meaning you'd rather be in the eulogy...er... doing the casket...er..." All I got from the gent was a "nice try." He didn't call me.

I recently had to give a 5 minute scripted speech to an audience of 500 professors and bow-tied donors. This was no bridesmaid speech that I could wing a story about the bride trying to get tan and loose weight but looking like Elmo on a stick. I had to make it sound candid and emotional.

Andy Crouch was the speaker following me... he gave me three words of advice:

1) Be prepared

2) Be yourself

3) Love your audience

1) Be prepared

This one goes without saying, but if you want to deliver a good speech, know your speech. Practice, practice, PRACTICE. Know transitions and content.

2) Be yourself

Everyone who has seen daytime TV can tell when someone's faking it. You don't want to be the next Joel Osteen. One of my boyfriends in highschool became a pastor (I know) and inherited a british preacher's accent on stage--"Oh Gawwd, please, come into our hawts." Be your clear, steady, confident self. You were picked to speak for a purpose. If they wanted Colin Firth, they would have asked him.

3) Love your audience

This was by far the greatest piece of advice I received. Whatever remaining minutes you have before you enter the stage, stare into the eyes of the audience and build up a swarthy dose of gushing love for their cheeky faces. Public speaking will never be the same if you can deliver sincerely for the sake of those listening. Put them on your good side and stop feeling like your Jesus before Pilate.

If anything, focus on the first and last trick. That's all folks.

[theportlandpages]

Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind Cannot bear very much reality. Time past and time future What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present.

T.S. Eliot

[theportlandpages]

THE WORST THING I EVER SAID

I'm good.

[theportlandpages]

It frightened me with its mask That I chose to embrace I awoke to see that it no longer had a face What made me holier Now makes me wonder where I left myself in this beautiful dirt Rocks fill my shoes I’ll throw them in the ocean That’s where you’ll be heading I fell in love with the dirt in you And now I feel dirty too

[theportlandpages]

Rivers of Stone

I like you because you stretch me.

I'm molded,

shaped,

changed.

You scare me because you are different,

immovable,

set,

placed.

Can we share,

a blade of grass,

a cup of dirt?

All I say falls back into reverse.

[theportlandpages]

Hopelessly Hopeless

It doesn't have to be complicated. I like him. He's nice. He sees the beauty that I've fought for so long to behold. Not long after giving up, he was there on the stairs. Mocking me with his night on the sun. Then he grabbed my face and I saw it. It was everywhere. Fairies were rioting in the streets. The sky was pouring icicles. And behold! the love of humans that takes away the fear of the world.

[theportlandpages]

There was room for wrath and love to run wild. And the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.

G.K. Chesterton

[theportlandpages]

Love is Eating Me for Breakfast

Whoa, slow down for a minute, heart. Depth why must you intrude my comfort? Here, I would normally decide to dodge the gaze of romance and deflect my desires. Yet I will miss what it means to experience life. It feels so irresponsible to put a concoction of hope, desire, and admiration in the hands of someone else. Slowly it drifts out of reach.

I let my stomach churn.... sweaty hands

To turn around, to see the laughing face of the one

Give up my grasp

Hold on to only that which fuels me, shakes me, may curse me

Tread lightly man from the shack

This will end in a thud

I go forth,

into abandon

There is no control this side of breakfast

"Love just seems so reckless."

"At its best, yes."

[theportlandpages]

Gloria Dei vivens homo!

Irenaeus

[theportlandpages]

Identifying Your Identity

I have recently turned my attention away form the search for truth and knowledge. My recent desire is to be. And to be well. What does it mean to be? I am actually OK with not knowing the answer as long as I am embodying the answer and can help others do the same.

I have slowly been recognizing a problem that goes throughout all realms of society—and no it's not pride. It is identity.

This is my biggest concern with the contemporary church. Has She become the end of our identity instead of the means to finding it? As the commissioned body of Christ, the Church is supposed to represent Jesus. But has the church instead turned to representing the church?

I am writing to Christians who have misappropriated their identity. God does not need your hipster button ups or rolled up jeans. He allows them. God doesn't need your bouncing around and making clever jokes. He allows them. So, when you feel pressured to perform, remember that your performance could be turning people away from the gospel (like me). If Christians seem like they don't have confidence without making a colorful image for themselves, then why would I think I could find anything new in the Body than in the world?

Christ's given identity is supposed to satisfy. I believe....hope it does. I just wish Christians would be an example of it.

Not that I judge Christ based upon Christians (although this has always been a temptation!). The reason is that I actually don't know who Christians are nowadays. Profession is not sufficient for faith or belief.

So what is it to be human? What is it to be? What is my identity and does it come from the same place for everyone? Answer that one to a hipster. #pridesucker

[theportlandpages]

A Quiet Disrespect of Libraries

Because stories are fuel for dreams that can be embodied or read.

"To know that branches against the sky will always be a synonym for beauty."

- A Severe Mercy

[theportlandpages]

Tis the day I say I say.

What a beautiful day to tis the day.

Why do people ignore the wonderful to focus on the mediocre? What is it about man that needs something to lament?

[theportlandpages]

I bought church

As I listened to my sister and brother-in-law discuss their home church I realized that I had already been a part of one. When I took a trip to Oxford, I paid thousands of dollars, and purchased the Christian church. Let me explain.

Church is not the place we go to for cooperate worship. That is just one element of it. Church is when we live in communion with one another on a daily basis, when we call each other to share in a meal and spend time lifting each other up. Church includes bringing in non-christians to love on them and having a body to call for support in welcoming the individuals to our home and showing them the peace and joy of a believer.

I haven't found it here. Except in my family. Maybe this is saying something. No church will satisfy my emptiness to have communion with the body. No Sunday experience can quench of thirst of living life with others. No walls can contain this. When I went to England, I paid to live with other Christians and the experience was invaluable. But church does not need to be bought. It can be enacted. Who's in?

[theportlandpages]

The Catholic Church has done more to romance me than any mortal man.