The world aflame

Pick it up, that big ol' rock. Let worlds collide, one of grace and light, and one of shadows and darkness. That's where she finds herself this dark, wet morning.

Ohhhh, pick it up, and wallow and watch it slowly slip between your fingers like sand through a beat and battered hour glass."Oh, at least we tried, so very, very hard," we tell ourselves. In that world, the world of our own making, we suddenly notice that 1 plus 1 doesn't equal three. We're held up and tiny.

So, we try to squeeze it. To feel the roughness of the object as if roughness will save us. We hold it in hands rough as moon rock. We (try to) grab it. We try to absorb the significance of the object, finding none. In the end, we simply watch it (try to) grow like carrots in the spring. Able to do anything more, we (try to) hold on and see the shadowy world rush forward, ready to make someone stumble and even fall ... again.

That's great, right? Life is (was) hard, and as we search for a reason the world survives in the first place, we grab hold of a bush. 

In the end, we're hanging out over the edge. On a soggy morning breakdown like this one perhaps the best we have is to watch the moment play itself out. Can't go on because death awaits, and we sure as heck can't let go of it. That's life, bound by grays and surrounded by black and white. If we can but hold on for one more of life's boundary moments we will be free.

We must let the worlds collide -- earth battering a giant, muddy copy of itself ... not into submission but into shelter. 

We are a giant manic muddy mess -- a copy of our messed up and putrid lives. So we put those lives on spin cycle and repeat. 

Water.
Soap
Rinse
repeat.
That's life. 

In the end, we're battering our pain, our panic, and our practicality  We're ready. We're prepared. Heck, we're more than ready. Let the rocky growth held in our fingertips plow into that. 

We let the pilot light glow small but powerful -- awaiting real flame, heck, triggering a response.

The response?

Let the flames flicker over your body as if they were rushing water, like a muddy river of oil/water mixed so wonderfully, like the day before when we cultivated two houses, two cars, two me's, two you's.

Do you grasp it? Can you grasp it, it being the significance of it all. World's colliding, mixing, becoming. And when the becoming becomes, well, WE BECOME one less broken heart in the world tonight, when the mercy of God grows larger than the condemnation tonight... oooohhhhh baby it's good.

See, when it all falls apart, when it actually becomes part of the plan, his plan, to see two adults holding on to each as if they had begun a prayer meeting and the Holy Spirit was there with such mercy and grace that, well, the Spirit mixed with the shed blood of the sacrificial lamb, taking darkness, overwhelming darkness, removing darkness as if it were a fresh stain ready to be washed in the shed blood of the lamb, we remember a lesser time, letting time and wonder showcase a moment (a weirdly short moment) it all fell apart. Knowing and believing that seventy times seven is perfection, we dig and we dig seeking that perfect moment, even knowing that perfection can grow so quickly if planted in the proper environment. Knowing and believing this, we find ourselves out on the edge of darkness, creeping, creeping, creeping.

We know that out there beyond white picket fences, before healing can begin, the world of light has to begin. OOOOhhhhh baby, it's good then ... and that baby is mercy, that's life. 

That's what it's like to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. The world outside and inside knows this to be truth.