beaches and wheelchairs

today i witness something beautiful.

i came down to savannah to see my family and go to the beach - it took getting past a lot of indecisiveness in coming because it was supposed to rain all week. anyways, i'm here now and today i went to the beach with my aunt for a couple of hours.

i love the beach - i love the breeze and the sun, the water and the sand, and the sounds of the beach. i love how uninhibited people are and how confident they appear to be at the beach - i love watching little kids build sand castles and even adore it more when it's me, my brothers and my mom building one of our own. i like just laying there, maybe reading maybe not - but just being. and while all these things make the beach beautiful to me, today i saw something that made it even more lovely.

there's a couple in tybee island, i saw them over spring break and again today. he's black and she's white, they're both older - which i mention only so you can get an idea of what they look like. today, he wore black cotton pants and a white tee with a black baseball cap, she wore loose fitting pants that she could pull up, a tan brace around her wrist, and sunglasses that moved from her face to her hair, which was pulled back in a pony tail. i don't know how they're related - maybe they're friends, lovers, married, dating - maybe they're all of those things combined. today - they were beautiful.

in a strength unpossessed by any body builder i've ever seen, he battled the strength and the crazy breeze, wheeling her down the beach to the ocean in her wheelchair. the beach was not smooth, in fact it dipped a bit with some deep sand before leveling out. the mini "cliff" of sand was hard enough to walk up because your feet would sink down into it, but they made it down to the ocean and "parked." she had pulled up her pajama-like pants and put her feet into the water, and he stood, unwavering, behind her for about an hour.

the tide came in fast - a bit too fast, and me and my aunt went to move our chairs up a bit. we set our stuff down and then noticed that the water had softened the sand underneath the woman's chair and the man was having a hard time pulling her back. he tried, but the slippery sand caught him and he fell backwards. my aunt ran over to help him up and together with another passerby they moved the woman back from the rising water. they stayed down at the water's edge for a while longer before thanking my aunt and moving back up the beach. i watched him as he tried to get up the difficult dip in the deep sand again. he tried, and was slowly succeeding until another man walking by helped him in the final push. i was trying not to stare but it was so hard not too - it was like i was transfixed - fascinated by this picture.

still staring, i watched as this man made sure the woman was comfortably in place, before going to sit down in his chair - i stared harder as she brushed off the wet sand remaining on his back after his fall, and then watched him sit down. to my surprise, i watched him take a seat in his own wheelchair.

a few minutes later we packed up our things and began heading back to the car, where we passed the couple one more time before leaving. we wished them a good afternoon and they said thank you once again, and that was it.

still, the image is preciously burned into my mind. it was a beautiful image of strength, love, commitment, and humility. it demonstrated a love for the little things - like just feeling the water with your feet, or standing faithfully beside, behind, and with the one that you love. it was a picture of sacrefice - he didn't complain, or argue that she should push him down to the water - instead, he braved the uncomfortable so that she might experience a bit of joy.

maybe i'm reading into it way to much - but i don't care. it's still beautiful.

feelings

change them. or give me the patience to wait.

making history

tonight i made history. Sandy, Susan and I had the first film to ever be banned from the dcf film festival. sad day. though nothing was particularly inappropriate in the video "Three Women and a Toilet," it was deemed inappropriate because the idea of fixing a toilet and women pooping was uncomfortable. Really, they didn't want the church to look bad in front of the parents of high school students. I guess I can understand that - but not when other videos show women suggestively posing on sports cars and adjusting their boobs - or a man pretending to pee on a tree in front of mixed company.

i'm disappointed to say the least. i was never a fan of injustice, and this was not fair. i understand that life is not fair, but this was immaturity at its finest. in case you didn't know - women poop. it happens. toilets break - it happens. plumbers don't get turned away because their jobs are "socially awkward" either.

tonight i went back to private Christian school, took a little road trip back into memories of my past - of inconsistency and legalism and immaturity. if anything, it just made me sad.

on the other hand - there was a beautiful film called "the orange tree" shown. it was about touching the lives of people with little things. how someone's bad day can turn into something good, sweet, and life-changing for others they don't even know. it was about a boy who was rejected by a girl, he left the daisies he'd intended for her on a bench after he missed the bus. another man picked up the daisies, kept one, and gave the rest to the girls working at a coffee shop. from their, the flowers passed to people that really needed them, and those people shared stories of how flowers randomly made their day as they passed them on. and the boy who'd started it with a crap day, ended up with one from a girl he didn't know. and they got coffee together. (random)

so amidst the injustice and the disappointing moments - there are little things in life that remind you how good it is. like coming home and seeing that you're roommate has done all the dishes for you because she knows you're stressed and she had time - because she loves you. or hearing something encouraging from a friend. or leaving flowers on a friend's doorstep. it's not big - earth-shattering stuff - it's the kingdom. it's the "faith the size of a mustard seed" and the two coins of the widow. it's the lost sheep. it's the lost coin. it's the "least of these" and the widows and the fatherless. it's sincere love.

i want to enjoy the little things.

vulnerability

vulnerability. utter bluntness = scary.

it's in my pride that i run from you - because i know that i'm in the wrong - i know - and i fear your response.

humility. truth. grace. i want to experience it - to claim it.

fruit - where is it?

beauty

yesterday i witnessed something beautiful.
i walked out of my apartment hurrying to get to class, only to hear the sound of a commentator describing an intense and dramatic soccer game. Intrigued, I walked out into the courtyard to find a young girl deep within a moment of her imaginary world. Facing the stairs with a soccer ball five feet in front of her, she hushes the crowd and dramatically sets up her scene:

the world record is at stake - one shot
determines the rest of her life -
everything has come down to this moment.

She pauses as she notices me standing behind her - waiting in anticipation, captivated in her world. "Go ahead" she says, recognizing that I have to go up the stairs to get to class. "It's okay," I tell her, but she still stands back. "Sounds like a pretty intense game." "Oh, it is!" she said, nodding her head up and down in excitement. I laugh and wish her good luck and walk up the flight of stairs. She continues to talk to herself - counting down the seconds before she has to kick the winning shot in her game. I turn and watch her make her move as she kicks the ball up the flight of stairs.

Goal!

Triumphantly she waves her hands about her, jumping up and down. She continues in her celebration with comments of how the world record has been broken - she has done it.

I giggled and turned around, continuing to listen to the sound of her precious excitement. In that moment, I ached for childhood.

trust fall

i can say "trusting" but falling is another thing entirely.
i say "trusting" and you say "trust away" - and then patiently wait for me to fall.
you don't back up
you don't drop me
you don't tell me to hurry up and just fall already

you say "trust away"
and you catch me.

"trusting"
"trust away my love."

more in-class poetry

If
If you were to open your mouth
with one request all of me would
come undone.
Gathered thoughts, reigned in passions
all unbridled with the movement of
your tongue.
If
If you were to want more
in my strength it would be difficult
to refuse you.
Wise counsel and inner principle
may lose all sway of self-control
If
If I thought for a moment that
you may open your mouth and
beckon me to be yours
I may not be here, with you
so close and so quiet
for fear that if may become when
and when may become now.
for fear that now might be the moment
I lose myself.

and one more....

she sits in freedom
liberated in her mind from any construction of mankind.
she lies atop a green linen sheet of tiny, thick blades fighting the wind.
her hair tangled in red, thick curls
with intermittent wildflowers woven into them.
the paleness of her skin peers out to see the sun among the freckles that dot her arms
she is laid bare
stripped of all material, technology, politic and occupation.
no longer chained to social expectation or law established by man.
she is wholly at rest.
she is naked and known
she is falling.
plummeting through the earth that once held her
down through the moist ground and into a cool cement room.
she is confined to a chair of thick plastic and a desk of fake maple.
white cinderblocks, dim light and a whirr of the fake air close in on her.
her wild hair neatly tamed
her face covered with caked powder
her freckles, once vibrant are hidden underneath fabricated polyester and cotton-mixed fashions
her senses, once brilliantly alive are deadened.
she is covered, a product, a brick amongst a building
is she free?
in her mind she is free
she is the ocean, she is the breeze, she is warmth
she closes her eyes
she is.