She believed her many-headed self was proof of a scattered brain. But a scattered brain was better than a frozen brain.  Most would agree.  Being scattered trumped being frozen; it was her comfort. But she often wondered how to repair herself.  For a season she hunted for glue, for a kind of epoxy that would mend the scatters.  For a while she used only some of the fragments. That season perplexed her. 

She didn’t like the cold.  She was frightened by glaciers: Enormous blue-white citadels moving towards the sea, skyscrapers of ice bent on barely discernible progress until they reach the continent’s edge and tip inelegantly into the sea.  That is what this is all about: moving from frozen to liquid and then letting go.  Letting go was not her first choice.  Her first choice was clinging.

Letting go was slow in developing.  It is still not done.  It comes in stops and starts with sometimes dark moons and missing stars.  And sometimes the sun shines so bright she wears a blister. Thank Jesus for the Sabbath, for celebrations that include candles. Fire. Fire. Fire. She struggles with limbs and appendages. She sets her sights on what she thinks she needs and lets go all over again. She's often dizzy but not so much as she was before. She is coming to love movement and understanding her need to change.

I hope you never change, they said.
But Life said, I hope you do. I hope you keep changing. I hope you never stay the same. 
You aren’t the girl we knew, they said.
She doesn't argue but in her heart she knows she wasn't who they thought she was.  

This is a season of stepping into The Push. A season of tumbling.  Grace has her flying head over heels. She accepts the spinning. Moving keeps her warm. She's made friends with Grace and admitted she can't change. Only Grace can change her and He did and He is.  She reminds herself often: Change is good. I am not afraid of change. Stuck is what to fear. Stuck prevents change.   

When a Fireball Lands in the Middle of Your Dreams

This is what happens when the fireball in the sky lands in your dream and you have to listen to its flames and have to make sense of the blazing language that climbs up on your tongue and starts it wagging. A light gets turned on. All those dark nights turn into summer and you begin to see why the shadows confused you. The fireball doesn’t have to be enormous, it just have to be hot. Given the nature of fire you know that it is. You know it can burn you but it won’t. The fire will only burn the things that aren’t needed. Things like shame or fear or regret. Things like "I wish I had not..., I should have... I missed out on...." Once the fireball lands you’ll be like those crazy people in Acts who knew about love. You’ll stop being cold, you’ll think about winter and how it won’t ever freeze you. You’ll realize how ridiculous it is to bundle up your desire. You’ll begin to yearn and stop caring about what is missing and why you can’t have it. You’ll start telling the truth and feel the fire warm you on the inside where snow used to camp. You’ll act a little crazy when the fireball lands but it will be the kind of crazy that makes sanity jealous. People will circle around just to stay warm and you won’t run out of blankets. I think the fireball was never meant to hide in the sky. I think it was meant to hide in you and me. It was meant to cause an uproar. To wake us up. To keep us hopping. To make us lie still. To undo us, to put us back together. All of this. All of that. The whole thing is ours. Its fire and its God and it is crazy and its good and now we can fan the flames and let it burn. Good morning.