Gift-Buying Guide (Just Kidding, Also - I don't cook)
I am loving all the gift-buying guides on the blogosphere! You've got buying-with-a-conscience types, buying with unlimited funds, buying trendy, buying very little (make stuff! offer your services! make stuff!), and probably every other kind of buying anyone could possibly do. Every now and then, the internet is helpful.
I don't have a gift-buying guide for you. I'm not so much with the practical advice. I'm not so much with answers at all. Does anyone else feel like our country is a total teenager right now? I feel us tromping around, attempting to determine if the parents instilled anything worth keeping or if we should scrap it all. We know we should be somewhat accountable somehow to someone, but man we really just want to be free. We love each other. We hate each other. We are still so often afraid.
I've been silent on social media and my blog when it comes to some really big events in our world - things like Ferguson. At one point, I wondered if I could be silent, because haven't I set up this space on the internet for the purpose of speaking? But pretty quickly after that moment, I realized silence is the only thing I had any authority to give. Sometimes some of us just need to put on our listening ears. Most of the time most of us just need to put on our listening ears. Remember, I'm big on this hard but worth it approach to the world around us in which we step softly toward each other and see the other person when they speak.
I'm not the fix-it girl with the gift-buying guide or the answer girl who can tell you the Truth About Name That Recent Event. I prefer the questions. I like the way they breathe. I like the way they leave room for God - the great outside-of-us that is steady and clear of purpose and might just break into our chaos at any moment and raise our oh-so-human eyes to something brighter.
It's a really, really beautiful season we've begun. (Cue the softest jingling of bells...) A beautiful time to listen, to move gently through the world, and to ask the questions that might, if by some miracle, lead to truth. Or that can, at least, lead to each other. Here's hoping.
"Hope" is the thing with feathers -that perches in the soul -and sings the tune without the words -and never stops - at all -