Cadence

I don't intend for life to be heavy on this blog.  Sometimes when I begin it feels this way, but maybe that just being honest.  Or maybe it's the poetry stuck in my throat, dislodged by the clickety clack of typing. 

Or maybe heavy is sometimes really goodness considered from all sides.


Life is full of lots of sweet things, and often also something bitter.  I tend to feel that so much as my story gets lived out.  I feel it today.  I didn't know it could be like that when I was a little girl.  I also didn't know that everything could feel so full and rich around me.  It's not either/or....as my favorite people are wont to say....it's both/and.

I didn't know music and strangers smiling and breathing your prayers would make everything ok again.  Also the name of Jesus, aligned to my very heart beat.  Horizons.  People who are good at hugging.  A pause in a busy day.  I didn't know it would help so much and how instantly it could invite the voice of God.

But now I do.  And that's poetry enough. 

Today I am remembering that I love this song.   The Brilliance is....brilliant.  I love the look of musicians doing music well, and the way the chords stretch out, which makes room for how this one day of my life feels.  This music matches what this day is, and how life feels when my little Jessica heart remembers to breathe and pray and pause.

It just might be that these full pauses are necessary for my life and spirit.  This is how I've known what I am passionate about.   This is how I've learned teaching.  It is how I've profoundly heard the voice of God.

I teach middle school, and its cadence is usually fast, busy, good.    Did you know that middle schoolers are fascinating?  It's true.  They're heavy with hardship and refreshingly lighthearted all at once.  They are wild about life, silent one day and unavoidably direct the next.  

You know, like tornadoes and hurricanes.  

So it becomes that my life, my heart, what I know in this classroom is 'goodness', defined as both heavy and light, just like they are.  They show me that both/and is right there in front of me, every day and always.  

There is something very holy too about seeing it all as it is, presently, in this one moment of my life.  Yesterday we made snowflakes for the ceiling, so it's cozy and very much December now.  My classroom is lit by lamps, and I see snowy twilight already through the window.  And this is how I know the seasons.  I stand in my classroom at the end of brilliant and tiring days, right before I shut the door, and I sense the full cadence of my life.  

Today The Brilliance says it best and beautiful back to me.