Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in thehorsejournal's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, June 24th, 2008
3:43 pm	because i forget i have promised myself that i am going to blog and journal more. lifhas been so busy, there is not a moment to sit and write about it when you are in the midst of it so much i guess. I know that is an extreme blessing in many ways. I know my temptation to get bored and move to the next new thing.  But i think the most important thing is- i forget. i am so busy with it all, i dont often sit still enough to even reflect on the reality of the moment, where God could be in the middle of it, or what the purpose of the present might be.  Last night i went to sit with my ladies as they had their "community meeting". They meet each week, share a meal, and then everyone brings "something" to community...whether that's a song, a prayer, a praise, a complaint, or a cry for help. Yesteday, i sat next to my new friend who Amy who is near my age. She has been in prison for 4 years or so. What she brought to community was pain. She had watched and infant baptism the day before and was angry. Angry at God, angry at herself. She described her abortion she had when she was 20 years old.  Because of it, she cannot have children. She had been dealing with that in her own quiet way- she has an amazing humble spirit and an ability to make you feel like you are the only person on earth when you speak. But this pain was so deep inside her. It effected everything she felt about herself...even her pain in not being able to feel compassion for another sister who was experiencing pain over the anniversery of her infant daughter's death.  Three others spoke up in our little group of ten women talking about their experiences with abortion. I cannot forget her words, i feel as though they are burned in my head...  through her sobbs she cried out, "i just kept drinking and pumping this stuff through my veins,i didnt know what was inside me! I didnt know it was inside me! i didnt know until it moved." and she went on to tell about the pain of the doctors not telling if the baby was a boy or a girl. she had wanted to call it a fetus to not feel connection to the baby, the only baby she will ever have inside her.  so there i was sitting next to her. crying like a baby. offering nothing. and all i could think was i believe in redemption because that's the way it has to be. that might be poor logic,  poor theology, i might even sound like a brat. but, that's it. there has to be redemption for her. she will be reconciled, she will be healed. that is the way it has to be. The Kingdom is within her. i have a had a lot more education and heard a lot more sermons, but she holds the Kingdom in her brokeness more than i can grasp. There is redemption for her. If God is reconciling all things to Himself, He will starts with Amy.  Someone said on Sunday something along the lines of "we dont do this to effect change, we participate in the Kingdom and it changes us." I forget. i forget this.  "for then your healing shall quickly come." isaiah 58 maybe God can even heal me. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 14th, 2008
2:30 pm	the will of God. so today is a very strange day for me. Prepare yourself world for a vulnerable but of course cryptic post where i am around the bush about everything i am talking about.  what is in a decision?  Who decides yes or no? i have always been a huge "free will" avdocate, that God gives us the power to choose not only to love Him,but most things in our lives- and this is our participation in the Kingdom. then there are those big ones that always tend to confuse and screw up my philosophy. Questions like- what job to take, where to move, marriage, career decisions, church, kids, and the like. i am in a dry season of my spiritual life. i am hungry for God, in fact i miss Him. i miss Him like a lover away at sea or something equally as dramatic.  so i find it hard to decipher anything of God's will and wisdom. So the question comes down to- what is God's perfect will...is there a wrong path or a right one? we all can look at our lives and see where certain choices ended us up in places good or bad, hopefully after a long road we can always see them as good. But we know that decisions make a chain of events fall into place. So, therein lies the second question- is it God working together for the good? Do we make our choices and it is the faith and trust that God will honor and guide our lives regardless?  today, the boy that i love is has to decide if he will move 5 hours away...for four years. i dont know anything about the future. i dont have any wisdom i feel.  i dont know where the chain of events will lead. I guess i just want God hold up a huge road sign that says "THIS WAY". And i want me to have the faith where i can say, i don't what's ahead, but i trust this moment, and i trust where ever the road leads- the ends and all the means along the way- i trust it's Yours. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
2:54 pm	what is important is faith expressing itself through love. (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 17th, 2008
11:44 am	pregnancies This has been a very interested time on our street and in our circle of friends and family. Babies and pregnancies have surrounded us...which has been a fun time as an outsider.  I personally am so (patiently) excited for that time of my life, i have loved watching my friends. I love watching their bellies grow and bodies change. I have wondered what they are thinking...and i have loved watching the husbands enter into the unknown of the female body and the unknown of being fathers. It is so cool to see how each couple is so different but strangly the same- it is the miracle of life, isnt it? A person created from God using two other people.  I love getting to be the friend who celebrates a child being born and i dream of the future of my presence in their lives as they grow up.  I am very sentimental about this as i think of my parents friends who knew me when i was born.  Just this week, 4 f my moms friends who knew her when she was pregnant and played significant parts in my life came to celebrate our new home. I want to be that kind of friend too.  But there is a sadness about me this morning. In the prison there is a sea of pink (as only i call it).  They are all the pregnant women incareceated women in Ohio that have come to one institution and they all wear pink shirts so you know. Today, one asked me to pray for her and asked what she could do.  She is leaving prison tomorrow and going to county for a week.  Then, she has no idea where she is going and is hoping to get into a treatment center (ofwhich there is a waiting ist for). She is scared that she is going to relaspe before she can get in. Half of me is appald as i so quickly put my self on the "how could you do that to your child" petistal. But the other half of me is just so sad.  After celebrating so many new lives lately- how is it that this child will come into the world so different.  The mom loves her unborn child, and is not resentful for her situation, but there is no celebration.  There are no plans. The man is long gone.  He will not experience the miracle of fatherhood or falling in love with this woman all over again. She will not be amazed at her body, she will want a hit if she has not already had one.  Where is her place? Where is Nevaeh's place (this is the name of her baby girl- Heaven spelled backwards she explained).   These things are just heavy on my heart.  I dont need answers, i am not questioning God, nor am I angry...I'm just fleshing out life i guess.  that's all.   Peace today. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, December 17th, 2007
1:48 pm	so this is the reality of life. there is always death...as most of you know- i am pretty pro at death- at least i have had a lot of experience.  but, this weekend, the first of "my ladies" as i call the women who have come to live at Rachel's House died.  Her name was Trina Salazar. She was my friend.  I dont know why i am writing this only it would bring her some honor and bring me some ability to deal with it- because until this point, i just plain cant. I knew Trina for about a year. We went halfway across the country together to Dilkon AZ.  When we went out west, she had 2 reunions planned, one with a brother in Albuquerque, and one with her sister in Colorado when we were at the airport. She hadnt seen either in 10 years because she had never been clean when they came back home to visit other family and she could never straighten up her life enough to get out west. I had never felt so honored than when i got to witness her embracing her sister in the airport. it was as if i were watching a piece of art with all the tragedy and pain, but joy and peace of 10 years of things unsaid and a hopefulness about the future they never thought was possible. She saw nieces she only knew existed by name.  when Trina moved back to Toledo, i hated it. I always hate when they want to move back home. I want them to stay here and be safe with us. But, Jan always tells me, you have to let people make their choices, whether that is the women who choose to live with us here or your very own children.  Anything else is control- and God does not love us like that, neither should we ask others to love us (or themselves) like that.  Regardless, i wasnt happy when she went home, i just knew.  But, Trina was one of my favorites. She was georgeous too.  She was 45 had 6 children and still had a better body and the softest skin than i will ever have. in a way i felt sorry for her, because in the same way when you feel sorry for really pretty people because that is what people always view them first as- except to an addict, that meant she would always be able to supply for her habit.  that is the sick reality of being pretty on the streets. i felt sorry for her for that. Trina was one of my favorites.  Not because she was just so likeable to begin with- she made me laugh a lot and made me feel good about me...her excitement was contagious. But she also understood more about God's grace than i do...i have even written about her before.  she talks about God as if He is this friend of hers who jsut loves her because He is God and has grace- not because of anything she does...i try and try to get that...and she didnt have to try, she just got it...and she knew that her wasted years of beating her body and mind were washed away and made white as snow...she got that. It is amazing how there is foreshawdowing in life just like there is in a Shakespearean play. I spoke to her for the first time in 9 months last week.  She wanted to come back to Rachel's House. She was in a treatment program and out of her head. And on Saturday morning, she was found face down in some basement of some person dead- overdosed. Now, great theologians, what the hell am i supposed to do with that? If someone dies in the act of sin, do they go to heaven or hell? If someone tasted and new the grace of God but couldnt fight the thigns the oppressed her any longer...shall i use any more cliches of once saved always saved- phrases we try to put on life to understand it somehow.  I really dont want the answer. but, i do find peace in knowing that her struggle is over.  she doesnt have to play the crappy hand she was dealt anymore.  the enemies that plague her life and shouted obscenities to her soul are silenced. She couldnt fight them anymore.  Maybe just maybe, she could hear just of whisper of God taking her home in that last moment. please forgive me if this is heresy...i obviously am no judge. But i believe that God is reconciling and restoring all things to Himself- i pray that she is included in the "all things". she was special, she had an incredible capacity for God and showed in her eyes.  She has 6 kids. three of which are under the age of 18.  i am broken thinking about how most of them only knew their mom as clean for about two years of their life.  the rest she was in prison, manipulating money from their family, or everyone was praying she would get herself locked up again so she would be safe.  But, i have no idea the pain in their souls when they think, "why couldnt she love me enough to stop?" i want to know why too. But maybe just maybe God is a lot bigger than me and kids hear His voice a little more loudly and He can speak into their little hearts and tell them it wasnt their fault and she was sick.  To Trina... I was privledged to know her. most of the world would call her an addict and a sponge on society.  but she was my friend. and she was beautiful to me. i hope and pray that her kids can remember her for the amazing woman she was, see her through the eyes of a loving Father (as she called Him), not the eyes of a world that screams at us. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 4th, 2007
11:47 am	I have no idea how to guard my heart. it seems so oxymoronic. Current Music: iron and wine- someday the waves (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
2:39 pm	Ladies and Gentlemen, in 2 hours i will own a piece of land (a teeny tiny piece) and a lot of bricks. i cant wait.  i cant wait to make a home and a space where people feel safe. Current Music: on your side- ryan adams (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007
10:02 pm	not so super so right now, i am sitting here typing with Iron and Wine being a fantastic soundtrack to a rainy night. eric has pies in the oven, filling up the house with great smells and eric and kerri are reading different books.  the house is thankfully quiet. i am going to miss it here. i dont feel so great lately. mostly today. mostly this month. October has hit me hard. i never talk about my issues when i am in the thick of them...but i have been in the thick of them for sometime. I feel responsible for everything, guilty really...tonight was the first time i tried honest prayer with no distractions in a long time. i am completely overwhelmed. i dont want to make any more decisions, especially financial ones. i know i do it to myself...i know i make myself so busy, but it seems like lately things have flown way out of any sense of normalcy.  i want to have a home. to date we are almost 2 1/2 months past our closing date. and i have never felt so alone. i wish i had someone to deal with my shit with me..i have so many amazing people willing to jump in and help where i need help- but the truth is i dont even know how to communicate to other how they can help.  i just wish there was that person who helped and knew what i needed...maybe that is completely unrealistic, i live in a romance fantasy about love anyway, that is probably one of them. just feel like it is me against the world- and yes, i am aware of what a drama queen i am being. i just feel like everyone is in deep crisis and i am doing my best just to survive. and they are things can do nothing to help. My family has entered a new stage of crisis...seemingly going five steps backward from any forward movement made...people are having affairs, leaving each other, it is just so sad to me. Lies that decieve and heart. i ache not only for them, but for me....as much as i wish i could see others as monsters and separate the the "us" from the "them" i am amazed at how much the line is blurred, not in the good way. i pick and choose which side i play on depending on my audience...which is another one of my issues: i feel like in my "survival" mode i am completely playing a part- the women in the prison get the worst of it, or my best performance... i just feel like there isnt much in me. i dont want to do anything else besides the things i "have" to do- because guilt overwhelms me and i am incapable of even delegating to other because my mind is so fragmented to even explain myself... i dont miss my jeep, i know it was just a thing ...i just dont want to have to pick up pieces -sometimes and i feel like that is what i am having to so right now in life...just keep it together. i just feel lost and wandering until another season that cant come quickly enough. it is sort of forced simplicity- not depending on your stuff and your stability, i think i am failing the test. poor mona, she is in a "foster" home right now.  i cant even take care of a dog. tomorrow is another day...next week is another week. time is the one thing you can always count on right? it always comes. oh, and i need God...I always need Him. Again i learn, when i do things on my own, i seem to mess it up. i want Restoration and Peace (and a little Hope tonight) He is my portion. thanks for the vent online friends... Kelsie, just a few more days friend. you are my hero lately. Current Music: lions mane, iron and wine (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, September 28th, 2007
5:59 pm	tramps like us, baby we born to run so, i havent updated for a long long time...but i thought this was a story worth adding.  In the middle of August, i found this little puppy named Mona just sitting in the middle of Town Street.  When no one else claimed her and none of my friends seemed to want to keep this little red friend, i decided that she was mine. I scheduled a vet appt, bought food and all that stuff...then, the second day i had her (in the back yard of the neighbors because Eric is cruel to domesticated animals unlike other kinds) she ran away.  i think she would just get lonely with no one home and she squeezed herself under the gate. In my sadness with Mandy's help, we searched high and low.  a neighbor said she saw 2 kids with her near the library.  i hung signs for Mona denoting her special feature- 7 toes- yes, i know she is a circus freak, but a pretty darn cute one.  I went to the pound- which is the sadest place on earth, And i was really emabarrassed about how broke up ove rthe whole thing i was.  i was really sad...it is hard to find a cool laid back dog, let alone a cute puppy that was already so great. But i got over it, figured it was better this way until i moved into my house. yesterday, i was driving down Sullivant avenue and saw what looked like a bigger Mona with some woman.  So i stalked her a little, then stopped my car and asked by chance if she had found that dog. She said yes.  And when i asked her if she has extra toes and a dark tail...she said yes, but didnt seem convinces... then she said, "what did you name her?"  I said Mona..So she looked at the dog and said "Mona?" and the dog tilted her head (imagine that, a dog looking perplexed when you say something to it) and she said, well, she knows that's her name, it must be yours.   We had a conversation where i denied rights if she wanted to keep her, after all our relationship was only 2 days.  But the woman said it was best this way, i think she felt bad because she was a stray AGAIN and took her.  So, Mona and I are reunited.  At this rate, she has been to 4 known owners and escaped 3.  she's a tramp and a wonder. i love it. and she's strikingly pretty.  what are the chances? Current Music: the boss (Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 29th, 2007
4:48 pm	CONCERT CONCERT Hello there friends,  yes, i am using my journal as an advertisement... Lower Lights (who i work for) is benefiting from a benefit concert next Tuesday and if you like this kind of music, or just want to support us...we would love if you came. Details:  the pages tour Shane & Shane  Bebo Norman Monk & neagle Sept 4, 7PM Grove City Church of the Nazarene ticket info at www.itickets.com $10 a tick $8 for groups of 10 or more (you could bring everyne you know) $15 at the door and if you want to help, post this info to your blog! Current Music: AHA- take on me (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 13th, 2007
5:04 pm	she told me she did her first line of coc with her mom at age 13.  Lord Jesus, have mercy on us.  Current Music: silence (Comment on this)
4:32 pm	all kinds of things there is so much surrounding my heart and mind as i prepare to move and to actually have my name on a mortage. I would say build equity, but at this point, i dont know that the brick house will ever be sold. But, as usual, because most things i do in life have to be surrounded by a paradox of thoughts- which all play against each other in some light, i dont know just where i am.  we have been reading Irresistible Revolution, which seems real trendy right now, which usually i would hate...but i love that it is trendy, because it is far from living anything that is trendy.  I WANT TO BE SIMPLE. I desperatly want it.  I have never really had it modeled before. .. in any capacity, even when my family lost everything, it was far from simple. I have no idea where to begin or what that could possibly look like.  I am scared though too.  I was talking about fears with my dear Rachel the other day and i realized one of my greatest fears as i think about how others would view me- is not hypocrasy, but i fear being pretentious.  i want to be authentic, i dont want to convince others through words how things should be- i get so sick of people doing that to me...i just want to live life the way God (really) intends it...simply with love and grace... I adore my job.  i love that half of it consists of me sharing the vision of this place (in hopes that they are so inspired to write us a check) but sometimes, I dont really want to talk at all.  I dont want to sell anything- even if the product is top notch. (it was nice to have JB come down, i didnt feel like i had to "sell" anything). But i do come to a place where i want us all to agree.  Like when i am convinced of something new that will give you cancer, i always want to TELL everybody about it.  But how do you live in the tension that maybe Jesus is asking something of me that He is not of you and vice virsa. Does Jesus do that? Is that an easy way to rationalize the things I want? or things that make me feel comfortable. why do so many of us pick holiness or social or social over holiness to push our opinions on each other?    Everything is just seeming real gray, but then again the white presses on my soul.  I I'm am scared to be vulnerable.  to need something from someone-anyone, my experience of that has left me alone. how do i do that on a community level where i have everything to lose, and probably will. I'm scared to give up stuff...not the boats and nice cars i own, but the little things.  Do I buy a new couch because I have the money and I really want one and have never been able to buy one? Or do i get a less nice couch so that my neighbors will feel more comfortable in my house because it is more like theirs? But a nice couch is a nice to sit on...for all. I got some amazing furniture given to me this weekend, free (I must say, i am excellent at getting things for free).  My neighbors already know i am not from here, will this just reinforce any thoughts of our differences to them? As you can see... i am just confused. which even leads to the simplicity I desire of not having to know.  as Rick Ryding has said, being comfortable with ambiguity.   Current Music: ryan adams- la cienga (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 11th, 2007
11:09 am	i'm a complete idiot. i have a sneaking suspiscion that someone is getting back at me for my mean humor.  I think it is hilarious when people fall and hurt themselves.  I like to watch gymnastics when they fall on the uneven bars. today, i am wearing a skirt and high heels because i have to ask a corporation for $75K...and i tripped and fell in front of 30 kids and 15 teenagers. Sweet. I completely bit it, right on my face. my knee is all skinned up and bruised.  they were facing me.  it seems as if because i am tall, it takes me a longer time to actually hit the ground.  how do i still manage to do embarrasing crap like this? maybe it is a reminder never to take myself too seriously.  my only hope, is some kid is silently laughing to himself, thinking that was the funniest thing he has seen in a long time. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 11th, 2007
11:48 am	define irony so...i just got a call. that's right, WAL-MART is giving us $1,000 to renovate housing for low income families.   Oh no.   i have to go receive the check from them tomorrow and get a picture taken.  I am going to do my very best to avoid my picture being taken with WAL-MART.  my boss said i have to look at it as redeeming funds to be used for the Kingdom.  oh no. Current Music: glory & consequence- ben harper (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, June 3rd, 2007
9:59 pm	pride... is a B...(you know the rest) (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 30th, 2007
3:30 pm	Isaiah 43 So, i find myself always updating my journal with these really deep or spiritual things, which is funny because i am not deep most of the time and especially lately i have not been feeling at all spiritual. I did have a completely wonderful weekend.  was in Boston and New Hampshire, it was a good break, good to be around friends, in the sun, dancing the night away (providing entertainment for the masses), and the best part was laughing hysterically at three of my top six funny people Mandy , garber (even though team Garber 0 for 5) and Brad Luke- who basically just has to speak and i start laughing like and idiot.  so that was good.   ok, here is my spiritual thought for the month- in the prison, we have been in Genesis for a long time...which has been good because i am trying to learn to read in a new way through more of a liberation theology lense...which is so hard, i am not saying i agree all the time...but it challenges me, and it challenges me to understand God in a new way- which is a fresh wind i need.  so we are in the story of Jacob and all the shit he pulls.  and one of the women in the group just piped with telling me how Jacob's story is her story. she described how Jacob was running away and although he had stolen, he didnt have anything.  And how God still came to Jacob, and He was with Jacob.  She then precedes to tell me about when she was high in a crack house how she kept saying Isaiah 43.  So all the people she was gathered with there tried to read it together, but they couldnt do it because they were too messed up.  It wasnt until months later when she was locked up in the county that she could sit still enough to read it.  and it has over taken her.  It is the Word of God for her.  As she read it to us, she sobbed and it was so apparent in the room that her story is Jacob's.  God chased after her even when she was running away.   I wish i could listen like that to hear what God is saying. in other news- i might buy a house tomorrow- holy crap!!! Current Mood: content Current Music: jack johnson, cocoon (great movie too) (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 18th, 2007
10:07 am	please. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on us sinners. Current Music: silence (Comment on this)
Friday, March 30th, 2007
3:56 pm	FREEDOM I wasnt going to post today because i feel like my words fall so far short of today.  but i dont want to miss this moment.  today, i picked up a woman from Ohio Reformatory for Women who had served 20 years.  For 20 years, she has called that compound home.  cinder blocks, bars, bunkies, cafeteria food, elastic pants.  I waited in a waiting room for 2 hours joyfully anticipating her face walking through.  she was nervous, she hasnt slept in a week.  When someone is on over 15 years (especially if that person is a woman) that means someone died.  She killed somebody when she was younger than me. And now we stand with her old enough to be my mother, taller than me, but angelic with blue eyes, a child like composure...being next to her, her humility, her utter weakness and lowlyness- i know she is closer to Jesus than most people i will meet in my life.  Being with her is being with the kind hearted Emanuel. I have known this woman 6 months.  In the past five years, much of her family has died, she doesnt have home anymore and she is certainly not the same woman who walked in back when ORW only had 3 buildings (it is now an entire compound).   i feel so humbled. I got to pick her up in my jeep (at her request) because it would be less imidating than the fancy cars with buttons she doesnt get.  She also hasnt sat in the front seat of a car in 20 years. We broke bread together- she had forgotten what silverware felt like against her lips.  God is with the weak.  He is for the Oppressed. He was in each moment today. Sometimes i forget what it is to be free.  I forget because i choose chains for myself.  But being with her today, i saw leaving the old behind, i saw Him making all things new.  I saw a person who used to being shackled take large steps on pavement and grass.  she tried to give me her $97 she had earned because she said it didnt belong to her...becuase nothing does. she has no idea what the future will be. she is a child.  she is a child...with nothing but freedom. i wish my words were adequete to tell her story. Current Music: silence (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 27th, 2007
12:37 pm	Our Hope. "I guess what I really want to say is just this: be hopeul. Don't stop fighting. On some level this thing is bigger than all of us. It's not about having a wife die of cancer at 26, and then 2 years later getting the same terminal illness. It's not about me and how I fight this disease or how our little family walks through it. The bigger picture is the battle against sickness and death that we all face because we live in a broken world. But it's even more about the Kingdom that has broken in and offers us a chance at relief from that disease. It offers health and victory where before there was none. There is hope in the midst of hopelessness. Death is not where we lose; the onset of hopelessness is the great defeater. So allow hope to rise up within you. And when it seems that hopefulness is the least appropriate response in this situation, let it rise up even more. Whisper your hope when you lie down at night; scream your hope when you wake in the morning. Live your hope as if it is the one and only thing that sustains you in this ravaged world. You will not be disappointed." My friend Palmer. One year. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 21st, 2007
4:39 pm	Oh Ecuador! First let me say, i feel like i am Henri Nouwen right now writing from a south american country begininng a page with something like "Gracias Senor!" seems appropriate. i love the language barrier. i know just enough to get by, have broken conversations getting to know locals. But not enough to just talk for the sake of talking. I need this silence right now. today, i went horseback riding in the Andes Mountains (!!!!Enough said!) breathtaking... I think when God restores the heavens and the earth, He will finish this place last. It is already so close to perfection. Ash Wednesday Mass in a cathedral orndamented in gold with flowers, shrines, and gifts to Jesus of little baby basenets (?) beautiful. and on a less "awe moment" note, i (we) get stared at a lot. i have never felt taller. everything in america is bigger. we just reinforce the sterotype. (1 Comment |Comment on this)