Four-leaf Clovers

Today, for the first time, i found a four-leaf clover. 
In fact, i found three.
All thanks to my sweet friend, Cari. 


We talked about four-leaf clovers and how they're so rare, special. Their rarity makes them special, makes them unique. 
We talked about how my initial thoughts of four-leaf clovers were thoughts of how pretty i assumed they were. But then once i found my first one, and second and third, i realized that was not the case. I realized, and voiced that they didn't need to be pretty, or beautiful, because they themselves were rare and special, their appearance doesn't make them special, but what they are makes them special and rare. Not one is the same as another. And i couldn't help but make the connection between four-leaf clovers, and the people i've come to love and cherish. 

Son's and daughter's of the Most High, they are special and rare, not one is the same. Their Father is the one who has made them special, by being His alone. Their outward appearances dont matter. Their abilities and talents dont make them unique. Their birthplace doesn't matter. 
The only thing that gives them their uniqueness, their rarity, is that The Lord has adopted them. 
We are nothing outside of Him. Outside of the holiness He has clothed us with, we are worthless. 

Cari told me that now that i've seen my first one, i'll be able to spot more, more often. I pray that i see more often than not, God's children as special and rare, unique and holy. I pray i see them with grace, because as i started walking around, i started trying avoid the clusters of clover, hoping i wouldn't step on, and ruin in the process, the four-leaf clovers. I started watching my steps and walking more gracefully. 



We went out to do some garden things and got lost in adventure.
I proceeded to ask Cari to be my model for an assignment i had for one of my photography classes. 
She climbed on a log, and we exchanged the corniest of jokes.

We found a hollowed out tree trunk, and Cari, like the adventurer she is, climbed right down in it. 

My photography project is about where you see yourself after you graduate. I do not see myself as Cari when i graduate, though i do want one aspect of Cari to stay with me until the Lord welcomes me home. I want to remember the joy and sheer excitement of adventure and wonder. I want to constantly know what it feels like to scrape my leg on some thorns, or a branch, as i walk through a forest thinking about all of the possibilities that could take place between the trees. I want to continue to imagine and hold wonder in the palm of my hands. I want to never cease to use my imagination. I want to talk about how the clouds will always resemble castles to me, and i want to remember the first time i picked up a four-leaf clover, and remember the uniqueness and rarity they hold. I still want to be amazed when i look up at the night sky, the stars sparkling as they shine. I want adventure and wonder, amazement and my imagination to last through my high school diploma, as it has, and endure my college diplome, as i hope it will, and out last the terrors and tragedies of this world. 



This whole afternoon, these snippets of moments forever engraved in my mind, are unique and rare. 
These memories are four-leaf clovers. Forever cherished and special. 






















I read off of wikipedia that "it has been estimated that there are approximately 10,000 three-leaf clovers for every four-leaf clover."

Cari, you are one of the rare ones. You are a four-leaf clover.

Water Works Part 2

I sat across from you in that Taco Bell booth.
I could have hated it because it was honest, but I loved it because it was true.
Man did the Holy Spirit move.

Lookin back, that conversation could have never happend without the Lord breaking chains and breaking hearts, teaching us to love and teaching us to be real.
Lets not be afraid to speak.

As your tears fell, they washed away my fears.
My fears faded with the image of the boy you once were.
In a second I blinked and your dirty name had been erased.
Replaced, your new name sparkling white as snow.
You are no longer a boy.
You are living what dad taught us.

You told me, "You were so strong. Even with all that depression."
You told me, "I didn't want to know about it. But I knew."

We're learning that the rulers are broken. Rulers dont rule anymore. We are not measured by our past, remember that our past does not measure us. And only through God do we ever measure up.

Our stories are not so different, in fact, we share the same sins.
But,
We are living proof God is still in the business of redemption.

An Unholy Matrimony

And home is healing.
With its smell so familiar it could wrap you up in memories and never let you go.
With your footsteps on the floor you know you've been here before.

Home is hurting.
Wishing you could be back is the saddest part.
Hoping to run back in your parents arms when you're 700 miles away is like drowning out at sea and only wanting to be dry.

No chocolate on valentines day from dad.
No hug from mom when you've had a bad day.
No going over to your sister's when you just want to get away.
No dreaming with your brother in-law while sitting in the sun,
Later laughing at how absurd those stories really were, but also loving every moment.

Home is calling.
When all you can do is go from room to room in your head.
Walking around an antique store remember how you and mom did the same thing,
And for a moment thinking you'd see her when you turn the next corner.


Today feels like a prison, but hopefully tomorrow the bars will have been removed.
I always thought Tennessee was home and Texas was the place I wanted to get away from.
Turns out I was wrong.
Turns out I was right.

Home isn't a place, as cliché as this will be. (I think it's so cliché because it's true.)
But home is with the boxer in the backyard,
And the Ewok that licks too much,
The humid Christmas,
And the time spent on those green courts.

Home isn't a house, as hard as that was for me to learn. (Still learning.)
But the laughter that was unique to each person in it,
Along with the yells of the first name and the middle name that you so dreaded to hear,
It's sharing the bathroom with the 1/3 of me,
And giggling on my bed because she doesn't want to go to her own.

I thought this place was home because it's where nothing bad ever happened.
It's where I went every summer,
And the only place that had more kids than the street I grew up on, or maybe that was the memories,
Or maybe it was both.
It's the place that holds my grandparents,
And the place that holds the prettiest sunsets.
It's the place that holds the college I now go to. Maybe that's where I went wrong,
Not that going to college was the mistake, but that it breaks me.
Man does it break me. But man do I need it.
Breaking means mending and mending is healing.
I grow and I learn and its called living.

The alliance between me and this façade of a home could be detrimental.
The red string is wearing thin,
But today I'll mend it with duct tape.
And I'll remember that the key is remembering.
So I'll remember, I'll remember.

Milky Way Words

11-30-12

And I remember how the milky way was painted on your ceiling. Maybe that's when I first started falling love with the stars. 
Or maybe it was when I realized that when you look up, your looking into the past and maybe that makes me think that the past isn't ever really gone. That I never have to actually part with it. 
Maybe I fell in love with the stars when Renee told her audience to look up, to remember them, and to know that they are always there, even in the dirt and clouds. 
Maybe I fell in love with them when I realized that they help me have hope and healing like she so wisely put it.
Or maybe I wanted to be a part of something bigger, of something that would last, and that people could also fall in love with. 
Maybe I wanted you to fall in love with the stars with me.
Or maybe it was when I realized that Galileo fell in love with the same moon and stars I'm falling in love with and maybe that makes me love them more. 
I don't know every, or even very many scientific facts about the stars, our galaxy, but I do know I love them and that helps me remember that I don't have to know every detail or important fact or have some brilliant understanding of something to hold it dear, to love it with such compassion.
Stars help me remember that I'm alive, that though life is dark, parts still shine, and oh how they shine.

I remember how either you or I would always call at 9:01 because the minutes were free. 
Maybe that helped me fall in love with words said out loud and and the power they have. Though the minutes were free then, I feel like they're not free anymore. Minutes are more than moments, but we treat them like pennies left out in the rain. 
Or maybe it was when I heard my first spoken poet that my love for words manifested.
Never mind the origins, or whether the holes in my soles have anything to do with the holes in my soul. My love affair with words isn't really an affair, and my secrete love of stars isn't really a secret.
I'd rather enjoy spending an afternoon or many, pouring out my words and sharing them with you.
I'd so desperately want to watch the stars next to you and see if your eyes are a reflection of the galaxy.

Never mind the origins, or whether the holes in my soles have anything to do with the holes in my soul. My love affair with words isn't really an affair, and my secrete love of stars isn't really a secret.
I'd rather enjoy spending an afternoon or many, pouring out my words and sharing them with you.
I'd so desperately want to watch the stars next to you and see if your eyes are a reflection of the galaxy.

I suppose it could have been when I read sentences and paragraphs and books after books that words became more than letters carefully constructed together. 

14 Years

That house saw the pink camera slowly change to a red two door compact car. 

It saw license plates from many different states. 

It saw the dirty souls of our feet as we walked with haste across the threshold. 

That house held more tears than years, soaking and dripping through the floorboard and as the cracks in the walls grew the inches we were told to measure up to grew.

We tracked mud through the house as the memories stained the carpet. 

I carved moments into the walls hoping they wouldn't leave and yet after years they fade with the color of the outdated books mom uses as decoration. 

The chickens in the kitchen came and went but somehow always stayed. 

I moved rooms and my heart moved in me. 

The grout in the bathroom is molding like the stale bread in the pantry. But if you knew that house well enough, you'd know the bread didn't last long enough to get stale in the first place. 

The animals came and went but we always managed to have at least two dogs and a cat who spent more time outside than in, but who peed more times inside than out. 

The friends faded but the momentous have a way of hanging around in the corner of closets and on dusty bookshelves. 

I wrote and read. Spencer studied and cooked. Skyler rehearsed and rehearsed. Tucker came and went. Tanner was in the back yard or gone. Dad worked and slept. And mom loved and lived. 

14 years holds memories, childhoods, lives, loves. 

14 years holds the tears and fears, fights and nights. 

14 years holds laughter and jokes, sunny mornings full of birds chirping.

14 years holds mornings waking up to: "Rise and shine for the light has come! Isaiah 60:1" 

14 years holds regrets and lessons learned.

14 years holds coming to Christ again and again in front of the fireplace for me, and everywhere else for the rest of my family. 

14 years disintegrates walls and the foundation and replaces them with our memories. Our memories hold that house together. 

14 years holds too much to let go to in a poem, as if moving is so extraordinarily compelling to demand we let go at all. 

14 years holds the Anderson's longest home. The Anderson's longest home holds 14 years full of living.