He sits on rocks where before him is nothing, nothing but the drifting fog that has always veiled the highlands. His feet, bound in deerskin, dangle over the crag. As the eagle cries overhead, his old friend, he wraps his arms around himself and hunches deeper into his coat—the coat of feral goat’s hide, crafted by the lass’s calloused hands.

The lass. She knew this wilderness before he did. Yes, she knew first the treacherous crevices where an ankle could be snapped, the ravines where one could fall and screams be silenced. She knew first the herbs that grow thick in the valleys, the goats in the heights that give milk if captured and tamed. She knew first the eagle, circling far, far above.

He remembers the day she first knew him.

Fire propelled him upward, ever upward. No wind was stirring in the valleys that day, the air almost choking in its stillness as he climbed, his bare hands chapped and bleeding from grappling this root, that rock. When he passed through a pool that had collected in the hollows—its edges darkened by the purple-flowering heather—icy water spilled into his boots where the stitching had broken. But on he went, for the fire yet burned. 

As he journeyed higher into the heights, the air began to stir, like a growing whisper. His face and hands and feet were stiff from the cold, and the wind began to seep past the barrier that guarded the fire. He felt it flicker. He stumbled. 

It was then that the eagle cried for the first time, descending from the fog to show itself like a black demon long haunting a soul. As he paused to look up at this lonesome creature, as lonesome as himself, he felt the wind strengthen—and the fire flickered again. When next he stepped, his foot slipped, and he fell. Caught in brambles, thorns tearing his scarf, the fire within went out.

He lay still, drawing the air into his lungs, gazing up at a sky drifting with fog as if with a bride’s veil. And the eagle circled, circled. It was no demon, he knew, but a guardian. It cried one last time, then ascended to vanish again. 

The fire would not carry him to the heights, he knew. He was spent, frozen to the marrow, ready to sleep the endless sleep. And yet he could not close his eyes. Upward, Upward, he must continue upward. But how, when he had nothing left?

He remembered the morning when he had stood at the foot of the great highlands, knowing he must enter them, must become lost to find—but to find what, he had not known. Now, as he rolled onto his hands and knees and looked up into the fog, he realized it was not he who had chosen to enter this place. He had been called.

Deep calling upon deep. 

As darkness sank the milky light, he rose again, for it had never been the fire that had seen him this far, but what awaited him above.

He saw the light, smelled the smoke and the stew, before he saw the lass. Where the wilderness sought to consume all into itself, she had built a fortress to survive its hunger—a stone cottage, mottled by moss but straighter than any root in the highlands. Smoke curled into the night from the chimney rising from the thatch. Honey light escaped to him from the cracks in the shutters. And over a fire in the dooryard hung a cauldron, steaming with the fragrance of the deer’s flesh. 

He did not see her until he staggered forward and fell to his knees by the stones bordering the fire. He heard something other than the hiss and crackle of the flames; he heard the softest gasp—the life-breath of another, the life-breath he himself bore. He looked up. 

She stood in the space between the cottage and a slope that soared to the stars, gathering socks from a line into a basket woven from branches. She wore a coarsely woven dress. On her head was tied a handkerchief as red as the wild raspberry, revealing wisps of the acorn-brown hair hidden beneath. 

She did not speak to him as he struggled to his feet, this stranger from below. But her eyes indeed spoke. He heard the words that had echoed to him as he set out from the known into the unknown, as he journeyed from fire into cold, as he rose again for the sake of love. Yes, he knew this now, knew he had bled for love. And now love would mend his wounds.  

He buries his nose in the scarf binding his neck, its raspberry-red hue burning into his mind in the moment before he closes his eyes. It smells like her. His lass.

Many years he has now lived in the highlands, coming to know this place as well as she, but still—deep calls upon deep. The echo rings on through the heights and valleys of each other’s souls.

Amo te, amo te, amo te . . . 

Once again, I find myself on Prince Edward Island.

It’s surreal to be back. Everything is very familiar: the red dirt, the rolling countryside, the water, the people, as if I never left. And yet I feel that my memories are from a year ago, not merely two months past. Almost as if I never truly left, but somehow managed to misplace the memories from between then and now. Strange, yes?

I really don’t know what comes next . . . and I really don’t care that I don’t know, because I do know I am where I am meant to be, even if the world is a little foggy at the moment. Eventually the fog will lift and I will understand. Until then, it’s an adventure, a true adventure—risky but not reckless, as long as I remain connected to Christ. My lifeline is prayer; prayer is what keeps me from stumbling off the pathway to be lost in the fog.

Still, sometimes I wonder if I’m a little crazy. But then I think, No, right now I am called to be a wanderer, and if I decide to reject this calling, that would be crazy. Yes, what’s crazy is not to set off in the direction He points. Does He not, after all, know where every pathway leads?

I am in the highlands, staff in hand, satchel on my back, wind against my face, fire in my heart. I don’t know what awaits me above, but I climb. I will climb until there is nothing left in me. Only then, when I have bled for Love, will I find what I have been called to find.

Insignificance

to be saint

for Him

We are called to be fruitful, but also little. How can I do much good without much pomp?

Seeds. Seeds are little, very little, but have the power to transform the face of the earth (both literally and spiritually). I try to plant seeds as I feel called: I post a blog, I prepare a meal. Do my words speak to souls? Are my sacrifices in the kitchen appreciated? Oftentimes, I do not know and never will. Yes, I desire a forest to grow up by my toil—and a forest may well grow up—but it is likely I will never see it. Such does not mean I have not been fruitful; it simply means I, in the world’s eyes, am also blessedly insignificant.

But sometimes I do know. In those moments, I witness saplings push their way up from the soil I tilled and sowed and watered. I witness them reach for the sunlight, for heavenly things. But if I were to dwell on the saplings, I would cease to scatter seed, and my shadow would stunt the new growth. I must move on. For pomp would kill as surely as any blight would.

I like to say that a very selfless act is to plant an oak . . . because you will never live to see it in its glory, a hundred years from now. In truth, a young oak is quite scrawny, even ugly. But still you plant it. Why? Because you know that you, in your present insignificance, can begin something very significant indeed: fruit to come. You may never be acknowledged on this earth as the one who planted that awe-inspiring oak—yes, your name may be forgotten—but in Heaven your name will be remembered forever.

Because sainthood is the sowing done not for recognition, but for God. 

Loneliness

to be home

with Him

Yes, I have been blessed to call many places home . . . and yet something in me knows they are not home—I merely call them such, because they remind me of the place where my soul was born. They are like a letter from a beloved—it is something that brings his face to mind and heart, but he himself remains afar.

I am a stranger and a sojourner in this world, thrust onto a plane that humanity was not originally intended to walk, and my innate memory of Home will not let me forget this. I know I belong where the Lord and I may walk side by side, hand in hand. Here, I am alienated from His touch. Yes, I am lonely for what should be.

Sometimes, even when I return to the most familiar place on earth, the place where my family lives, I feel as if I am floating above reality, unable to truly absorb what I am touching, seeing, hearing. I want to to enter fully into reality, to appreciate fully every moment. But if I could, I know I would become attached to finite realities. Yes, we were created to live fully, but in our fallen state, life on earth is partial delights, partial dreams, partial existence.

But these partialities cannot end in misery. Even though our flesh may be dying, God desires that, within ourselves, we know life in abundance. He asks us to be drawn deeply into the partialities, into the beauty, truth, and goodness found in creation (be this the family farm or my family themselves), not because they will fulfill us, but because hidden within them we find their origin: Christ in His fullness.

Yes, there are moments when the loneliness lifts—just enough to warm an aching soul. And I realize, it isn’t about where I am, but who I’m with. Yes, I belong with Him . . .

Poverty 

to be crowned

by Him

We are all blind until we are poor.

I find the world is slipping through my fingers, like dust, as I lift my hands to Him. But I do not relinquish what is finite to remain with hands empty. I lift them to receive that which satisfies—because it never runs out. Pleasure can be found in the finite riches, it is true, but happiness ends when the riches are spent. Joy is always to be found in the infinite riches, which moth and decay cannot destroy.

Why do we cling to the world if we know what glory awaits us? Why do we remain oblivious to what (we must admit) is obvious? Do we believe it is safer in the dark? Indeed, do we fear what Love would demand of us to acknowledge and change? Go and sin no more. And yet, Love demands precisely because it wishes our true happiness—our joy.

We fear to change, because we find our sin comfortable—it demands nothing more than cowardly self-love. But if we were to change, to trust Love’s demands, we would realize we were not comfortable after all, for we were created for holiness, not sin. And holiness wears a crown, while sin wears shackles—shackles felt but not seen until poverty is embraced.

Only when shackles fall can we lift our hands to Him who cries to us: Ephphatha—be opened!

Insecurity

to be rooted

in Him

I am a writer. We artists are known to stand on shifting sands; one day it is feast, the next it is famine. Is it foolishness to pursue what we love, what we feel called to pour ourselves into, knowing we will rarely, if ever, be secure?

But what does secure mean? If it means to never find yourself desperately needing a miracle and thus never receiving one, to never know consolation made tremendously sweet by desolation, to foresee the future as clearly as if you’ve already lived it . . . I would rather continue being a leaf on the wind—but rooted in Divine Providence. Yes, if holding fast to that pencil, that brush, that guitar means not knowing how I shall eat tomorrow—but also that I will know euphoria at being saved, once again, by a thread . . . I will hold fast, in faith.

I am young, but I have seen wonders. I’ve been blessed to call many exquisitely beautiful places home, to call many golden people family, to find love where I would not have if the Lord had not opened doors. Yes, He had to open those doors, because I own no key (I could not afford a key to such realms). And if I did own a key, would I open the right doors? I know myself. I know I would shy from the threshold that is darkened by the unknown—not realizing that just beyond is a light-filled garden teeming with wonders.

Be it foolish in the world’s eyes, I hold fast to my pencil, because I know how Divine Providence has transformed my life. It has allowed me to live without the boundaries that permanence, comfort, and wealth impose. Insecurity has lifted my feet from the earth, that I may see from a vantage I never could have reached otherwise.

When I am insecure, I am free.

Insecurity

to be rooted

in Him

—

Poverty

to be crowned

by Him

—

Loneliness

to be home

with Him

—

Insignificance

to be saint

for Him

She was the most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen.

My sister, gowned in lace, flowers adorning her hair. My sister, tall and elegant, processing up the aisle. My sister, a princess being offer by the king and queen who gave her life, offered to the prince who would share in that life, protect it, cherish and nurture it. As the choir’s harmonies swelled in the high, medieval-like spaces with holy, holy, holy, and as we the witnesses looked on in wonder, I can describe Tianna as nothing other than radiant.

And as she and her beloved clasped each other’s hands and vowed their love, I feel that we were bound with them—a hem on a tapestry, called to support them by our indelible connection through the Body of Christ. Perhaps this, in part, is why such strength can be found in Christian marriages. A man and woman do not enter the Sacrament alone; an army rallies around them.

I imagine the heavenly armies were gathered before the altar there as well—to celebrate the victory of purity in the couple’s love. For I believe my sister radiated as she did because her soul was a window unsoiled, allowing the purest light to break through from Heaven onto this earth. I think it is a grace specially designed to be released in the Sacrament of marriage . . . but one that is too often hindered by a blackened window. If the world knew how sweet this grace was, it would not only cleanse its windows but throw them open to feel the warmth beyond.

Yes, I think what I will remember best from my sister’s wedding is the warmth—the warmth emanating from God’s very heart, made possible by the holy romance between a man and a woman. Yes, it was the the Divine descending through mere humanity. Such is the power of a Sacrament.

on fire

like I’ve never been

before

to be a spark

in the stubble

of fallen mankind

I desire this

O my God

—

what blazes within

let it escape

rage wild

where You will

ignite the sleepy hollows

scorch the vines that choke

drive every creature

to the brink

of Your life-giving waters

—

but more than to

consume with fire

I desire to be consumed

utterly

by Your love

nothing left of me

but You

On a morning cool with the impending fall, I bundled into a hoodie and set out down the lonely gravel road, the dogs and cats trailing behind me. I clutched the red crystal drops of a rosary in my right hand. I spoke the prayers aloud; I prayed the mysteries within.

It was not merely the pearl-gray sky, the dying cropland, that seized my heart with sorrow, for I was praying the sorrowful mysteries. I was reflecting on all I have given to the Lord thus far in my life—and I realized that my small heroic moments amount to nothing compared to what He gave me as He suffered agony among the olives, suffered beneath the lash, suffered the cruelest crown, suffered as He fell again and again beneath a cross that should have been mine, suffered as the blood flowed from His body as He hung naked before sinners.

I was struck by the raw truth that I have not given enough to my God. And I realized I am not called to give more to Him . . . I am called to give everything.

I don’t know what this will entail in my life. It may mean being far from those I love, perhaps even giving up those I love. It may mean being little, unrecognized, unappreciated. It may mean laboring in the vineyard without living to see the fruit. It may mean darkness. But I do know with certainty that it will mean boundless joy, deep-rooted peace, and ultimate fulfillment as I empty myself to be filled by Him.

Because with Christ, every cross leads to resurrection.