Out of the Habit -- Five Minutes.

...This might be a record on the blogging dry spells... No further comment. :/

I wandered over to ye old Blogspot to write some deep, intellectually moving piece on how we see ourselves, where we think we've screwed up when others see us succeeding (and, let's be honest, vice versa). But A) it's been a loaded 24 hours of ministry work and I don't think my brain is up for that, and B) it's hard to get back into the hang of writing after 4 months of drought. (You may notice, this falls into the category of "further comment.")

Writing is habitual, as is, well, not writing. And of course I write emails and policy at work, but it's not the same. So in an effort to get back into the habit, I'm going to go hunt for something prompty to get my creative juices flowing.

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AHA! Cue Lisa-Jo Baker's Five Minute Friday community--thanks for the direction, Ruth! (I'm aware it's Saturday. If I'm four months late in blogging, I figure I can be 12 hours late to a fun bloggy party...) This week's word: present. Setting the timer now...


I don't know what I ever expected, sitting cross-legged in the vicinity of a Christmas tree, my 6-year old, 11-year-old, 17-year-old self somehow still hoping, far away past the cynicism and jadedness, that bright paper and cheap ribbon could contain some piece of what I'd lost at three. That even in the confusion of adolescence and the frustration of high school I thought I could find it, earn it, restore some part of myself that broke before I knew the word for it.

Between rolling eyes, deeper than the sigh of exasperation, ever-childlike fingers would wreck the present's perfection, and as the paper fell, the inevitable fall: it was only a -----. It never mattered what. It wasn't a brokenness mended, it wasn't presence, it wasn't him. Just a thing, too late, too wrong. It had been better, perhaps, unopened--a constant promise, a possibility.