the presence of still water.

there is nothing i can say or do to predict or prepare what is to come. the stirring in my gut, and the spinning in my head will not stop with answers or rest. i must let myself go. i must choose to lay arms stretched across tender, leaf laden ground. if i inhale, i must exhale. i am alive today to live fully alive. tomorrow there might be pain. yesterdays remind me that it exists, but today the water is still. i am a man. there were no heroes in my pain. i was not anything special in the midst of hardship and tragedy. i was me. i am me. even though my wife has to remind me of who i am, and that one day did not make me this way, i am me. changed, but the same me. i am free.




“When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.” -Wendell Berry

H O M E :: the-unforseen-wilderness

"And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our own feet, and learn to be at home." -Wendell Berry


I have found the longer I spend being in one place, moving forward and around, discovering the sensational nature I am apart of, I do not wrestle with wonder of where my life is going, but simply smile at where my life is.


The redwood forest is often a place of rescue. People come here holding onto their last thread of hope in something bigger, or better than their circumstances. They seek a shout, a verse, a mere whisper through the trees, telling them they belong to something more. The disillusionment of power players, leaders, and religious pillars have left their hope in God dangling by one last tendon, but their limb is not severed and there is hope. The recovery time begins in the first inhale of pure air from nature. A wonder settles into a sigh of rest. For some the redwood forest transforms them in an instant. For others it takes days, weeks, months, and sometimes years.


I know what it is to be rescued amongst these magnificent trees. The humus holds me as I rest in the knowing of God and the potential of his love known by all. Everyone is not a caretaker. It is a humble position and often forgotten. As I tend to this place where healing happens, I hope the healing is remembered and the maker of the redwoods is taken away in the souls of those who come and go. As the season approaches when many will come and experience this place, I walk gently, whispering the names I know, asking for the forest to be a God reveal, and healer. The bees are buzzing early this year. Poppies blast orange of the sun against the sandstone hillsides. New redwood greens dance in the spring breeze. Deer nuzzle their noses against fields of clover, enjoying their sweet nectar. It is a season of new. Nature is always ready to receive those who come. It was created by God to be his gift to all who come away. This is my home. All are welcome here for a stay.

R E N E W E D :: Time to Dance

"By reading scripture I am so renewed that all nature seems renewed around me and with me. The sky seems to be a pure, cooler blue, the trees a deeper green. The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet." Thomas Merton

B E L O N G :: Dancing With Wildflowers

I choose to not dream of "what ifs" but of actual possibilities.

Living with the knowledge and understanding that my life is twined together with others, helps me dream real and completely conscious. As friends develop and change, I desire them to grow. I hope and pray they are brave enough to belong first to their creator. That is where lasting growth and healthy belonging begins. 

When we distort the creators character, we change our perception of pure love. We become similar to a bee trapped under a cup turned upside down. Our attempts to be free are fleeting and abruptly halted, slamming against the ceiling. Only when we choose to exist in the pure love offered at the beginning, will we become a bee, dancing with wildflowers. I dream of being fully free, belonging because I am living how the creator intended me to live.

I believe a lot of people live their whole life under a cup turned upside down. Their desire to belong has become skewed, and distorted. They are looking slightly bent at their surroundings, making their horizontal focus more important than their vertical understanding. The longer they find belonging within their surrounding social meter without a truer, and clearer connection to the creators pure love, they come to settle for a secondary belonging. Their dreams become "what ifs" rather than actual possibilities.

When we belong first and wholly to our creator, the expanse of belonging is uncontainable. Belong to your creator because you were designed to be his. Belonging is not an action or pursuit, it is an acceptance of pure love, intended for you since the beginning.

Dance with the wildflowers in the breeze. Belong.