fighting gravity.

[gallery link="file" columns="5"] Our words, breath within us, hang heavy holding all reality the day can contain.  We speak.  It is so and it will be.  It being reality, our activity and transitioning possibility.  All hinged upon our words spoken and planted in our lives.  Fruit of our words sprouting from heart.  Make no small mistake, we are not Creator.  We are architects reading the plans and blue prints, the details of how to put together pieces trusting the plan and scheme makes sense.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits. (Proverbs 18:21, ESV)

Our lives agree with our speech, the very words spoken from our heart both out loud and public and whispering within.  We agree.  We confess and so we become.  The authority of our words shapes life.  Once believing unreservedly, wildly and free, our dreams and expectations soared to no ceiling.  The vocabulary of heroes not tied down this small over-earthed life.  As child, we could fly.  Now adult, it is easier to walk.  And so do our dreams and speech.  Life does give way to responsibility in the time between child and adult, but the words do not need changing.  They must not.  Or they must be found and rediscovered.

As a parent, I am building the infrastructure within the hearts of my daughters.  So crucial are the words I try to protect and plant.  They are fighting gravity.  We all are, really.  Speak responsively reacting to what we see or release words that we know to be true.  That is the fight against gravity.  We bruise and spill and break forgetting words that stretch us out beyond the surface of life small and calculable.  Our words shrink and so does our heart.  And so does our day.

Emily is an artist.  She’s seven years old now and always has been from the first moment a crayon lifted within her hand creating out of her heart on paper.  It is beautiful.  Her hands move freely to the size of her heart and words.  When I ask if she can draw a particular thing a simple reply reveals it.  “Sure.”  Emily will be an artist as long as she wants to be.  When lines created by her hand look crooked and imperfect and when she no longer thinks so, gravity will be pulling heavy.  Whether or not Emily continues to be an artist is not what I’m fighting for.  The choice of her words and the fact that she believes them for anything in her life both now and forever is.

We are all artists once believing hidden beneath the rubble of life piled high.  We forget when we bruise dismissing words dripping life only as stuff of children and toys.  Let our words hold life that rightly defy the gravity of smaller.

exactly where I put it.

[gallery link="file" columns="5"] Endings.  Life all about endings and completion in the form of accomplishment and achievement.  Hours yielded to those and things not owning our lives, but we give it, our lives and how we live it, to that which is fleeting and temporal.  No end in sight, but a brighter, happier horizon told to be somewhere out there if we just keep giving to that which can never give back lasting or missed moments or happiness.  Then you wake up one day a stranger in your own life, unknown to those and that which is lasting and forever.

Pictures must be evidence of life lived and moments shared connecting not merely observed.  The form and shape and life filling every frame, I want to know them, give to it and forever be connected, not simply associated.  It matters.  Life is passing and will not stop but we control flow and speed of time moving.

I work in a very corporate world which is good and not evil, but will take as much and sometimes more than you give.  A friend offered me a job a while back.  In every way better, but one which I didn’t notice initially.  Pay was substantial.  Potential was unreal.  “In ten years, if everything works like I’m planning, I’ll be set financially.”  That sounded amazing.  Who doesn’t want promising potential that is very real such as what my friend is banking on?!  But.  There is always a cost.  No shortcuts lead rightly to happiness and fulfillment.  The but, the hours and commitment required.  Longer hours.  Much, much longer than the day burns bright and warm.  Always available.  The but and true cost to the potential of great reward and a set future which is never really set no matter how hard we try or how much our brow pours out, time.  It would have owned me as I gave for what I affirmed as the greater good.  An ending and glowing completion in the form of accomplishment and achievement, status and success.

So where does the time go?

Lost in shuffling feet and looking eyes searching for brighter day, time is given and discarded.  The beauty of aging in my daughters’ eyes, the sound of unhinged laughter disconnected from circumstance, their unknowing still and needing always, the intimacy of being wanting to be held still, sleepy mornings rushing for school, ballet, basketball, the park, bicycles, hiking, crayon drawings, family cook night, date nights ...all, and so much more, given for what doesn’t love back and only leaves.  There is one ending trumping all and for me, it will be three in the form of hands holding, open to receive and give love.  Time never meant to be master, but we bow.  Time to us given as a gift to make beauty lasting in the space allowed us.

‘Wake up today,’ ringing in my ears.  ‘Be alive right here,’ beating in my heart.

One day you will wake up and notice life grown and mature all around you.  On that morning, may our hearts be full and time a friend and may memories of days behind lived as fully as we could in the time allowed warm us.  I want to know my daughters and them know me better.  My biggest regret would be for time to distance us because I gave too much room for what never really mattered in the first place.

So where does the time go? Exactly where I put it.

help make a movie::the father effect

John is a giant of a friend of mine.  He is living a dream, making a movie, chasing God-given purpose and needs YOUR help.  Watch the film trailer below and allow yourself the room to get caught up in his story.  It will change people, possibly even a whole generation and a culture.  That's his aim.  He needs you.  You need this movie to be made. Me and the girls lined up in support.  We're committing at least $500.

@johnpfinch || theperfectfather.org || Kickstarter - The Father Effect

What should you do?

1. Go to the Kickstarter page
2. GIVE
3. Tell your friends and followers ...and help make a movie.

saving a little girl.

[gallery link="file" columns="5"] We are a family of four.  One dad, me.  Three daughters, them.  Four of us together learning life again.  The beauty peeking in every one of their eyeful glances and playful smiles strengthens me and opens my eyes to see.  They are leaning on a man to show them how to be women.  It is more appropriate than I ever imagined.  In many treacherous ways, it is harder to become a woman than it is to be a man.

A study found that on average, women have 13 negative body thoughts per day and that 97 percent of women in the study admitted to having at least one “I hate my body” moment daily. 80% of women who answered a People magazine survey responded that images of women on television and in the movies make them feel insecure. In one study, three out of four women stated that they were overweight although only one out of four actually were. Some of the pictures of the models in magazines do not really exist. The pictures are computer modified compilations of different body parts. One half of 4th grade girls are on a diet. 95% of individuals who diet as opposed to those who follow a healthy food plan will gain their lost weight back in one to five years. 81% of ten year old girls are afraid of being fat. A study found that adolescent girls were more fearful of gaining weight, than getting cancer, nuclear war or losing their parents. When preschoolers were offered dolls identical in every respect except weight, they preferred the thin doll nine out of ten times.

There it is.  That thing robbing happiness and fullness with ease and with little fight.  Everyone just gives in and maybe enables thieving hands to pull long and reshape lasting what little girls see with innocent, bruised eyes.  The sun only shines on thin.  Smiles made to effortlessly open the heart and bear the soul to broad possibility wear loosely intent on bowing always to generated images of people that never existed.  It is oppressive, servitude hanging the price of freedom in happiness on a sliding scale forever sloped unreachable.  It is tainting the divine.  Every eye, ear and nose, a content stroke of the creator’s hand.  Beauty skin deep, surface holding, mutes love true and absolute, actual gorgeousness of individual.  Shapes and sizes, height and weight, blemish, curves and lines, all beholding and unveiling beauty in individuality.  No two alike.  Neither should they ever be.  Every one holding beauty deep and divine.

The disease feeding on socially acceptable, preying on innocent while little hearts still warm in the nest.  Wings forming strong maimed as they stretch to embrace life before flight.  Cut all the same length.  The world is flat again.

As a single father of three little girls quickly approaching double-digit age, this breaks my heart and overwhelms and intimidates me.  Tears welled up as images of my little girls innocent and free moved through my thoughts.  I can only run in panicked circles warding off these thieves.  But that will buy little time.  The windows will break, glass will shatter and they will come in uninvited and despised.  They are coming.  I am waiting.  Images manufactured precisely.  Idols all empty little hearts aspire to please.  Models that don’t exist.  Women that don’t fit.  Empty little hearts always wanting to be filled hungry just to be held as they are, where they are, how they are.

My little women, do they feel the weight?  More frightening even, do they identify the wrong as right?  Are their little knees still scuffed with dirt and sweat fading too fast giving way to a thieving normalcy, a must achievable mold they must fit into?

Someone needs to yell something different, look into their eyes beholding and everyday grab that disease thieving by the throat, crush it underfoot and open the door to beauty actual.  Let the lies swarm and pick and invade.  I am the destroyer of deceitful beauty, treading heavy footed on every lie making room for itself in their filling little hearts.

Reading through this information my heart caught flame with fear and resolve.  Acceptable images of how women are said to be but were never intended to be or should be influencing all watching, capturing the attention of those needing to be caught.  It is not right.

How do you undo an empire but by one brick at a time?

I have three.  They will be loosed with the continual help of the one divine.

a shadow.

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He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. Psalm 91:1

"The nights are loneliest."

Standing there in a room of his most loved, he was all alone.  So was I.  I found myself connected to more than words, to the disconnect and fear floating in his eyes.  The years stacked neatly for them.  They were happy.  I could tell by the way he spoke.  The papers that I had for him to sign seemed so insignificant.  His words rang familiar.  She was not yet gone, but close.  Death ready to come and it needed to happen.  She had suffered and battled with disease long enough.  He was waiting as she was letting go.  I had to reel him in out of the sacredness waiting with her, his love, to leave to discuss her end of life care.  He signed the hospice papers, looked long into my eyes and thanked me genuinely.  I heal a bit more every time.  Much like a victim, a survivor, the one remaining shell shocked and moving slower than life surrounding, I watched as he stood tall by her side.  He knew that the path ahead would be trying.  So did I.  It’s the one I’ve been walking.

They all forget.  The next day just happens as the ones before and the ones following.  What's worse is the thought of them remembering at the sight of you.  A walking tragedy, polarized.  The one left to tell of perseverance and the found silver lining.  Most days, especially close to the interruption, you fake it hiding in a facade of strength and learned living.  You get lost in the day. I still forget even now.  Lapses of time, circumstance and reality erase death in fast fleeting moments.  I forget I'm a widower.  I forget I'm alone.  Until night comes and busyness fades with the day.  Then I remember again very well the cause for all this commotion, this upheaval of life.  Disruption.  No one likes to be stopped mid-conversation with words still left to say.  Interrupted and the words left just hanging with no place to land.

There you go.  That's the prickly heart of the matter.  Life interrupted.  Left hanging, suspended and final.

Loneliness is lost.  Deeper than companionship so sweet and identifying is the wandering afterward.  I wander as I wonder.  What of life now?  This dark interlude.  Does it give way to something better?  Some place happier?  Will life again ever resemble the day lost?  Should it?

I am convinced ever so deeply that it will, but when, where, what and how, require trust and faith that is, in spots, thin.

This is nothing new.  I've been lonely since the moment she left.  Many steps through treacherous impasses have made me more honest and bare.  Being honest about being lonely feels good to me signaling stability and security.  Admitting to loneliness for me is saying that I do not know the way, I am searching for place to rest, I need people close to me more now.  I am more vulnerable.  I am weaker.  All signs of greater strength of lasting, guiding value.

Being lonely has never meant being desperate for companionship.  That will come just as soon as it again makes sense, and it will, but that is eternally secondary to finding my way now and discovering purpose in loneliness.  In loneliness, I find great strength.  In solitude, I find solidarity that I've not known before.  Because I need it, it is there.  Companionship with God.  The Author of life littering my path with his graces leading to shelter.  Covering me in storms. Finding me in fog.  Stabilizing me in turbulence.  Allowing me to hide when I need and breathe when I cannot.

A real God finding me amidst real wrong in real life.  This is good and unique.  Dare I even think it, a blessing.

My prayer is that I always remember the bountifulness of these lonely nights leading me to stronger shelter.  One day, probably sooner than later, life will be settled wondrously and clean.  Fuller.  In that goodness, apart from this loneliness, may I always remember this couch, the silence, the distance and the ringing of questions.  For these are the beams of his shelter in which I dwell.

surrender.

[gallery link="file" columns="5"] No matter how well you put it together.  The height of the work of your hands, the weight, significance and value, the pride of day and sweat of your brow... accomplishment, possession, power... nothing is as meaningful as opening your hands.  Letting go of what you cherish.  Feeling the wind move through fingers once clinched in defiance and desperation holding white knuckled strong to rust and rot.  It all goes away.  I mistake moments and memories as forever.  I hold tight and run in circles chasing moments fleeing.  The moments don’t matter.

Sunlight turns the page of a new day.  Its warmth wakes the day, ushers in change as beams of light flood and fill, search and kill the silence and cool of night when memories are awake and moments live forever.  I feel asleep in yesterday.  The ease of then invites sleep.  Some days I do not make it past morning.  Waking to a new day is just too uncomfortable.  I go back to bed before noon just going through the rest of my day in motions.  I am indifferent.  I am defiant.  In protest.  I want today and long for tomorrow but I put a heavy foot in yesterday because it’s easier and I know who I am or who I was then.  Rotting.  Rusting.  I don’t want to be there.  Knowing where else to be, now, is foreign.

Foreign.  Free.  It comes at a cost.  Yesterday.

Bury your broken heart into the dirt of today.  Every day.  Surrender.  Lose to the current swiftly running foaming grace and mercy and finding.  Let go of breaking branches.  Sink deeply into love today while adoring the beauty behind.

Little eyes are waiting, watching and wanting.

Today’s heaviness relents to the reminder of surrender and the release of all my hands try to hold onto.


'...
but joy comes with the morning.' Psalm 30:5, ESV

FEAR and the sinking.

[gallery link="file" columns="5"] FEAR: The best behind me. FEAR: Life will always be this way, shadowed in loss. FEAR: My daughters always wounded learn to survive, emotionally maimed. FEAR: All goodness is fleeting and happiness constantly reframing. FEAR: Love past will suffice. FEAR: I will not be enough. FEAR: These fears and more will condition me to loss, shrink me to small, shell me.

I am dangerously holding disappearing beneath wave’s surface foaming tossing and beating losing and dreaming eyes that uncover the hand folding the lights bright blinking

I am afraid of the door closing fading in the sound creaking bending and bowing seeping and hoping my hand warm on the knob turning yesterday leaving

Then he asked them, “Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?”

The wind no more.  The waves still and inanimate reflecting sun as glass.  Their feet still soaked.  Hearts still pounding.  Breaths still drawing deep and out of rhythm.  His eyes disturbingly calm as if nothing ever did happen giving little value to the panic of moments before.  He’s wet, too.  And he gets it, the moment before.  His eyes so calm and seemingly disconnected did see waves and squint in howling wind, but they saw something else.  Now.  Afterward even then.

‘Why are you afraid’ invites us out of wind and wave and panic and dread and finish and into his moment standing now.  Afterward even then.

Staring at the day wondering when it will release, waiting for things and people and love to all make sense again.  To be well fit for the life so bright just right there at my doorstep, but tripping over toys and clothes and books and dreams while trying to open the door.  That is grief.  Excusing yesterday and wishing it well.  Embracing now and forthcoming holding it so tight and familiar.  Wanting so badly for that to be now.  But that is not rescue or reason.  That is reward.

So what, then?  Faith.  Have you none still?

These are my fears minus a few howling throughout the day darkening my sight, damning tomorrow in the tumult now.  These are the things that must be let go if I am going to do more than write and hope for tomorrow.

There are things now maybe ruined by my hand not letting go of fear my eyes gazing into the storm giving reality to what ifs and hope nots.  Fear becomes us when we just cannot, will not let go and when we run around in panic that the settling of how things now will apparently always be.  Fear became me and changed me altering words and sight.  The disease of losing is fear not loss.  Loss is the lasting reality left in the wake of fear.

Grief is faith.  It is releasing what can no longer be had and opening to newness in time.  To trust his eyes standing there right in front of me.  He’s wet, too, dripping with the moment we are both in together.  And all of him, the eyes calm, him stained constant with the moment whispers comfortably, ‘Why are you afraid?’

FEAR is a thief with pockets full of surrender. ASSURANCE: II Tim 1:7; Mark 4:40