the in-between

Now is my favorite time, the in-between. It's not morning, because the sun isn't up, but it isn't really night, because it's morning.

Everything is sleepy and dreamy and quiet. The music is always especially good, and so is the lamp light and my fat chair. The folded down pages of my favorite books mean more, and so do the lyrics to the songs I set on replay.

I'm alone, but in the best way. My roommate and her dog sleep. The houses, and the people in the houses, and the cars sleep. I'm not really alone though, because I know that many of you love the in-between too. And you're reading, and listening to your songs, and sitting in your own lamp light, and being "alone" in the sleepy, dreamy quiet too.

"And in that moment, I swear we were infinite"

I could stay up all night, every night just to sit in the in-between, at least until the sky starts to turn gray. I could listen to all of the songs on my hardwood floors and rainy days play list, or maybe my ladies and guitars play list, and I could reread my favorite books, or write a book, or look at old pictures I keep under my bed. I tucked my feet beneath me, and read a psalms. I wrote some scratchy lines that no one will ever be able decipher on some paper, and considered it a prayer. I imagined the great things in my life to happen, and considered how I'd get to Switzerland one day, and felt peace considering it. Peace, if I didn't mention it, that comes with the sleepy, quiet in-between too, and it's the best part. It's not always there, because some in-betweens can be hard, but you're more likely to find peace in the in-between then you are in the bustle and the lights of the afternoon or the alarm clock screaming morning. At least, that's true for me.

Tonight, my favorite song is "silhouettes" by the careful ones, or maybe "slow dance on broken glass."

Something will happen. Because something always happens in the in-between. It's like the rules of life and science and whatever else are allowed to break. All of the potential is in the air for something to change, or to spark, or to rotate, I don't know how to say it better, there's just a delicate something in the air in the in-between, and if you stay up long enough, you'll get to feel it, or maybe breathe it in. I guess you can think of it kind of like a waking dream, I'm not sure I know what that means, but it sounds pretty right.

I guess it doesn't sound like much, but in the morning, I feel so sure that everything happened in the in-between. The clock ticked so slowly that I felt time move, and I got to live in it. I spent it hoping and living, and waiting for the great things to happen, like they so often do. The houses, and the people in their houses, and the cars were all sleeping, and I spent it trying to be apart of the something bigger, and if you live in the in-between like I do, you know what I mean.

I thought and became and loved. And those "things" really matter.

The Thin Girls

She was beautiful.

Her cheeks were sunken in, and her arms and legs were so thin she looked easy to break. She weighed nothing, and yet, somehow, she was filling the room. Her eyes were gentle and soft, and when she spoke of Christ, you could see the love pouring from her small, angular face.

She weighs nothing because she can't eat. She can't eat because she is bound by the same thing that all the other thin girls are bound by.

These are the girls I see once a week. Girls who throw away their fears, insecurities, pasts, tears, and anger with the pounds. The scale doesn't weigh the bone, and skin, and fat; it weighs their beauty, it weights their worth.

These are the girls we have made.

They all once had round, happy faces. They once played on the swing set, and painted butterflies with their fingers. They giggled when little boys walked by, and they whispered secrets in-between teacher chatter. They wanted to be princesses, they wanted to fall in love, they wanted to be safe, they wanted the world to be like the one they imagined it'd be. And it wasn't.

They grew up believing that beauty was more important. That their bodies were more important. That their hearts were little to be considered. And at some point, they began to hear the commercials and conversations and comments thrown in their direction. And their eyes opened to their jean's size, and that number on the scale. And once they saw, they couldn't forget.

"You're not thin enough, good enough, pretty enough, sexy enough, worth enough." That's what we're telling them. "Be better, work harder, be more disciplined, set standards, be prettier, be thinner, be better, be better, be better."

And it's so cheap, so empty, and incredibly misleading.

"Be braver, be stronger, be louder, be brighter, be more and more and more of who you already are." That's what we should be telling them. Throw away that damn scale. "Eat the damn cookie," as one of the girls said. And enjoy the life you have been given, and do it knowing that you are incredibly, incredibly beautiful.

I'm constantly blessed and humbled by them. That despite the incredible struggles, they are so brave and strong. And I am absolutely amazed by the little mountains I've seen them overcome.

I guess, I felt strong enough for them to write these few words. Our ideas of beauty is cheap, you guys. God's however, are not. Maybe we should get more acquainted with God's mirror, and less with ours. Because ours is ruining a lot of lives.