here i am

here i am
one of those sleepless nights
where your mind keeps wandering through and through
sometimes nonsense
and sometimes through deep reflection
i just had a revelation tonight
spoken through the word
and here i am
wondering about something else
but mostly about the intimacy and closeness
of relationship.
its one of those things-
like having a garden or owning a pet
if there's no care or love or attention,
it will surely die.

lately, i've become an expert at reviving orchids.
i own about 5 at the moment. 1 that i resuscitated back to life and is budding new flowers, 2 that are dead and are being tended to, and 2 that are still in full bloom.
they are all sort of rotating in seasons and i've been watching them day after day, talking to my plants and giving them attention.

and with these relationships, i think, i see, and i feel the same way...
i'm watching some die 
and don't feel i have to be investing myself as much anymore
is this what life is
people just getting too busy to tend to things that once mattered?
or does new relationships replace old ones
and old relationships are just thought of as being season-less, or 'in bloom'
whether you are there or not-
because memories really do last a lifetime?
or is it just me that is unsure that what we had may be no more

here i am
where are you

ten shekels and a shirt by paris reidhead

Two young Moravians heard of an island in the West Indies where an atheist British owner had 2000 to 3000 slaves. And the owner had said, "No preacher, no clergyman, will ever stay on this island. If he’s shipwrecked we’ll keep him in a separate house until he has to leave; but he’s never going to talk to any of us about God. I’m through with all that nonsense." Three thousand slaves from the jungles of Africa brought to an island in the Atlantic and there to live and die without hearing of Christ.

Two young Moravians heard about it. They sold themselves to the British planter and used the money they received from their sale, for he paid no more than he would for any slave, to pay their passage out to his island for he wouldn’t even transport them. As the ship left its pier in the river at Hamburg and was going out into the North Sea, carried with the tide, the Moravians had come from Herrenhut to see these two lads off, in their early twenties. Never to return again, for this wasn’t a four year term; they sold themselves into life-time slavery. Simply that as slaves, they could be Christians where these others were. The families were there weeping, for they knew they would never see them again. And they wondered why they were going and questioned the wisdom of it. As the gap widened and the housings had been cast off and were being curled up there on the pier, and the young boys saw the widening gap, one lad with his arm linked through the arm of his fellow, raised his hand and shouted across the gap the last words that were heard from them, they were these: "MAY THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN, RECEIVE THE REWARD OF HIS SUFFERING!" This became the call of Moravian missions. And this is the only reason for being, That the Lamb that was slain, may receive the reward of His suffering.

Wheeling, West Virginia

monkeyknifefight

good ol days

pretty phillip lim