Reduse, Reuse, Recycle

Here is a post I found while looking back into my archives today.
I really like it so I will post it again here today.

"What Do Your Signs Say?"
Originally published on 3/25/2006

I found these signs during my snowshoe hike yesterday.
I have signs like these . . .
ironically placed in just the right spots to keep people (or even myself) from acessing and enjoying the most beautiful, stunning parts of my heart.
I have signs like these . . . destructively keeping me from entering real life.
Real beauty.
Real freedom.
Signs that cause me to stop short of running into the arms of my Savior.
Signs that cause me to look at Him and Life through binoculars.
Wondering, dreaming.
My faith and my salvation have given me abundance. Yet, I stay seated at the perimeter . . .
obeying these signs that keep me from diving in.
Looking at beauty from a distance but believing the signs that are there to keep me out.
Looking at beauty in the face and feeling forbiden to touch it.
Who taught us to erect these signs?
Whose idea was it to take us right up to the edge of real life and then say, "Don't touch!"
Our mothers?
The media?

Or perhaps it lies deeper within.
As if the result of Eve's "apple gone wrong" fiasco altered our very DNA.
As if from the moment we are born, we are inclined to engage life right up to the fences of the wild and the uncharted.
We will live and engage and play and explore . . .
as long as it is safe, and known, and guarenteed.

I don't want to look at pictures of beauty in magazines.
I don't want to read postcards about peace.

I want to run past the signs and the orange cones.

Don't give me decaf or splenda or reality TV.

I want the real thing
and I want to stand right in the bossom of it all
with head tilted high
and righteous fists raised
and glory dripping from my wide hips and oversized teeth
and say to the spinner of all lies . . .
the one who loves war and death and fashion from the 80's:

"This is mine! This is where I belong! My God sees me and knows me and likes me and loves me and He wants me right here! This is MY time and MY place and I will have peace and I will shout "NO!" to anxiety and I will shout "NO!" to being a whiny victim and I will no longer be a whore to depression & self-hatred and I will find kindness between the cobwebs of my cold, dank heart and then splash that stuff all over the place!
I will sing and dance and weep and shout
and write and cook and breast feed when the time comes
and wear pigtails & the color pink
and I will french kiss in public and talk to strangers if I want to
and go to the little kid's waterpark to ride the Lazy River beacause it brings me joy
and I will love my neighbors
and make love to my husband
and be made love to . . .
and don't you dare try to keep me out again, ass hole!"