Author: Amie

Is God A Painter?

| Amie

Is God a painter

Or a royal judge?

Does he frown on our foolishness

Or does he allow his laughter to rung?

Is God an artist

Or is he a lawman?

Is God a creator

Or is he doorman?

Does the artist soul belong to his King

Or does God prefer the judicial scene?

Do the greek muses reflect some of his deity

Or is God silent, refusing rejoicing?

Is God a writer

Winding stories together?

Is God a realist

Forgetting the beauty we claim he created

Or does God bathe in uniqueness

That he himself has dated?

Is God more than we imagine,

A painter, creator,

A battle torn warrior

A writer, a singer

A majestic majesty producer?

Is God a lawyer

His book of order to use

Or is God a painter

Beauty in the world to infuse?

Does God frown as we create

Or does our paintings allow us a view at heaven’s gates?

Good for You

| Amie

Good for you, you broke my soul

Every moment moving towards your goal

Killing the human squirming inside

All for you inevitable design.

Good for you, you’ve hurt my life

Broken my trust more than twice

Watched me shrivel before your eyes

Yet you’ve never changed your approach.

Good for you, you rule over me

Breaking my spirit for eternity

Drowning every moment when you can’t see

You continue to order what happens inside of me.

Good for you, I can please you

Hiding while I do everything and continue

To die alone behind the scenes

Meeting all of your many needs.

Good for you, spend your hours being holy

Because of you I can barely finish a prayer

My religion shattered before my very eyes

Please tell me this all ends in time.

Good for you, the equation works

Keep tearing others and letting them curse

The actions you make and the decisions you take

Leaving pain in your wake.

Good for you, when are you going to realize

It’s so hard for us to love you?

Good for you, when will you see

The reason each one of us are dying?

Good for you, stay in your little world

The future is yet untold

Let us go and we’ll change

The world to something you can’t recognize

And we’ll just smile and say

Good for you.

We’ll See

| Amie

Not going to lie to you, adulting is hard.

And it think it’s hardest because I’m not an adult yet. I’m still a child, but I’ve been forced to grow up sooner than anyone else. Legally, I’m a minor. Physically, I’m a child. Mentally, I’ve been an adult since I was ten. And now I’m even living a somewhat adult life.

What defines an adult life?

Waking up and knowing you have to make breakfast. Knowing that your to-do list is longer than you want to believe, and everything on there has someone relying on you.

Blogging took the back burner as I’ve started working way more than I ever have in my life. I’m beyond thankful for the opportunity, and for the people that I work with, but it has been hard. Exhaustion is a real thing, it’s not something that only comes from depression. It actually comes from being happy.

I don’t want to say I’m done with this blog. It would be like forcing closed a chapter that I’m not sure if it’s ready to be closed.

But I do know that blogging isn’t my top priority, or the thing I wake up to in the morning and feel as if it must be done.

So here I am, unsure how to continue.

It’s been so quiet for so long in the comment section, that half of me doesn’t believe anyone reads these posts to begin with. So we’ll see.

We’ll see how often I post, and if I post at all. We’ll see what the Lord puts on my heart and where he asks me to share it.

We’ll just see.

~~Amie~~

Poetry: The Dead Art

| Amie

I was sitting at a table with my peers, about to eat my lunch when I realized how far America has fallen.

Perhaps that’s a bit dramatic, but let me explain. I was sitting there, minding my own business and being a fly on the wall, per usual, when one of them brought up the question of teaching poetry in school. Of course, everyone stated their opinion and I was appalled.

At a table of ten teenagers, only one (me!) thought poetry was important.

In fact, the rest of the nine said that poetry is stupid and has absolutely no reason to it.

Now, why does that bother me, besides the fact that I wrote a published a poetry book? Let me take you back just a little bit over 100 years ago to the year 1917. America had just joined WWI, and tons of men were being shipped over the sea to fight.

Do you know what those men did once they came back?

Many of them became poets. An Englishman became one of the best known Christian writers of that century, another created a world with it’s own language.

Why do I bring this up?

Poetry is a way of expression. Emily Dickenson wrote once “This is my letter to the world that never wrote me.” People don’t understand poetry because people don’t understand themselves and others anymore. They don’t understand the emotions that shimmer in the artist’s breasts, because instead we’ve been told that we’ll be given whatever we ask. We’ve been told to admire those who are tasked with feats of strength and valor instead of the artist who pens words that revolve around the mind that belongs to the athlete.

Poetry elevates the soul. Edgar Allen Poe wrote, “To elevate the soul, poetry is necessary.” There is something in poetry that is prestigious, and you have to reach above your comfort to find the elevation of the soul that is necessary for growth.

Poetry is a way to communicate with God. David himself wrote poems as prayers, and we have a whole history of humans who translated their prayers into poems that have become hymns today. Poetry is a communication with another realm, and ability to write things that you feel but can’t say in prose. It’s a minuet minute where you can bare your soul with the protection of not being taken 100% seriously.

Poetry is an art, it’s the art of communicating with the soul, and yet, this day and age we find the soul unimportant and the art as dead. There is no need to touch the soul with poetry, to take the time to read without noise, to hear without our ears, to see with nothing but ink and paper.

I have no good conclusion for this post, it’s more of a ramble from my soul. But what do you think about poetry? Is it dead or lost or is it thriving?

~~Amie~~

When Spring Comes, Where Does My Sadness Go?

| Amie

The drip, drip, drip of the rain fills my brain

But the release of the air scatters the rain

The flowers glisten and glossem before they blossom

The bees trace the trails that have been laid before

My heart follows the robin on it’s journey far

But I’m still and I’m still me

The problem is that its spring.

The blue of the sky that is painted

Matches the blue of my serene mood

I spin and I spin taking it in as if it were food

And the silence is noisy in all of it’s glory

But I still have an empty feeling inside.

Though a cotton tailed rabbit chases it away

The laugher of a child and the smile of the wind

Changes my soul from within.

Moments pass, and I look around

Wondering at the crazy sounds

When spring comes in all of it’s glory,

When March brings her flurry,

Where does my sadness go?

No. . .

| Amie

I’m afraid of no.

I’m afraid of the power it holds over me. It’s a sword to wield, something that glistens when the light hits it. But when it is hidden, it isn’t seen, simply felt. I don’t know how to use it, this powerful word. I don’t understand the impact it has on me, yet not on the rest of the world.

No is a rejection, a refusal, a rebuttal. No is a sucker punch that steals my breath and rams my chest. No is a force that cannot yet be seen. No is something I can’t handle.

I skirt around it’s corners, chasing things but never committing, because all along my fear pins me in place. I am a butterfly on a cork board, a dream stuck in a dream catcher. A spider has woven me a cocoon, and yet it hasn’t protected me from the knife that stabs my ribs.

No.

I try to use this power on others, waving it to and fro, but instead of intimidating, I injure myself in their stead. My enemies smirk when I try to stand and hold. My family simply shakes their heads because I simply cannot say no.

I wound myself in the place of others. My chest tightens and expands, waiting for the word to come. Sometimes it is hidden in a rejection, the words flowery and sweet. Sometimes it is a flat denial, slicing butterfly wings.

Regardless of what form it comes, it always does the same thing. It clutters up my mind and destroys what I want to be.

I’m afraid of no.

Those nasty two letters. I’m afraid of something I can’t control, the words that no one stutters. But I shouldn’t fear the boundaries others put in place. I shouldn’t fear being told there isn’t room on their plate.

The problem is that I don’t understand why when those words come from my mouth, they don’t mean no?

No sometimes is not honored if respect isn’t in place. No isn’t honored, and so I’ve accepted my fate. I pick up a foot and smile at the crowd. But instead my heart drums one single sound.

No.

I’m afraid of no.

~~Amie~~

Let Me

| Amie

My heart is heavy as I watch the lights reflect off the road.

My eyes are tired as the moments grow old.

My reflection is a mirage, keeping secrets untold

Minutes flick by on an old radio.

Sickly sweet perfume lick at my feet

People keep talking as I retreat

Leave me now, let me entreat

The words that float towards me in a sea.

Weight on my shoulders pins my head to the ground

Every whisper mounts as the world grows loud

Groaning that tugs at my fragile heartbeat’s beat

Let me fall, let me fail, let me be me.

Coffee Chats w/Amie (e.1)

| Amie

*lights the scented candle in the middle of the table and sets a coffee mug in front of you*

Today we’re starting a series on this blog, and I’m calling them Coffee Chats with Amie, where I share my heart, and hopefully impact yours at the same time. Today the weather is awful, so I’m so glad you came anyway. There’s tea and hot cocoa in the back, in case you’re not a coffee drinker. So make yourself comfortable.

If you follow me on all social medias, you know I’ve been inactive a lot lately, and if that’s concerned you, thank you. No need to bother your little head over me, but I appreciate it more than you know. Life is a strange thing. Sometimes you feel the need for it to just stop, but you can’t make it. There’s nothing about life that you can grab and force. It’s just a whirlwind that keeps going, sucking your breath from you and forcing you to your knees.

Okay, okay, yes. That’s dramatic. I am an artist, after all. You have to expect some drama from me.

But truth be told, I’m struggling. And you might be, too. That’s what this blog has kinda become. A place where I want struggling people to find hope and someone relatable, hence this coffee chat. In this world of covid and unrest, it seems as if there’s no way to connect with people, especially when it was crazy hard even before all this stuff. So I’m taking a moment to write this, so we can connect. So we can chat in the comments about the topics in this blog post, so that you know you aren’t alone.

*sips coffee*

I honestly don’t know how to follow that up. 😂

I guess it just shows that life isn’t an essay. It doesn’t have an informative and intriguing introduction, it doesn’t always have a clear and full middle. And it almost never has a good conclusion. That’s why I write. Because I can control that. I ca give myself a lovely introduction, and my middle can be as full and as clear as I want.

And the conclusion?

I can write any thing I want.

Control is a strange thing. In a really good song by an amazing artist (yo, NF fans!), there’s a line that says “I wanted to control things and in the end that’s what controlled me.” Each human being on this planet is searching for some emblem of control. That’s why the teenage girl has an eating disorder. That’s why the almost twenty-year-old boy cut his hair and wants to dye it. That’s why the parent is being hyper critical, and there are so many other options.

But I guess control is ironic because liberty means freedom from control, and freedom means . . . being able to do whatever we want whoever we want. (i.e. in control). We can never feel freedom unless we have no one controlling us . . . yet we always want to control ourselves.

What a mind twister.

*sips coffee*

The world around me seems so silent as I write this. People are driving by the house, going on to do whatever is next planned on their Saturday afternoon. My keyboard clinks as I type, and I just know one thing.

We need Someone to control us.

I could ramble on and on about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the chat, but I don’t think I will. I hope you come next time to Coffee Chats with Amie.

~~Amie~~

Why?

| Amie

I like reason. I like to know everything behind an idea, everything behind a request, and everything behind a rule. Backstories are my specialties, and as a child, my favorite word was a simple question. Why?

The problem for me with the word why started in church. According to my teachers as a child, you aren’t supposed to ask God why. You aren’t supposed to ask why God made giraffes giraffes, or why he decided to make the sun be daytime. You aren’t supposed to ask him why he put you in your family, or why he didn’t send someone besides his only son to die. You aren’t supposed to ask why, even when a family member dies, or someone hurts you so badly you doubt you’ll ever be the same again.

I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t allowed to ask why.

And in fact, I still don’t.

As Christians, for some reason we seem to have been conditioned for easy believism. As Americans, we’re taught to take things exactly as they are. It’s all for a test, so as long as you can spout out whatever the teacher was teaching you, you have no reason to understand the why behind the fact.

But we aren’t supposed to just settle for what’s handed to us.

 The Bible says, “Prove all things, hold fast to which is good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21) We are supposed to ask WHY. Why do we believe the Bible? Why do we believe in God? Why does our faith make us act differently than the world around us? WHY?

One of my favorite books in the Bible is Job. I know, I know, a lot of people find it really depressing, but I personally don’t. Why? Because here is one book in the Bible where we see a conversation between God and a man who is suffering. And what does Job do?

He asks why?

And God answers him. Now, God doesn’t answer him with an easy answer, or even with an answer that you and I would want. God answers him, and God asks Job to trust. Because God is the God who hung the moon in the sky and created the great depth of ocean, and all of the things in-between. And maybe when you ask why, that will be your answer. 

I also love the minor prophets for the same reason. Here are small books that are often overlooked by the church today. Books filled with truth, filled with conversations God has with men like you and me. And these prophets as God why. In some of the books, they argue with God, they run from God, and yet. 

God doesn’t strike them dead. He doesn’t turn his back on them. He isn’t enraged that his chosen men are asking him why. 

Instead, he answers them. 

We should ask why. The Christian religion should be full of why’s. We should search for the answers, question the answers, and search some more. We should never settle for a “because.” Unless we know it’s something that just is. Like gravity.

What are some why’s that you are wondering about right now?

~~Amie~~